Natalia Goncharova
Tate Modern, London

A MAJOR figure in Russia’s vibrant pre-World War I avant-garde, aristocrat Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) was born on her family’s country estate and studied art in Moscow. There she met Mikhail Larionov, who became her lifelong partner and collaborator.

Confident and courageous, she delighted in outraging her ruling class’s rigidly traditional moeurs and high-art aesthetics with “primitive” paintings, whose lack of lifelike representation defied academic conventions.

Paintings like Hay Cutting (1907-08) ignore rules of tone, scale and perspective and use raw, often unmixed colours and large areas of flat shapes encased in bold, visible outlines, as did the contemporary French Fauvists and German Expressionists.

But where their simplifications were influenced by African art, Goncharova was inspired by Russian peasant arts and crafts. She collected peasant lubkii — popular prints — icons and embroideries when they were still disparaged by the dominant class as the “naive” and inept low art of the uneducated.

Her subjects were also rooted in peasant culture, with its rich folk tales and icons. Big-eyed Madonnas, flying angels, grave-looking saints, mythical creatures, animals, decorative flowers and scenes of peasant life abound.

The results are uneven, with some paintings having overcrowded compositions and fussy, overworked brushwork which create unpleasant granular surfaces.

But some are spectacular. In The Forest (1913), the pared-down boldness of broadly brushed, judiciously limited colours and sweeping angular shapes conveys sunlight filtering through the majesty of ancient, closely planted trees and suggests subtly rustling leaves amid the silence.

Refusing to be typecast and branching out into design, Goncharova explored Cubism, Dada performances and Rayonism, which she invented with Larionov. A vividly coloured version of Futurism, it communicated the speed and modernity of recently industrialised urban life.

The City (1911) depicts new-fangled aeroplanes flying over forbiddingly tall and faceless red modernist flats which dwarf Moscow’s small, traditional wooden houses, while a factory chimney belches smoke over a church spire.

The repeated outlines of the cyclist’s body and his bicycle’s wheels in The Cyclist (1913) convey speed, as do the briefly glimpsed fragmented street signs as he whizzes past.

Goncharova was at her best when painting on a large scale, as in the arresting nine-panelled Harvest (1911), whose uncompromisingly dynamic composition, with swift sweeps of vivid oranges, golds, purples, reds, magenta, cobalt and white, glow with the vibrancy of stained-glass windows.

That her true forte was in design was soon spotted by the impresario Serge Diaghilev. Sharing Goncharova’s love of Russian folk arts – which he introduced to the West – he commissioned sets and costumes for his innovatory ballets and operas.

Her first designs were for Le Coq d’Or (The Golden Cockerel) which premiered in Paris in 1914. Perpetuating an idyllic vision of Russian peasant culture, all is brilliant colour, glittering
headdresses, swirling skirts appliquéd with giant, child-like flowers and expertly embroidered blouses.

Over a century old, these set designs and costumes, many of which are displayed in the exhibition, still look stunning.

Apart from their enforced return to Russia during World War I, she and Larionov chose to remain in France as emigres for the rest of their lives. She went on to design decorative textiles, dresses, graphics, interiors and books, including a beautiful illustrated edition of Pushkin’s stories.

Unhampered by the need to define her own content, she responded with gusto and imagination to commissions which suited her gift for dramatic effects, decoration, colour sense and adaption of Russian folk art.

But apart from her brief sortie into celebrations of modernity, the meanings generated or implied in her self-generated paintings and prints remained ideologically bourgeois, albeit avant-garde in form.

She depicted Russian peasants like a starry-eyed anthropologist observing their lives and culture, with no empathy for their social conditions – an  attitude that can be equated with the French Cubists’ and German Expressionists’ patronising appropriation of African art.

Goncharova’s uncritical reliance on Orthodox  iconography and her ambivalent attitude to World War I are manifested in her series of prints, whose futurist designs are terrific. A few prints do indict the war’s carnage, yet an unquestioning patriotism and mysticism features large.

Devoted Christian Troops portrays a Madonna and child blessing the cavalry from the skies, while other prints depict angels watching over undamaged corpses or mingling with aviators,  implying that these are heroes willing to make “good deaths,” since their patriotism will be honoured in heaven. God is on their side.  

An astonishingly prolific artist, Goncharova’s output was uneven and its content contradictory. Yet she produced some wonderful works and stunning designs which look as fresh today as they did almost a century ago.

This comprehensive exhibition is curated with care and clarity and has an excellent catalogue.  It’s well worth a visit.

Runs until September 8. Box office: tate.org.uk