Charlotte Salomon ou l’art de l'intermédialité

Abstract

In exile on the Côte d’Azur Charlotte Salomon (Berlin 1917-Auschwitz 1943) painted Leben?oder Theater? (LT). The work, an impressive life-story, comprises more than a thousand pages: gouaches, painted text and text fragments on transparent paper. Since 1971 LT has been in the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. LT has been discussed from different perspectives. My accent will be on the use of three media – music, word, image – in interaction. LT springs from song, as Salomon tells in an introductory fragment. Music is present in quotes of melodies, from popular song to opera. This is undoubtedly connected with het stepmother, the opera singer Paula Lindberg and her singing teacher Alfred Wolfsohn. My text consists of three parts: the first part has a biographical character. Given the relationship between life and work of Charlotte Salomon, it is logical to go into both the autobiographical base and the work itself. The destinies of Charlotte Salomon and Charlotte Kann (alter ego in LT) are marked by suicide. In LT it is not the historical truth which comes first, but the experience as remembered and structured in a definite way. The political development was to be fatal to Charlotte Salomon, but not to her alter ego. In the second part musical quotes – mostly (part of) a line from an opera – are central. An intertextual interpretation shows that both the characters and the theme get more emphasis in that way, especially fate (Der Freischtz by Weber), love and jealousy (Carmen by Bizet), love, death and creativity (Orfeo ed Eurydice by Gluck). Characters as Franziska (Charlotte’s mother), Paulinka Bimbam and Amadeus Daberlohn are detached from their biographical roots and embedded in European culture. The relationship between word and image is the subject of part three, in the first place concentrated on text and subsequently on the motif of the window. The design of the text fragments is adapted to image, though a difference has to be made between text on transparent paper and text integrated in the image. Analysis of comics produces useful clues for LT, such as form, function and depth. In LT dialogues often appear in an undulating pattern, presented as a visual-spatial sign. The wave evokes associations with movement and water (suicide, happiness), and music (counterpart of suicide). Te window as gateway to another world is hardly surprising, but it does not explain why this motif occurs so often. From an analysis of motif and text emerges the association between (breaking) glass and a fragile Jewish identity. The window, however, can also function as a refuge for the imagination or dream world. The end of LT fits in with the beginning: Charlotte Salomon converges with her alter ego. The frame of Charlotte Kann’s transparent sketchbook functions as window to the past and as a gateway to her imagination. The pages will, just as LT, be evidence of creativity and as a victory over fate.