Magnolias

In the summer of 1916 Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) joined Serge Diaghilev's (1872-1929) company in Spain. There they worked on several productions, including the Spanish ballets, Triana and España, set to music by Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) respectively. Having travelled extensively throughout the country, Goncharova was greatly impressed with Spain. She avidly absorbed the culture to which she was newly introduced. Although the Spanish ballets were never performed, the stylistic elements that she incorporated in her costume and set designs at the time remained an integral part of her artistic vocabulary for a significant part of her career. This can be seen in her enduring fascination with the costumes of Spanish women, which ultimately inspired her to create an extended series of paintings dedicated to the theme of the Spanish dancer. She combined cubo-futurist form and structure with the colours and motifs typical of Spain, such as mantillas, fans, almond blossoms and magnolias. Reinvigorated with new themes, Goncharova would continue to develop new stylistic techniques stemming from this period for years to come. These new techniques can be seen in her depiction of spring flowers, which came to symbolise this rebirth in her work. From the early 1920s on, magnolias became a particularly prominent feature in many of Goncharova's paintings, seen most impressively in the panels she designed for the home of Serge Koussevitzy (1874-1951) and in the portrait of Sergei Prokofiev's (1891-1953) wife, Lina (1891-1989).
Magnolias is a beautiful example of Goncharova’s oeuvre from this period. White blossoms of varying sizes fill the canvas, enveloped by muted pastel greens, blues and yellows. Though by then she had moved almost entirely towards a neoclassical style, traces of Goncharova's earlier cubo-futurist roots can still be discerned in the rigid dark green lines representing the branches that structure the picture, culminating in a perfect balance.