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Lot Essay
Painted circa 1911, Goncharova's 'Matchmaking' (Svatsvo) belongs to a important series of canvases depicting Jewish life and reveals a mature facet of the artist's Neo-Primitivism.
During the period 1907-11, Goncharova executed a number of works depicting familiar scenes from byt, or everyday life, e.g. fruit picking, bleaching linen, shearing sheep and washing clothes. Her stylised figures resembled figures hewn from wood, drawing similarities with Russian folk art and primitive art of other cultures.
Goncharova's Jewish series was a natural progression, enhancing the sense of repetitive ritual with an anthropological element. Prior to 1881, Jews living in the Russian Empire were restricted to the region known as the Pale of Settlement where they lived in shtetls, small market towns that had defined Jewish life in Eastern Europe for centuries. This segregation lent a certain exoticism to Jewish culture and its extant customs and it was this that attracted the Neo-Primitivists, including Larionov who painted 'Jewish Venus' (1912, Ekaterinburg Art Gallery, Russia) in the same period.
'Matchmaking' shares the same sense of the eternal conveyed by Goncharova's images of farmhands and woodcutters, yet it is perhaps Goncharova's depictions of Jews that express her artistic aims most clearly. The lack of narrative and social commentary coupled with the absence of religious references create an idyllic vision of Jewish life far removed from the reality of the early 20th Century. Following the assassination of Alexander II by terrorists in 1881, a wave of attacks against Jews continued until the Tsarist regime was overthrown in 1917. To create the impression of authenticity and immediacy, Goncharova pared down the social content in the same way that she simplified her painting style. The Jewish figures depicted in this series are generic; they symbolise a way of life that with the social dislocation caused by the First World War would soon be extinct.
Many of the works from this series, including 'Shabbat' (Fig. 1) and 'Jewish Family' (Fig. 2) were exhibited at the Target exhibition in 1913 and in Goncharova's one-woman shows in 1913 and 1914.
During the period 1907-11, Goncharova executed a number of works depicting familiar scenes from byt, or everyday life, e.g. fruit picking, bleaching linen, shearing sheep and washing clothes. Her stylised figures resembled figures hewn from wood, drawing similarities with Russian folk art and primitive art of other cultures.
Goncharova's Jewish series was a natural progression, enhancing the sense of repetitive ritual with an anthropological element. Prior to 1881, Jews living in the Russian Empire were restricted to the region known as the Pale of Settlement where they lived in shtetls, small market towns that had defined Jewish life in Eastern Europe for centuries. This segregation lent a certain exoticism to Jewish culture and its extant customs and it was this that attracted the Neo-Primitivists, including Larionov who painted 'Jewish Venus' (1912, Ekaterinburg Art Gallery, Russia) in the same period.
'Matchmaking' shares the same sense of the eternal conveyed by Goncharova's images of farmhands and woodcutters, yet it is perhaps Goncharova's depictions of Jews that express her artistic aims most clearly. The lack of narrative and social commentary coupled with the absence of religious references create an idyllic vision of Jewish life far removed from the reality of the early 20th Century. Following the assassination of Alexander II by terrorists in 1881, a wave of attacks against Jews continued until the Tsarist regime was overthrown in 1917. To create the impression of authenticity and immediacy, Goncharova pared down the social content in the same way that she simplified her painting style. The Jewish figures depicted in this series are generic; they symbolise a way of life that with the social dislocation caused by the First World War would soon be extinct.
Many of the works from this series, including 'Shabbat' (Fig. 1) and 'Jewish Family' (Fig. 2) were exhibited at the Target exhibition in 1913 and in Goncharova's one-woman shows in 1913 and 1914.