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Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre?
Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943) was a painter from Berlin who fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and spent the last years of her life at her grandparents' home in the south of France. Her grandmother's suicide led Charlotte to paint a dramatized autobiography in an extensive series of gouaches. In this autobiography, all the people that were important to her are brought to life in a special way: her father, her stepmother Paula Lindberg, the singing teacher Alfred Wolfsohn, her fellow students and teachers at the Arts Academy, her grandparents. The original paintings are in the possession of the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.
599 pages, Paperback
First published September 11, 1981
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August 15, 2022
In 1943, as the Nazis intensified their search for Jews living in the South of France, Charlotte Salomon handed all her paintings to a trusted friend with the words, "Keep this safe, it is my whole life."
I read (and teach) comics, so I was intrigued by a Goodreads suggestion some years ago that I consider Charlotte: A Diary in Pictures, which features a sequence of 80 gouache paintings done by Charlotte Salomon in the years before she was murdered in Auschwitz, as a kind of illustrated memoir of her life story. I call it a sketch, a selection, since she left over 1,300 paintings, many of them sequenced, numbered, annotated.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I also read Charlotte: A Novel in verse from David Foenkinos:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
But the greatest (or at the very least, the largest) source for her life and work is Life? or Theatre? that functions as a more complete sequential narrative (like a comic book or graphic novel, sure!) of Salomon’s life than the aforementioned Diary. It’s more than 780 pages long, including a preface and introduction, references and afterwords. It also features commentary and/or dialogue for each painting, and sometimes mentions music that might accompany the text, making this document a multi-genre, multi-media performance piece. It could be categorized as a singspiel (or song play, kind of like a precursor to the operetta), although you read this, it’s a book, of course, and there’s no accompanying cd (though I bet if publishers were producing it today they would include a link to all the songs she mentions). She hummed songs while she painted, so she associates certain songs with certain paintings and times of her life.
Mostly the painted narrative just documents her life. With some fantasy elements. Many of her family died in the camps. Several committed suicide within the scope of her lifetime, too, so this tome deals with these issues, among many other things. Family mental health issues become a focus:
“Dear God, please don’t let me go insane”--Charlotte
Salomon’s suspected (she wrote a kind of confession in a 15-page letter) of poisoning her ailing Grandfather (the letter was released in 2015). This act, if it actually happened, is alluded to in other things that I have read about her, but I am not yet decided about it. I think it was never satisfactorily resolved.
Born in 1917, Charlotte died in 1943. She asked of herself at an early age the question "whether to take my own life or undertake something wildly unusual." She chose the latter. She made sense of her life in painting, an exhilarating demonstration of the power of art in the face of devastation. It’s breath-taking in this format, the only option I have in the states, but I am quite sure I would prefer to see the paintings in person, which one can do at the Jewish History Museum in Amsterdam. Even in (or maybe because of) the large book format, some of the reproductions are less sharp than you want them to be. But it’s still an amazing accomplishment. And the book is a great feat, a gift to the world.
Here’s some images from her work so you can at least get the feel of her style, at least:
https://www.google.com/search?q=charl...
Here’s a film of some of the Salomon paintings that are housed in the Jewish History Museum:
https://vimeo.com/116651918
I read (and teach) comics, so I was intrigued by a Goodreads suggestion some years ago that I consider Charlotte: A Diary in Pictures, which features a sequence of 80 gouache paintings done by Charlotte Salomon in the years before she was murdered in Auschwitz, as a kind of illustrated memoir of her life story. I call it a sketch, a selection, since she left over 1,300 paintings, many of them sequenced, numbered, annotated.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I also read Charlotte: A Novel in verse from David Foenkinos:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
But the greatest (or at the very least, the largest) source for her life and work is Life? or Theatre? that functions as a more complete sequential narrative (like a comic book or graphic novel, sure!) of Salomon’s life than the aforementioned Diary. It’s more than 780 pages long, including a preface and introduction, references and afterwords. It also features commentary and/or dialogue for each painting, and sometimes mentions music that might accompany the text, making this document a multi-genre, multi-media performance piece. It could be categorized as a singspiel (or song play, kind of like a precursor to the operetta), although you read this, it’s a book, of course, and there’s no accompanying cd (though I bet if publishers were producing it today they would include a link to all the songs she mentions). She hummed songs while she painted, so she associates certain songs with certain paintings and times of her life.
