Abstract
Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) was a German-Jewish artist who, at the age of 26, was deported and murdered in Auschwitz. Her major work, Life? or Theatre?, created between 1941 and 1942 while in hiding in the South of France, consists of 782 gouaches that combine image, text, and music to narrate her life and inner world. This paper proposes a reading of Life? or Theatre? as, at its core, a tale of love created under extreme conditions. The memory of a past love offers Salomon a psychological anchor, helping her to resist madness and maintain a narrative thread in the face of existential horror. Focusing on a key aspect of her work that remains underexplored—the use of text as image—this study examines how writing and visuality are inseparably linked in Salomon’s art. The handwritten text interacts dialectically with the images, functioning both as narration and emotional expression. Her calligraphy, varying in size, color, and intensity, conveys shifting subjective states and psychological tensions. At times, the text operates like comic-strip dialogue; at others, it fades or intensifies to reflect moments of inner fragmentation or recovery. The text may also appear inscribed within drawn books or paintings, or shaped into visual forms resembling graphic poems. By analyzing the interplay between word and image, this paper explores how Life? or Theatre? enacts a complex poetics of survival, in which artistic creation becomes a vital mode of resistance, memory, and affective expression.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Charlotte Salomon, Text as Image, Artistic Creation, Survival
