+ Expand
Dimensions: 52.7 by 96cm., 20 3/4 by 37 3/4 in.
+ Expand
Provenance: Acquired from the artist's widow, Alexandra Tomilina, by the previous owner
+ Expand
Exhibited:
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Larionov-Goncharova, July - September 1961
New York, Acquavella Galleries, Michel Larionov, April 22 - May 24, 1969, no.6
+ Expand
Literature: Michel Larionov, Acquavella Galleries exhibition catalogue, April 22 - May 24, 1969, no.6 (illustrated)
+ Expand
Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
This work belongs to Mikhail Larionov's early period. Following the example set by Ilya Zdanevich (also known as Eganburi), the author of the first monograph about Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, these early years (1900 to 1906/7) are usually referred to as Larionov's 'Impressionist' period. In 1928 Nikolai Punin wrote that: "For Larionov Impressionism was not so much a method or a style, but a real-life form of perception: he did not paint like an Impressionist; that was how he saw." Contemporary historians divide this period into several stages, including a Divisionist stage and a move towards a synthesis. The inspiration for Larionov's work is closely linked with Tiraspol, the city in Bessarabia, then in the south of Russia, where he was born, where he returned to holiday every summer, and where he did most of his work from nature. In Tiraspol Larionov felt a special surge of strength: it seemed as if the air itself focused his vision. Larionov was always able to find the unusual in mundane objects and to use painting to coax subtle lyrical experiences from prosaic things. He called this sort of poetic perception of the world 'a sense of being bewitched and intoxicated by life'. He could take any object from life or inert nature and make it the subject of a painting. It is hard to determine a specific genre for this study - it is a fusion of still-life, interior and landscape. The rhythm of the construction of the x-shaped struts of the veranda and the lines of the window-sill and table - that is, the diagonal, the horizontal and the vertical respectively - give the composition a feeling of stability. The centre is emphasised by an abundant broad-leafed plant standing in a pot on the edge of the table. The composition is fragmentary and liberally cropped, with the real depth of the space radically compressed. The painting's optical centre is to the left of the centre in the most brightly lit area. A sunbeam has penetrated the cool, shady veranda, and it slips lightly along the clay pots before falling on the scorching sand, breaking up into abundant sparks of bright light. The reflected rays form a 'hot' golden glow and a haze around the plants on the far left which is rendered with energetic brushstrokes. The artist has used two main colours, red and yellow, adding dark blue and green for greater contrast. The blue lies between the red and yellow zones. However, in the 'hottest' part of the painting the burning red touches the luminous yellow directly, which gives the colouring of this study extraordinary force. It was no accident that one of his contemporaries described the young Larionov as an artist who 'keenly and sensitively investigates the must subtle nuances and intricate combinations of tones.' The Impressionists saw it as their task to capture the nuances of light; this painting, however, goes beyond the Impressionist treatment of nature in the way it uses open spots of colour, the way it handles the space and the way it highlights the surface of the canvas. We see here Larionov's move away from painting en plein air and towards more general subject matter and decorative style. This work shows Larionov's attraction to a fusion of colour strokes and patches of colour, a tendency which is very evident in the depiction of the ribbon-like shadow on the red wall, the generalized details of which are rendered like decorative silhouettes. Stylistically this study is similar to other Tiraspol works from 1904-1906, such as Garden, Fruit Stall - both from 1904 and in the State Russian Museum) - and Bulls at Rest,1906 (State Tretyakov Gallery) (figs 1-3).