Mostly the painted narrative just documents her life. With some fantasy elements. Many of her family died in the camps. Several committed suicide within the scope of her lifetime, too, so this tome deals with these issues, among many other things. Family mental health issues become a focus:
“Dear God, please don’t let me go insane”--Charlotte
Salomon’s suspected (she wrote a kind of confession in a 15-page letter) of poisoning her ailing Grandfather (the letter was released in 2015). This act, if it actually happened, is alluded to in other things that I have read about her, but I am not yet decided about it. I think it was never satisfactorily resolved.
Born in 1917, Charlotte died in 1943. She asked of herself at an early age the question "whether to take my own life or undertake something wildly unusual." She chose the latter. She made sense of her life in painting, an exhilarating demonstration of the power of art in the face of devastation. It’s breath-taking in this format, the only option I have in the states, but I am quite sure I would prefer to see the paintings in person, which one can do at the Jewish History Museum in Amsterdam. Even in (or maybe because of) the large book format, some of the reproductions are less sharp than you want them to be. But it’s still an amazing accomplishment. And the book is a great feat, a gift to the world.
Here’s some images from her work so you can at least get the feel of her style, at least:
https://www.google.com/search?q=charl...
Here’s a film of some of the Salomon paintings that are housed in the Jewish History Museum:
https://vimeo.com/116651918
August 10, 2022
I’ve been sitting for days thinking about Charlotte Salomon and the only work she left behind, how to convey the melancholy, joy, loneliness, and longing she poured into it, where to start and where to end with her short life which she narrates with inserted imaginary detours in this unique series of nearly 800 gouache paintings overlaid with text and meant to be accompanied with music. A testimony to her joyous childhood in the Weimar Republic despite losses and suicides, through the rise of Nazism, the persecution of her Jewish family to her last days in exile in the south of France where she couldn’t escape the Gestapo truck to her final destination in Auschwitz with her unborn child… it’s just not possible. As if she knew her end was near at the age of 26, she spent the last two years of her life on this extraordinary, in a way multimedia, work that defies a genre classification.
It’s framed as a dramatic play in three parts (Prologue, The Main Section, Epilogue) and subtitled as a singspiel. Unlike singspiel operas, it’s presented in an entirely different medium—painting. Not only a pioneering concept, it also shows Salomon’s talent that was burgeoning yet never given a chance to flourish. The main title Life or Theatre? evinces the existential questions that quietly emerge from the real and imagined episodes in the life of Charlotte, her immediate family members—above all her mother, step-mother, and grandmother—and a voice coach whom Charlotte loves.
I suppose it can be labeled as a graphic art, though it’s much more than that. The varietal forms in which Salomon used images and text to achieve in a two-dimensional space what movies can do are extraordinary. Entrusted to a local doctor in Nice before her departure for Auschwitz (“Keep these safe. They are my whole life.”), Charlotte’s work in its entirety was not published until 1981 (only a small selection appeared previously in Charlotte: A Diary in Pictures). It can now be viewed online with accompanying music to which Charlotte hummed from memory (as suggested in her textual commentary to select paintings) at the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam (available in English, German and French):
https://charlotte.jck.nl/section
Charlotte waiting for her mother to visit her from heaven as an angel, expecting her through the window from where she jumped to her death (one of many suicides in her family):
‘Paulinka Bimbam’ (Charlotte’s real-life stepmother, Paula Salomon-Lindberg) singing Bach’s “Bist du bei mir” (“Be thou with me…”) accompanied by ‘Daberlohn’ (her first love, Alfred Wolfsohn) at the piano, Charlotte in the foreground:
The extant recording of Paula singing this aria in 1933 (please be patient with the first seconds of technical hiccups, the recording will clear up soon afterwards):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdX9m...
Doberlohn’s vision of Paulinka, transfigured by the beauty of her singing the Orpheus aria from Gluck’s opera and his contemplation of the state between life and death after requesting his own death mask from a sculptor (“While his face [death mask] is being worked on, the following is taking place in his mind: The vision dominating his senses blends colour and music: out of a confusion of swirling lines a theatrical mask of Paulinka takes shape.”):
Charlotte wrote a few lines from the aria in her native German ("Kehre wieder, Euridice" [Come back to me, Eurydice]). One wonders if she must have listened to the contemporary recordings by Branzell or Thorborg, also wonderful contraltos like Paula. Here’s Branzell in German:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ1qb...
