NATALIA GONTCHAROVA LADYJINO, 1881 – PARIS, 1962 Vase of Cornflowers Circa 1960 Oil on canvas 63 x 49 cm Monogrammed ‘N. G.’ in Latin in the lower left-hand corner Provenance Artist’s studio, Paris; Alexandra Tomilina, c. 1965; Private collection, Paris, in the 1960s–1980s. Bibliography Denise Bazetoux, Catalogue Raisonné, Natalia Gontcharova, her work between tradition and modernity – Volume 1 – No. 1301, illustrated in colour on p. 384 (error regarding the dimensions in the catalogue raisonné). Certificate Jean Chauvelin, Paris. They have the colour of cornflowers, but it is from sunflowers that these flowers derive their appearance, with their regular rows of petals crowning broad pistils. Whether they turn their broad corollas towards us or present their undersides, these heavy heads, swollen with stamens, bend their stems out of the vase that holds them, not without difficulty. One of them has, in fact, fallen onto the table amidst a few petals. The serrated leaves that accompany them add their own abundance to the bouquet’s radiant composition. Blue are these flowers, but blue too is the vase that holds them, thus offering a harmonious monochrome punctuated here and there with touches of violet. But it is the background of the composition that lends a modern feel to this conventional subject. Radiating out from the bouquet, regular brushstrokes form a geometric pattern dominated by shades of white that soften those of the bouquet. The flowers thus seem to radiate an iridescent light. This geometrisation of the background’s brushwork invites us to view the corollas as a series of ellipses or discs that echo this chequered pattern. The linework becomes a motif, thus recalling Rayonism, of which Natalia Goncharova was the pioneer at the start of her career.