Natalia Goncharova: Not Just Another Rebellious Female Artist
By Sofia Johanson
Photo: RasMarley on Flickr
When dealing with female artists of the recent past, we tend to only be able to look at their art in the context of their rebellion against tradition. We focus on their bravery and defiance, their fortitude in the face of adversity and how they challenged the status quo. Unfortunately, in doing so, we deny these artists the attention deserved by their work in their own right.
Natalia Goncharova, born in 1881, has arguably received this treatment, although one can’t deny that she did indeed court controversy throughout her career. She chose to depict historically marginalised members of society like Jews, who were second-class citizens regularly subjected to official persecution and mob violence. Her 1911 painting, Old Man with Cat, portrays a man with stereotypically Jewish physical features, presented in the style of an icon. In a time when art was usually reserved for ‘higher’ subjects, this depiction caused outrage amongst the political and religious establishment. She further infuriated the Church by featuring her depiction of the Evangelists in an exhibition by the Donkey’s Tail group (a short-lived futurist group that also included Malevich and Chagall), thereby placing religious imagery and an animal’s backside in the same building. Her paintings of nudes also caused great offence because the angles and chunky proportions did not adhere to traditional notions of beauty. She painted her face with futurist symbols, paraded around Moscow in trousers, and began the Rayonist movement, throwing out all artistic conventions in the process.
Goncharova was a brave, provocative woman who did not allow the traditions of the Russian Empire to stand in her way. But in reducing her to Natalia the rebel, we ignore her achievements as Natalia the artist.
Her artistic prowess is partly demonstrated in the way in which she accurately represented the staggering changes taking place in Russian society at the beginning of the 20th century. Although a technological revolution was sweeping over the country, its impacts were inconsistent, allowing the cities to explode into modern spaces, whilst rural areas remained the same as they had been in the previous century.
The dynamism of the urban space is reflected in her cityscapes. The Cyclist (1913), painted in the Cubist style, depicts a cyclist battling against the overwhelming turbulence of the city; dislodged letters hang suspended in the air, whilst the bike and figure themselves seem to come apart, blending with the chaotic environment around them.
These images deeply oppose the serenity and simplicity embodied by her rural paintings. There is a sense of idyll and calm, and it is crucial that the activities taking place are archaic, meticulous, and traditional of the peasant way of life. This is particularly evident in the dramatic parallel between two of Goncharova’s paintings that share the same name. Linen (1908) shows three peasant women, barefoot in a field, laying down their laundry to dry, whilst Linen (1911) captures the chaos of an urban launderette, the unclear scene scattered with words and images. The contrast between the physical labour of cleaning and drying laundry by hand and the automated methods facilitated by the machine highlight the disparity between the city and countryside: the first characterised by technological progress and efficiency, the second by tradition and hard work. Through her paintings, Goncharova reflects on Russia’s evolution: while cities became progressively modernised, life in rural areas remained the same.
Peasant life featured heavily in Goncharova’s work, perhaps as a reaction to the destabilising set of circumstances which Russia faced in the early 20th century. The imperial family was facing growing opposition, the Russo-Japanese War had dented public pride, and radical political movements were gaining momentum. The country seemed to be having an identity crisis. Goncharova’s answer was, like many of her predecessors, to look inwards in an attempt to capture the essence of Russian identity.
Beyond merely depicting the peasant, her style reflects peasant practices themselves; the folds in the peasants’ clothes often recall the treatment of drapery in Russian iconography, the stylised plants and disregard for perspective appear to take inspiration from lubki (traditional storyboards), whilst the influences of peasant embroidery and folk art are also evident.
In the tumult of technological progress and Russia’s identity crisis, many artists were searching for new ways to express what they saw as the old artistic traditions became inadequate in representing the chaotic, shifting world around them. While many were inspired by newly discovered models of representation practised in the non-European space (leading to the inception of the ‘Primitivism’ movement) Goncharova stayed closer to home, centring her work on the peasantry of Russia. In re-asserting the importance of her nation’s traditions, Goncharova suggested that looking backwards and inwards was a suitable way to ground oneself in a changing world.
Goncharova’s many breaks with tradition do render her deserving of the ‘rebellious woman’ tag; her choice of subject, the techniques she used, even the clothes she wore. However, in stopping our analysis at this point, we are blind to her artistic ability to reflect on the upheaval of her era and her nation. I can’t claim to have re-assessed Natalia Goncharova in only 869 words, but hopefully the importance of considering the female artist as not just rebel, but creator of art, has resonated.