I read Salomon’s heart-wrenching and extraordinary work in print with Judith Herzberg’s introduction (Life? Or Theatre?) and then went through its online presentation. Check your library (I shuddered when the stamps revealed it was checked out only a handful of times more than 30 years ago), visit the virtual exhibition, both experiences are essential. I want to thank my GR friend Alwynne for this unforgettable experience.
P.S. A French writer, David Foenkinos, wrote a moving novelistic homage to Charlotte Salomon, Charlotte. I intended to read it right afterwards (I borrowed his book along with Charlotte's from my library) but this immediate timing might not work for everyone since the encounter with Salomon's work is so intense that it can overshadow another writer's immersive interpretation. That was my experience and I shelved Foenkinos' book for later when the passage of time allows me to read it in its own right.
It’s framed as a dramatic play in three parts (Prologue, The Main Section, Epilogue) and subtitled as a singspiel. Unlike singspiel operas, it’s presented in an entirely different medium—painting. Not only a pioneering concept, it also shows Salomon’s talent that was burgeoning yet never given a chance to flourish. The main title Life or Theatre? evinces the existential questions that quietly emerge from the real and imagined episodes in the life of Charlotte, her immediate family members—above all her mother, step-mother, and grandmother—and a voice coach whom Charlotte loves.
I suppose it can be labeled as a graphic art, though it’s much more than that. The varietal forms in which Salomon used images and text to achieve in a two-dimensional space what movies can do are extraordinary. Entrusted to a local doctor in Nice before her departure for Auschwitz (“Keep these safe. They are my whole life.”), Charlotte’s work in its entirety was not published until 1981 (only a small selection appeared previously in Charlotte: A Diary in Pictures). It can now be viewed online with accompanying music to which Charlotte hummed from memory (as suggested in her textual commentary to select paintings) at the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam (available in English, German and French):
https://charlotte.jck.nl/section
Charlotte waiting for her mother to visit her from heaven as an angel, expecting her through the window from where she jumped to her death (one of many suicides in her family):
‘Paulinka Bimbam’ (Charlotte’s real-life stepmother, Paula Salomon-Lindberg) singing Bach’s “Bist du bei mir” (“Be thou with me…”) accompanied by ‘Daberlohn’ (her first love, Alfred Wolfsohn) at the piano, Charlotte in the foreground:
The extant recording of Paula singing this aria in 1933 (please be patient with the first seconds of technical hiccups, the recording will clear up soon afterwards):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdX9m...
Doberlohn’s vision of Paulinka, transfigured by the beauty of her singing the Orpheus aria from Gluck’s opera and his contemplation of the state between life and death after requesting his own death mask from a sculptor (“While his face [death mask] is being worked on, the following is taking place in his mind: The vision dominating his senses blends colour and music: out of a confusion of swirling lines a theatrical mask of Paulinka takes shape.”):
Charlotte wrote a few lines from the aria in her native German ("Kehre wieder, Euridice" [Come back to me, Eurydice]). One wonders if she must have listened to the contemporary recordings by Branzell or Thorborg, also wonderful contraltos like Paula. Here’s Branzell in German:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ1qb...
I read Salomon’s heart-wrenching and extraordinary work in print with Judith Herzberg’s introduction (Life? Or Theatre?) and then went through its online presentation. Check your library (I shuddered when the stamps revealed it was checked out only a handful of times more than 30 years ago), visit the virtual exhibition, both experiences are essential. I want to thank my GR friend Alwynne for this unforgettable experience.
P.S. A French writer, David Foenkinos, wrote a moving novelistic homage to Charlotte Salomon, Charlotte. I intended to read it right afterwards (I borrowed his book along with Charlotte's from my library) but this immediate timing might not work for everyone since the encounter with Salomon's work is so intense that it can overshadow another writer's immersive interpretation. That was my experience and I shelved Foenkinos' book for later when the passage of time allows me to read it in its own right.
February 11, 2020
I thought I had already read this book after I saw the exhibit at the Jewish Contemporary Museum in San Francisco on August 30, 2011. (https://www.thecjm.org/exhibitions/35) I hadn’t added it to Goodreads though and I was already a member. Perhaps I was able to read only portions of the book at the time, so I reread/reskimmed it so that I could rate and review it now. (I just noticed I shelved it as to read on 8/30/11. I think that I read much of the book while at the exhibit. There were copies available. We spent hours there but most of that time was looking at the art and the captions at the pieces and I am now assuming I wouldn’t have had time to read the entire book.
