<p>Natalia Goncharova first painted the subject of the Spanish dancer in 1916, while touring Spain as a set and costume designer with Sergei Diaghilev’s traveling ballet company, the Ballets Russes. In this painting, the artist depicted a costume featuring delicate transparencies of lace and floral patterns. Inspired by the local flamenco tradition, Goncharova translated the fabric’s radial lines into the axes formed by the dancer’s hands, which fan outward in geometric vectors, building upon the abstract-cubist style she had developed in Moscow the decade before. After her time in Spain, the artist wrote, “It seems to me that out of all the countries I have visited, this is the only one where there is some hidden energy.”</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1920
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 200.7 × 88.9 cm (79 × 35 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Natalia Goncharova
Artist
Painting
Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Goncharova's lifelong partner was fellow Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov. She was a founding member of both the Jack of Diamonds (1909–1911), Moscow's first radical independent exhibiting group, the more radical Donkey's Tail (1912–1913), and with Larionov invented Rayonism (1912–1914). She was also a member of the German-based art movement Der Blaue Reiter. Born in Russia, she moved to Paris in 1921 and lived there until her death.
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More by Natalia Goncharova
Plate 8 from Futurists, Abstractionists, Dadaists: the Forerunners of the Avant-Garde, vol. I
1962 · Etching from an illustrated book with nineteen etchings (three with drypoint, two with aquatint, and one with aquatint and embossing) and one engraving
Three-Panel Folding Screen
1947 · Oil on canvas, wood frame
The City Square. Study for backdrop for the ballet Le Coq d'or (The Golden Cockerel)
1937 · Gouache, watercolor, and pencil on board
Neizdannyi Khlebnikov, no. 17
1930 · Cover with lithographed manuscript design on front by Goncharova; and lithographed manuscript text by Mikhail Pustynin and Olga Olesha-Suok
Portrait
1920 · Pencil on paper
Jacket
1920 · Silk, plain weave; needlework in gilt strip wound around silk core and silk floss in satin, stem, and outline stitches; sleeves: button covered in gold gilt thread
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Natalia Goncharova
- Year
- 1920
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 200.7 × 88.9 cm (79 × 35 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1920-125127
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified