Le cirque 1939

Wols made this dreamlike watercolour, Le Cirque, with ink and gouache on paper. It’s a theatre scene, a performance unfolding beneath an improbable sky. Look closely at the performers; they have such freedom in their forms. I imagine Wols leaning over the paper, the ink bleeding into the wet surface, his hand hovering. The circus figures merge with the audience as if, in a dream, the boundary between observer and participant vanishes. They are rendered in delicate lines and luminous washes of colour. The pale orange of the giraffe’s dress, the girl’s blue hair – see how they float in the ethereal light? The circus is a metaphor for life itself, a fleeting spectacle of joy and sorrow. Wols’ gestural marks seem to dance between abstraction and figuration. Like Klee and others, Wols captures a child-like playfulness in his line and use of colour. The process of making this artwork suggests an ongoing conversation with other artists, inspiring creativity through a shared sense of embodied expression. There are multiple interpretations, but no fixed readings.