For me, this is a full 5 stars worthy book. I’d remembered mostly the art and Charlotte’s story but the text play is just as compelling and wonderful as the art. I love this book! I admire how Charlotte was able to take pain and turn it into art.
I love this artist’s art. I am interested in her story. I was happy to revisit both. It’s a really heavy book so I was able to read it only when home. I was not willing to carry it around with me. It’s a paperback but heavier than most hardcover books. The quality of the art as shown on the book’s pages is excellent. The art content and their captions tell a fascinating and complete story. The art alone does a lot. There are also sections at the start of the book that are also fascinating and educational. They’re are text heavy but include some lovely and helpful and interesting photos and also some of Charlotte’s art.
From the inside front cover of the book that precedes the Contents page: “The work that Charlotte Salomon entitled Life? Or Theater? figures among the 1,325 gouaches and transparencies owned by the Jewish Historical Museum. This publication includes reproductions of 769 gouaches, thirteen printed pages of text and one transparency. Only the unnumbered programme booklet (JHM no. 4155) and three unnumbered gouaches have been added. At Gary Schwartz’s recommendation the sequence of gouaches JHM no. 4404 has been switched in contrast to the previous edition. The numbering of these gouaches conflicts with the story’s continuity. All texts accompanying the gouaches are by Charlotte Salomon.”
Everything about this book is 5 star worthy. The art, Charlotte’s writing, the biography written about her and her time, which spanned from 1917 WWI to the middle of WWII 1943. It’s just as chilling as it’s ever been to read about what happened in the years 1933-1943, in this case how it affected Charlotte and her family and those she knew.
She was German Jewish but was living in France when she was captured by the Nazis. As far as her biography, what most impressed me was how suicide and depression were rampant in her family members (including her closest women relatives!) and ancestors, and she suffered from depression and contemplated suicide and she was obsessed with the family suicides, but she chose life. When she was sent to Auschwitz at 26 she was 5 months pregnant. She was gassed upon arrival. If she’d not been pregnant (choosing more life) she might have survived. She chose life and then was murdered. It’s so sad. Tragic. Her father & stepmother did survive and it was them being given her art/play/writings/ work that reminded me of Otto Frank being given Anne Frank’s diary.
Her play autobiographical play (personal and family and what was going on in Nazi occupied Germany/socially/historically) takes place from 1913-1940 and is supposed to be set to music. I’d love to hear the music. Some of the music in the directions is known to me and I could hear some of it in my head as I read.
When I decided to read/reread this book I had planned to make a list of my very favorite art pieces in the book but I just couldn’t do that. Yes, I love some more than other, want to view some longer than others, but I’d adored too many to list, maybe about half of them. I will say that overall I liked the art earlier in the play more than the art later in the play. I was a tad frustrated that I couldn’t read the German words included in some of the art. I was able to translate some of the words, though not nearly enough to understand what she was trying to convey with her words.
She was already an accomplished artist before she wrote this long piece. I am interested in seeing all of her art and maybe in reading an in depth biography of her, her family, her contemporaries, and their places in history.
For me, this is a full 5 stars worthy book. I’d remembered mostly the art and Charlotte’s story but the text play is just as compelling and wonderful as the art. I love this book! I admire how Charlotte was able to take pain and turn it into art.
I love this artist’s art. I am interested in her story. I was happy to revisit both. It’s a really heavy book so I was able to read it only when home. I was not willing to carry it around with me. It’s a paperback but heavier than most hardcover books. The quality of the art as shown on the book’s pages is excellent. The art content and their captions tell a fascinating and complete story. The art alone does a lot. There are also sections at the start of the book that are also fascinating and educational. They’re are text heavy but include some lovely and helpful and interesting photos and also some of Charlotte’s art.
From the inside front cover of the book that precedes the Contents page: “The work that Charlotte Salomon entitled Life? Or Theater? figures among the 1,325 gouaches and transparencies owned by the Jewish Historical Museum. This publication includes reproductions of 769 gouaches, thirteen printed pages of text and one transparency. Only the unnumbered programme booklet (JHM no. 4155) and three unnumbered gouaches have been added. At Gary Schwartz’s recommendation the sequence of gouaches JHM no. 4404 has been switched in contrast to the previous edition. The numbering of these gouaches conflicts with the story’s continuity. All texts accompanying the gouaches are by Charlotte Salomon.”
