Goncharova

“Take Goncharova - she’s never written poetry, she’s never lived poetry, but she understands because she looks and she sees,” the poet Marina Tsvetaeva wrote in 1929, describing Natalia Goncharova’s perceptive appreciation of her poem “To the Herald”. Even though they remained in constant contact in the years 1928-1932, Tsvetaeva was not aware that her artist friend did indeed try her hand at poetry. No doubt she would have found that overlap of brush and the written word intriguing. Today, four complete notebooks and numerous separate handwritten poems are extant, and they make it clear that Goncharova used poetry as a private diary and a means of sketching fleeting impressions. It was also a mode of reflection, a way of searching for a symbol, a colour, or an atmosphere. (Sometimes Goncharova even switched into French to achieve the right tone.) Most of her poems were not dated, with the exception of those written in April and May of 1957, the year when the 76-year-old Goncharova mentioned the idea of publishing her verse in a letter to Orest Rozenfeld, although with little faith in the viability of the project: “Apart from that, there is also something I did for myself, a collection of poems that I am sure will never appear in print.”

Sergei Diaghilev occupies a special place in the culture of the 20th century – many publications have analysed his personality and artistic projects. But who can state that the puzzle of Diaghilevʼs infinite creativity has been unriddled. For many, he is not so much a real person as a composite figure of the ideal impresario, in whom the talent of an organizer was married to an exceptional sensitivity and receptivity to any innovation in art and, of course, the faculty for finding like-minded individuals and financing for his projects.

This phrase happened to be the title of a fruitful debate held in 1913. Short though it was, it represented one of the most acute problems in early avant-garde art. Painters, poets and art critics - those who created new Russian art and those who were against it - paid written attention to the subject in those days. It was not the first time that the Russian innovators faced the problem of self-identification. It had been a concern for a few years already, but before it had been expressed in the stylistics and choice of themes of their pictures only, rather than in the theoretical conclusions or statements. The complexity of the situation stemmed from the fact that the young artists traced their artistic roots back both to the French painting tradition and to the national, popular folk culture which they believed to have originated in the East. This combination allowed different trends to exist simultaneously in their painting: the primitive co-existed with Postimpressionism and Fauvism, “quotations” from Henri Matisse could be found next to the “lubok” (popular woodblock prints), while “quotations” from Paul Cezanne could be seen alongside the devices of shop-sign painting. Natalia Goncharova, one of the most notable figures of the movement, insisted that “it is necessary to blend the 'alien' art with the native one”. But what was to be considered “alien” or pure Russian at that point? Some of the works of the members of the “Knave of Diamonds” group of the end of the 1900s and through the 1910s can be interpreted as part of their dialogue with the French painters, as well as their reflection on their own roots.

NATALIA GONCHAROVA IS ONE OF THOSE RARE PAINTERS WITH A PRONOUNCED TOUCH FOR THE MONUMENTAL FORM. IN HER RUSSIAN YEARS IT MANIFESTED ITSELF IN RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS THAT WERE FAR FROM "ORTHODOX" - AT LEAST BY COMPARISON WITH CONTEMPORARY ECCLESIASTICAL ART AS REPRESENTED BY TH E LI KES OF VIKTOR VASNETSOV AN D MIKHAIL NESTEROV - A FACTOR THAT EFFECTIVELY BLOCKED ANY POSSIBILITY OF HER RECEIVING OFFICIAL COMMISSIONS. IT WAS ONLY IN 1915 AFTER HER DEPARTURE FROM RUSSIA, THAT WITH THE HELP OF THE ARCHITECT ALEXEI SHCHUSEV THE ARTIST WAS COMMISSIONED TO DECORATE A PRIVATE CHURCH ON AN ESTATE IN BESSARABIA. EVEN THAT WORK WAS DOOMED NEVER TO BE COMPLETED, BECAUSE OF THE WAR AND REVOLUTION.

NATALIA GONCHAROVAS SUBTLE, DISTINGUISHED, HIGHLY MUSICAL AND LEARNED DESIGNS FOR THE THEATRE ELUCIDATE A FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT FROM THE EMPHASIS ON THE BOMBASTIC, GLORY-OBSESSED CELEBRATIONS FOR DIAGHILEV'S SPECTACLES TO PERFORMANCES THAT STRESSED THE VIRTUES OF INDIVIDUALITY, FANTASY AND HISTORY. DIAGHILEV'S ABSOLUTE POWER WITHIN THE RUSSIAN WORLD OF THEATRE, SIMILAR TO THAT OF LOUIS XIV, RESIDED IN ITS REPRESENTATION AND CONTROL OF THAT REPRESENTATION, WHICH RESIDED NOT ONLY WITH DIAGHILEV BUT ALSO WITH HIS ARTISTS, WHO, LIKE THE KING'S HISTORIOGRAPHERS, CREATED THEATRICAL IMAGES ON WHICH THE OPINION OF POSTERITY DEPENDED.