Dancing Soldiers
Mikhail Larionov
MIKHAIL LARIONOV, 1909. OIL ON CANVAS.
As one moves further from the epicentre of a movement, the ideas begin to distort. Concepts are reinterpreted in a game of geographic Chinese whispers and stylistic elements merge with local traditions into something altogether different. Such is the case with Mikhail Larionov’s work, painted in Russia but indebted to and inspired by the fauvist movement happening simultaneously in Paris. Combining a bright palette and loose dimensionality of the French avant-garde with the icon paintings of Russian history and traditional styles of woodcut illustration, the work is able to speak across time and place. Larionov named his style Neo-Primitivism, a combination of the old and the new that saw the past not as a distant land but a living collaborator in the present. Larionov would eventually leave Russia to live in Paris where he ingratiated himself to the very artists who’s style he had made his own, and there his paintings became more technically refined. Yet it is his early work, while still in his native land, that stands above, the gentle naivety combines with a contemporary understanding and art historical knowledge to create playful works of poignancy.