Everything about this book is 5 star worthy. The art, Charlotte’s writing, the biography written about her and her time, which spanned from 1917 WWI to the middle of WWII 1943. It’s just as chilling as it’s ever been to read about what happened in the years 1933-1943, in this case how it affected Charlotte and her family and those she knew.
She was German Jewish but was living in France when she was captured by the Nazis. As far as her biography, what most impressed me was how suicide and depression were rampant in her family members (including her closest women relatives!) and ancestors, and she suffered from depression and contemplated suicide and she was obsessed with the family suicides, but she chose life. When she was sent to Auschwitz at 26 she was 5 months pregnant. She was gassed upon arrival. If she’d not been pregnant (choosing more life) she might have survived. She chose life and then was murdered. It’s so sad. Tragic. Her father & stepmother did survive and it was them being given her art/play/writings/ work that reminded me of Otto Frank being given Anne Frank’s diary.
Her play autobiographical play (personal and family and what was going on in Nazi occupied Germany/socially/historically) takes place from 1913-1940 and is supposed to be set to music. I’d love to hear the music. Some of the music in the directions is known to me and I could hear some of it in my head as I read.
When I decided to read/reread this book I had planned to make a list of my very favorite art pieces in the book but I just couldn’t do that. Yes, I love some more than other, want to view some longer than others, but I’d adored too many to list, maybe about half of them. I will say that overall I liked the art earlier in the play more than the art later in the play. I was a tad frustrated that I couldn’t read the German words included in some of the art. I was able to translate some of the words, though not nearly enough to understand what she was trying to convey with her words.
She was already an accomplished artist before she wrote this long piece. I am interested in seeing all of her art and maybe in reading an in depth biography of her, her family, her contemporaries, and their places in history.
April 12, 2020
Editor's Note
--Life? or Theatre? A play with music
About "Letter to Amadeus Daberlohn"
Notes on Charlotte Salomon's "Letter to Amadeus Daberlohn"
Translator's Note
Charlotte Salomon's "Letter to Amadeus Daberlohn"
Notes on the Text
Charlotte Salomon, by Emil Straus
How 'Life? or Theatre?' Was Received, by Joël Cahen, Ad Petersen and Batya Wolff
Index of Reproductions
--Life? or Theatre? A play with music
About "Letter to Amadeus Daberlohn"
Notes on Charlotte Salomon's "Letter to Amadeus Daberlohn"
Translator's Note
Charlotte Salomon's "Letter to Amadeus Daberlohn"
Notes on the Text
Charlotte Salomon, by Emil Straus
How 'Life? or Theatre?' Was Received, by Joël Cahen, Ad Petersen and Batya Wolff
Index of Reproductions
December 16, 2017
WOW. A work of genius, Salomon's book is truly shocking in its intensity, its scope, its depth of rage and sorrow. Think of Anne Frank as her lucky younger sister - what Salomon suffered was unspeakably worse. I cannot get Salomon out of my head. This is as epic a tragedy as any play by Aeschylus or Shakespeare. How I wish she'd survived the concentration camps to make her life story into an opera or movie. Someone should!
February 26, 2018
I bought this book based on the review in The New York Review of Books, and because the images within the review intrigued me. I had never heard of Charlotte Salomon before this. I was blown away by her paintings and her story. This is the most incredible work I've ever seen. Not to be missed.
June 3, 2015
An early great graphic memoir/art comics.
January 26, 2021
It’s a tragedy that no one studies this
January 15, 2021
For my German class on graphic novels.
My score is based on bad experience while reading honestly, plus the art wasn't particularly beautiful in any meaningful way that would make me bump it up to a two even though I was just bored of this like 50 pages in and then the 750+ more were obviously a pain to get through. This was just a depressing story with hardly anything (I don't even think I can remember anything that would have made me either) to laugh at. Depressing plot point after depressing plot point with literally no comic relief at all. An absolute drain.
My score is based on bad experience while reading honestly, plus the art wasn't particularly beautiful in any meaningful way that would make me bump it up to a two even though I was just bored of this like 50 pages in and then the 750+ more were obviously a pain to get through. This was just a depressing story with hardly anything (I don't even think I can remember anything that would have made me either) to laugh at. Depressing plot point after depressing plot point with literally no comic relief at all. An absolute drain.
