Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov, 1881-1964

Natalia Goncharova, Paris
Sotheby's New York, Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 14 June 1985, lot 99
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Storrs, The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Russian Avant-garde Art from the Schreiber Collection, January-March, 1986
New Rochelle, Castle Gallery, College of New Rochelle, The Russian Experiment: Master Works and Contemporary Works, September-October, 1990

Alla Rosenfeld, The Russian Experiment: Master Works and Contemporary Works, New York, 1990, p. 9, illustrated on the cover

Oil on paper laid down on canvas. The surface is a littly dirty and covered by a layer of varnish which is uneven in some places. There are some light surface scratches in placs and a very minor flake of paint loss to the left of the dancer's left leg and and an approximately 1cm. long area where the paper has lifted from the canvas to the blue at lower left edge. Certain pigments fluoresce under UV and the outer edges have been restored, though the varnish prevents a conclusive analysis. Held in a modern wood frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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The Rayonist movement marked a revolutionary turn in Russian avant-garde art of the early 20^th century. The birth of the movement came as a direct response to the recently translated Futurist Painting: The Technical Manifesto of 1910, a radical report written by the Italian artists Carlo Carra, Umberto Boccioni, and Luigi Russolo, and based on the original writings of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian ideologue and editor of the literary magazine Poesia. The goal of the Technical Manifesto was to actively apply Marinetti's definition of Futurism to the visual arts, calling for artists to aggressively decry tradition and focus on an entirely new visual dynamic that challenged artistic linear, colour, and spatial rules of the past. This translation of the Manifesto into Russian in 1912 provoked Larionov's own artistic evolution as he responded to these new stimuli, and Rayonism ( referred to as "Rayism" or "Luchism", from the Russian) was thus born.

 

The goal of Rayonism was to redefine the relationship between the painting and the object represented: the painting itself was now its own object with its own value, no longer a tool with which to depict outside reality. Reflected rays of light from the subject intersect with each other creating abstract spatial forms which become an immaterial, spatial construction of their own. The principle of Rayonism, therefore, is precisely the artist's reproduction of this intangible, malleable form created from reflected light rays. The object's own importance is lost to texture, light, line and colour. The barrier between the view and artist is broken and the painting itself is freed from restrictions of the past. According to Larionov's own comments on the Rayonist movement, "Rayonism leads to the discovery of the possibility of explaining---not only philosophically and psychologically, but also physically—the phenomena of aesthetic ecstasy and pleasure which one experiences before a spot of color, before such-and-such technical process of painting, before luminosity or opacity of shade, before artistic style, ...."

 

Larionov's Rayonist works were first exhibited in December of 1912, however the movement was officially introduced at the Mishen' (Target) exhibit of 1913. This exhibition, which included Larionov's first Rayonist work Glass, 1912,  provoked intense controversy and ever critique from fellow artists. Similarities between Rayonism and Futurism were pointed out; the poet Benedikt Livshits declared, "[the] Rayism, with which Larionov tried to outstrip the Italians, fitted into Boccioni's waistcoat pocket." Despite critique, however, Rayonism remained an important movement in the Russian and international avant-garde visual art movements. Natalia Goncharova also experimented in Rayonism and both artists continued to expand on its theory until 1915, when they began to work with Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes.

 

The present painting, Larionov's Rayonist Dancer, dated 1915, is a fascinating example of the fundamental ingredients of Rayonism. This piece was most likely created in connection with Larionov's costume designs for the ballet project Histories Naturelles (figs.1 and 2). The painting's background is dark and rich with texture and color, allowing the dancer to pop from the folds of the curtains. The collision of colour creates an at once harsh and vibrant backdrop for the dancer and yet the figure itself is not the only focus, as the crashing colors surrounding the object remain an important force themselves. The juxtaposing lines of brilliant light and colour create the feeling of movement and friction, and the sharpened rays illuminating from the figure intersect into shapes and spatial objects unto themselves.