The City Destroyed/Angels Dropping Stones over a City, from War: Mystical Images of War

Natalia GoncharovaWW-1914-085377

1914·Lithograph on cream wove paper·30.8 × 23.2 cm (12 3/16 × 9 3/16 in.)

<p>In this work, the white angels are distinguished from the dark city below, a poetic dichotomy representing the sacred and profane, heaven and earth. The angular quality of the city landscape, smokestacks, windows, and rooftops epitomizes Natalia Goncharova’s Neo-primitivist style through bold, flat, crude shapes. Here angels participate as stealth warriors without any human soldiers visible. With new developments in aerial bombardment, it must have seemed to some that the heavens were unleashing an onslaught of destruction.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1914
Medium: Lithograph on cream wove paper
Dimensions: 30.8 × 23.2 cm (12 3/16 × 9 3/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Natalia Goncharova

Artist

Natalia Goncharova

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.

Tula, Russia

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