October 30, 2016
The story was overly long and most of it didn't feel worth telling. Some of the paintings had interesting layouts and colors, but most were pretty terrible. I know this is a painting style but it feels incredibly amateurish.
March 27, 2019
Must be read by all, an unbelievable work of pure joy and unbearable honesty. My heart and soul and spirit go out to her in the shape of one of her favorite reclining poses (the one to be compared with Michelangelo). What a phenomenal thing from a heavenly creature's arms.
September 17, 2022
Truly one of the best books of all time
February 25, 2022
„Um das Leben noch mehr lieben zu können, müsse man gar zuerst gestorben sein.“
April 1, 2023
La tragedia della vita in centinaia di guazzi
Il giudizio su quest'opera non è agevole, per la unicità irripetibile del libro e della sua autrice - decine di anni prima che il concetto stesso di graphic novel fosse introdotto, Salomon crea (quasi dal nulla) un'opera totale, una esplosione di espressività in cui arte pittorica, testo letterario, musica sfondano ogni confine di spazio per narrare una vicenda esistenziale terribile e incontenibile.
L'originalità artistica è quindi l'elemento più importante e di grande impatto: l'idea di aggiungere trasparenze con un testo a sovrapporsi a dipinti veloci e quasi surreali, dove tempo e spazio non creano limiti - molte invenzioni espressive si ritrovano anche in molte graphic novel contemporanee: la riduzione delle figure umane a profili di colore, i lunghi monologhi uniti a decine di ritratti ripetuti del volto del parlante, tavole narrative con ripetizioni degli stessi personaggi senza cesure grafiche.
Assodata l'originalità e potenza espressiva dell'opera, personalmente ho fatto però fatica sul piano letterario-narrativo: i testi sono a volte ridondanti e sospesi tra melodramma e tragedia, colpendo il lettore sul piano emotivo, più che su quello formale-estetico. Le vicende così tragiche della famiglia di Charlotte, tra suicidi, scontri familiari, figure ambigue e inquietanti (su tutte Doberlohn, seduttore di matrigna e figliastra tra il nietzschiano e il tardoromantico) creano un'atmosfera plumbea di catastrofe imminente che mi ha fatto sperare di arrivare presto alla conclusione - che, ovviamente, è l'instaurazione del regime nazista e la distruzione finale di tutto il mondo di Charlotte.
Un'opera sicuramente di cui fare esperienza ("leggere" sarebbe un eufemismo), possibilmente accompagnati dai brani musicali che l'autrice ha voluto legare alle varie tavole.
Il giudizio su quest'opera non è agevole, per la unicità irripetibile del libro e della sua autrice - decine di anni prima che il concetto stesso di graphic novel fosse introdotto, Salomon crea (quasi dal nulla) un'opera totale, una esplosione di espressività in cui arte pittorica, testo letterario, musica sfondano ogni confine di spazio per narrare una vicenda esistenziale terribile e incontenibile.
L'originalità artistica è quindi l'elemento più importante e di grande impatto: l'idea di aggiungere trasparenze con un testo a sovrapporsi a dipinti veloci e quasi surreali, dove tempo e spazio non creano limiti - molte invenzioni espressive si ritrovano anche in molte graphic novel contemporanee: la riduzione delle figure umane a profili di colore, i lunghi monologhi uniti a decine di ritratti ripetuti del volto del parlante, tavole narrative con ripetizioni degli stessi personaggi senza cesure grafiche.
Assodata l'originalità e potenza espressiva dell'opera, personalmente ho fatto però fatica sul piano letterario-narrativo: i testi sono a volte ridondanti e sospesi tra melodramma e tragedia, colpendo il lettore sul piano emotivo, più che su quello formale-estetico. Le vicende così tragiche della famiglia di Charlotte, tra suicidi, scontri familiari, figure ambigue e inquietanti (su tutte Doberlohn, seduttore di matrigna e figliastra tra il nietzschiano e il tardoromantico) creano un'atmosfera plumbea di catastrofe imminente che mi ha fatto sperare di arrivare presto alla conclusione - che, ovviamente, è l'instaurazione del regime nazista e la distruzione finale di tutto il mondo di Charlotte.
Un'opera sicuramente di cui fare esperienza ("leggere" sarebbe un eufemismo), possibilmente accompagnati dai brani musicali che l'autrice ha voluto legare alle varie tavole.
