Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962)

The present work, an exciting example of Goncharova's rayonist idiom dating from 1912 and reflecting her absorption of elements of the Western avant-garde, most notably the Italian futurists, was first shown at her ambitious exhibition in Moscow in 1913. This show heralded Goncharova's confident departure from the folkish style that had previouly marked her art. Her participation with the Munich-based Blaue Reiter group in 1912 contributed to this advance. However, in the best traditions of nineteenth-century Slavophilia, Goncharova was keen to establish an Eastern lineage for her new style.

Goncharova's introductory text to the Moscow exhibition's catalogue boldly stated: 'Hitherto I studied all that the West could give me, but in fact, my country has created everything that derives from the West. Now I shake the dust from my feet and leave the West, considering its vulgarizing significance trivial and insignificant - my path is towards the source of all arts, the East... And the objectives that I am carrying out and that I intend to carry out are the following: To set myself no confines or limitations in the sense of artistic achievements. To make continuous use of contemporary achievements and discoveries in art. To attempt to introduce a durable legality and a precise definition of what is attained - for myself and for others. To fight against the decomposing doctrine of individualism, which is now in a period of agony. To draw my artistic inspiration from my country and from the East, so close to us. To put into practice M.F. Larionov's theory of rayonism, which I have elaborated (painting based only on painterly laws). To reduce my individual moments of inspiration to a common, objective, painterly form' (see J. Bowlt (ed.), Russian Art of the Avant-Garde, London, 1957, pp. 55-58).