Natalia Gontcharova (1881-1962) - Наталья Сергеевна Гончарова

Composition rayonniste, circa 1914 Oil on canvas signed lower right 63 x 76 cm A certificate from Mr Anthony Parton dated 9 April 2007 will be given to the successful bidder A certificate from Mrs Denise Bazetoux dated 17 March 2007 will be given to the successful bidder It is Larionov'et'Gontcharova who developed rayonnisme after hearing a series of lectures given in Moscow by 'Marinetti, the initiator of literary 'futurism. In 1913 Larionov's group with 'Alexander Shevchenko, 'Ilya Zdanevich' and 'Goncharova' published a collection including a manifesto entitled "'Of Rayonists and Futurians'", an account of the exhibitions of the "'Donkey's Tail'" and "'The Target'" and a treatise on Rayonism drawn up by Larionov. According to him, this manifestation of abstract painting makes life arise by making visible the vibrations inspired by energy-matter and radioactivity. The principle is to represent on the canvas the sum of the rays that leave the object to represent it exactly. For this purpose the object must be isolated in an abstract way so that the rays emitted by neighbouring objects do not disturb the view. Larionov compares the painting rayonnisme to a mirage in the desert . The rayonnisme is very brief, it lasts from 1911 to 1915 and stops when the couple arrives in Paris to join Serge Diaghilev and work on the sets of the Russian ballets. Guillaume Apollinaire took an interest in it and was still directing the catalogue for an exhibition in Paris in 1914 . Rayonism holds an important and early place in the history of abstraction, its theory and rationalization. Rayonism is often considered as the big brother of Italian futurism that Goncharova influenced a lot.