September 4, 2021
This summer, I visited an exhibition on this work by Charlotte Salomon and was intrigued. I've never read a multimedial, multidimensional work like this before - it's like a graphic novel, but with music as a third medium added to it. And it truly is a masterpiece.
I especially loved the prologue, since that's the part where the paintings and the transparent overlays are equally artistic. The main part is more like what we know as a classic graphic novel today.
Life? Or Theatre? is a very passionate piece of art. Through the paintings and transparencies, and references to music, Charlotte tells about her family history, which is signed by many suicides. She tells about what art (her stepmother was a singer, Charlotte herself started painting at young age) meant to her, about an obsessive love affair, the start of the Second World War, and her escape to Southern France where she was eventually captured and deported to Auschwitz in 1943.
I especially loved the prologue, since that's the part where the paintings and the transparent overlays are equally artistic. The main part is more like what we know as a classic graphic novel today.
Life? Or Theatre? is a very passionate piece of art. Through the paintings and transparencies, and references to music, Charlotte tells about her family history, which is signed by many suicides. She tells about what art (her stepmother was a singer, Charlotte herself started painting at young age) meant to her, about an obsessive love affair, the start of the Second World War, and her escape to Southern France where she was eventually captured and deported to Auschwitz in 1943.
Read
February 21, 2013Fantastic and then you realize it is autobiographical. Sobering. Recommend.
August 15, 2013
the key question that's been silenced ever after
January 19, 2016
Een van de mooiste boeken die ik ooit heb gelezen. Of eigenlijk is lezen niet het goede woord. Er staan bijna 800 prachtige gouaches in.
January 23, 2021
wow this is an insane work of everything really
wild all around
wild all around
December 1, 2024
Honestly amazing and unlike anything else. I wanted to read this for a long time but a printed version is like 150 euros. By coincidence I met someone who is writing her dissertation on it and she told me you can read it online. Thanks Franzi!! Here it is:
https://charlotte.jck.nl/en
"She felt herself faced with a choice: either to end her life or to undertake 'something really extravagantly crazy'."
I am sure that black and white photography very much influences our ideas of the past, since a whole visual dimension of people's lives is excluded from it. Here is the past again in full hallucinatory colour. Remarkable how fully she describes the people in her world, how real they seem, and how real she seems, yet the way the story is told is so original and inventive.
I suppose it could be described as a graphic novel before the expression graphic novel existed, a collection of paintings and text. I wonder if the author was inspired by movies in using images the way she does, not strictly sequential as you would expect from a comic book but very odd, with blurred lines between the psychological and the real, like the manifestation on the page of memory and of life.
The artwork reminds me, at times, of Henry Darger, Van Gogh, Modigliani, and Chagall, but with a quality of its own. It's so personal that it feels like outsider art, yet very well thought out and put together. I don't want to dwell in this review on the tragic life of the author as it somewhat ends up overshadowing the work, which, to me, seems to be about how to integrate the dark and painful aspects of existence with the meaningful and profound ones that allow one to go on living. It's a work of genius and I don't say that about a lot of things. When I realized I could go look at the place she once lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg, I felt quite dizzy with the sensation of time collapsing in on itself.
"... And with dream awakened eyes she saw all the beauty around her, saw the sea, felt the sun, and knew she had to vanish for a while from the human surface and make every sacrifice in order to create her world anew out of the depths.
And from that came
Life or Theater???"
https://charlotte.jck.nl/en
"She felt herself faced with a choice: either to end her life or to undertake 'something really extravagantly crazy'."
I am sure that black and white photography very much influences our ideas of the past, since a whole visual dimension of people's lives is excluded from it. Here is the past again in full hallucinatory colour. Remarkable how fully she describes the people in her world, how real they seem, and how real she seems, yet the way the story is told is so original and inventive.
I suppose it could be described as a graphic novel before the expression graphic novel existed, a collection of paintings and text. I wonder if the author was inspired by movies in using images the way she does, not strictly sequential as you would expect from a comic book but very odd, with blurred lines between the psychological and the real, like the manifestation on the page of memory and of life.
The artwork reminds me, at times, of Henry Darger, Van Gogh, Modigliani, and Chagall, but with a quality of its own. It's so personal that it feels like outsider art, yet very well thought out and put together. I don't want to dwell in this review on the tragic life of the author as it somewhat ends up overshadowing the work, which, to me, seems to be about how to integrate the dark and painful aspects of existence with the meaningful and profound ones that allow one to go on living. It's a work of genius and I don't say that about a lot of things. When I realized I could go look at the place she once lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg, I felt quite dizzy with the sensation of time collapsing in on itself.
