Two Heads With a Hand or Two Heads, One Hand (1953)

In the piece Two Heads With a Hand, two lovers seen from the side kiss one another. The head of a woman, inverted, is thrown back by a kiss given to her by the man, with a hand tightly grasping her neck. The theme of the thrown-back head, present in Chagall’s works since the 1910s (Man With Head Thrown Back [L'Homme à la tête renversée] (1919) ; Birthday [L'Anniversaire] (1923)), is symbolically tied to the depiction of the emotion and movement of love, while remaining a manifestation of ecstasy, the “immense disruption of all the senses¹,” inherited from Hasidic rites in which humans commune with the divine through song and dance. These inverted figures let Chagall explore motions and twists of the bodies, in dancing, rhythmic, and calligraphic movements.
The minimalist composition centers on the merging of both faces, which meld into one another to form a lunar or solar unity. This recalls the double profile depictions present in the ceramic sculpture Tête-à-tête [Tête-à-tête] (1953) and the drawing Double Profile in Mammern or Head with Two Faces [Double profil à Mammern ou Tête à deux visages] (1975), crystallizing the union of male and female in the verticality of the composition. The clear, precise cut of the profiles, like the use of a pure material with a delicate grain, gives the composition an original, silent purity, beckoning one to contemplate it with an imaginary touch.
The presence of the hand, with an archaic treatment in contrast to the gentle faces, is intriguing in its strength and primitive presence. The hand, symbolizing the role of the creator, is a recurring iconographic element, present in Vase With Hand [Vase à la main] (1953) and in the lithography Artist’s Hand (1968). As a marker of identity, the hand anchors the artist in the creation of the Earth, the artist’s stroke having been present since the dawn of time on the walls of prehistoric caves. Symbolizing the hand of God in the Jewish tradition, the hand is a substitute for speech in sacred depictions, becoming the object through which the unspeakable is expressed.

A.G.

Sculpture

Two Heads With a Hand

or Two Heads, One Hand

(Deux têtes à la main ou Deux têtes, une main)

Sculpture

Two Heads With a Hand

or Two Heads, One Hand

(Deux têtes à la main ou Deux têtes, une main)

Provenance

Exhibitions

Publications