"... And with dream awakened eyes she saw all the beauty around her, saw the sea, felt the sun, and knew she had to vanish for a while from the human surface and make every sacrifice in order to create her world anew out of the depths.
And from that came
Life or Theater???"
January 15, 2026
I think we take for granted that we live in a culture where we have access to almost all surviving art in all medium with relatively easy access via the internet. We are exposed to things previous generations would have had to spend hours poring over in libraries to be inspired by in an instant. And yet there are still always surprises to be had. I had never heard of Salomon before this week and already she feels like an essential lost artist of considerable stature and status. And in a similar way, her art feels so connected to other artists and movements happening contemporaneously to her short life many of which she could never have known about. So it’s an absolutely fascinating work, a beautiful and intense and sometimes very strange proto graphic novel drawn and written in this heated and seemingly spontaneous manner so the power of the thing is still very apparent. It’s going to take many readings to take this thing in but it’s clearly a vital and sadly not half as well known as it should be masterpiece
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October 2, 2025A very arty book. A little too arty, perhaps. It seemed like it was written with only a certain set of readers in mind, and not for the average reader who might be interested in learning about her. Lots of philosophy, Freudian garbage, name-dropping, very snooty. It's the kind of book that i wish the dragon lady from the NYT would have written a review of. She would never end a sentence with "of" either :)
Very droll. Very "if you aren't part of the "in" group you shouldn't ask or even be here"
I wanted to read this book because of the connection to the Holocaust, but wading through to find what i was looking for took too much time.
Very droll. Very "if you aren't part of the "in" group you shouldn't ask or even be here"
I wanted to read this book because of the connection to the Holocaust, but wading through to find what i was looking for took too much time.
April 1, 2024
An abridged version of Charlotte Salomon’s life cycle of gouaches chronicling a life lived in the shadow of anti-semitism with accompanying contextual essays and commentary.
A talented artist wrestles with life, a family history of suicide, unsympathetic acquaintances and her own doubts.
A moving and deeply personal insight into one young woman’s life before it was, like so many others, cut short by the Nazi holocaust. An excellent reminder of the excellent exhibition I saw in the Amsterdam Jewish Historical Museum.
A talented artist wrestles with life, a family history of suicide, unsympathetic acquaintances and her own doubts.
A moving and deeply personal insight into one young woman’s life before it was, like so many others, cut short by the Nazi holocaust. An excellent reminder of the excellent exhibition I saw in the Amsterdam Jewish Historical Museum.
April 28, 2023
Charlotte Salomon a été la dernière élève juive de l'école des beaux arts de Berlin avant la seconde guerre mondiale. Réfugiée en France elle décide de peindre sa vie. Plus de 1000 peintures forment ce qui est considéré comme le premier roman graphique de l'histoire. J'ai vu un film sur la peintre, que j'ai adoré, et j'ai eu envie de lire son livre. Je ne m'attendais pas à ce qu'il soit aussi sombre avec beaucoup de passages philosophiques qui ne m'ont pas trop parlé malheureusement...
January 30, 2024
Those hours spent browsing the stacks in the Cowgil Art and Architecture Library at VA Tech - finding this book and being so taken by the paintings. 35 years later, I own and read it. The composition and detail of the earlier paintings get me most - and she is a master of capturing humans embracing.
October 20, 2023
what an experience. I've read nothing like it before. 600 paintings with text, tell a life story, completed just before her murder in auschwitz. an artifact. surprising this isn't more well known and talked about.
March 17, 2024
To discover Charlotte Salomon's work, this is the book I recommend, both because of the quality of reproduction on glossy paper, which keeps the vivacity of the colors, and because of the interesting analysis of the artist's work (and life) in the first part of the book.
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February 27, 2025this feels like one of the most important things i’ve ever read !! as someone who grew up w a pretty robust jewish education, i cant believe it’s so little known. overall, an amazing work of pre-shoah (kind of during ?) nonfiction
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August 6, 2025"The person is sitting by the sea. He is painting. A melody suddenly comes into his mind. As he begins to hum it, he notices that the melody matches exactly what he is trying to put to paper..."
June 2, 2017
Really beautiful work. I thought the pieces re her family history of mental illness were particularly moving. The pieces with the one artistbro and his artbro thoughts gets a bit tedious though.
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