ƒ NATALIA GONTCHAROVA (1881-1962) POTTING, CIRCA 1908-1909 Oil on canvas Signed lower right Oil on canvas; signed lower right 53,5 X 85,5 CM - 21 X 33 5/8 IN. PROVENANCE SNZ Galleries, Germany Private collection, Israel BIBLIOGRAPHY Denise Bazetoux, Natalia Goncharova: son œuvre entre tradition et modernité, Tome 1, Édition Arteprint, Paris: 2011, described under no. 172 p. 69 and reproduced on p. 227 NATALIA GONTCHAROVA Potting, an oil on canvas executed by Natalia Goncharova around 1909-1910, is part of the artist's neo-primitive production. Having grown up in the Russian countryside, her iconography draws mainly on rural traditions, peasant ceremonies and the brightly-colored fabrics worn by the women of her childhood region. Neo-Primitivism, launched in 1907 with the collaboration of her husband Michel Larionov, favored primitive forms and subjects at a time when French art was considered by these two pioneers to be too influential in painting. The movement's aim was to return to Russian roots and folklore. The scene takes place in spring, the potting season for these peasant women who are busy potting flowers that have already bloomed. The focus here is on their labor, their patience and the precision of their gestures. The four women show no signs of fatigue, their clothes unblemished, idealized by the artist. This idealization of peasant labor is in line with the artistic research of nineteenth-century French painters such as Jules Breton and Jean-François Millet. Natalia Goncharova, with her academic training in painting, was of course familiar with these artists and their aspiration to depict a peasant world living in harmony with nature. Nineteenth-century Russian literature also emphasized the link between the peasant and nature as a link between Man and God. One example is the character of Levine in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, a landowner and farm laborer raised by the author as a quasi-divine being and guardian of ancestral wisdom, at a time when the end of the century was marked by dazzling technological advances that Russia was struggling to keep up with. Natalia Goncharova's four peasant women here have the auras of spiritual beings, protectors of nature and life, who ensure the survival of plants by repotting them. The groves of flowers framing the scene highlight the peasant dwellings in the background, which seem haloed in golden light. Lilies, symbols of purity, beauty and serenity, are part of Natalia Goncharova's plastic rhetoric. Through the Russian peasant woman, the whole country is glorified. The two groves on either side of the stage resemble the curtains of a theater, an obvious analogy given that the artist began painting her first sets in 1908, and a few years later would become a painter for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Potting is a pivotal work, painted at a prolific period for Natalia Goncharova, which reveals her full artistic potential, between tradition and modernity. Le rempotage, is an oil on canvas painted by Natalia Goncharova around 1909-1910, as part of the artist's neoprimitive production. Growing up in the Russian countryside, her iconography stems mainly from rural traditions, peasant ceremonies and the brightly coloured fabrics worn by the women of the region where she grew up. NeoPrimitivism, launched in 1907 with the collaboration of her husband Michel Larionov, focuses on primitive forms and subjects at a time when French art is considered by these two pioneers to be too dominant in painting. The movement's aim was to return to Russia's roots and its folklore. The scene takes place in spring, the potting season for these peasant women who are busy potting flowers that have already blossomed. The focus here is on their labour, the patience and precision of their movements. The four women show no signs of fatigue, their clothes are spotless - they are idealised by the artist. This idealization of peasant labour is in line with the artistic research of nineteenth-century French painters such as Jules Breton and Jean-François Millet. Natalia Goncharova, who was trained as an academic painter, was of course familiar with these artists and their desire to depict a peasant world living in harmony with nature. Nineteenth-century Russian literature also emphasised the bond between the peasant and nature as a bond between Man and God. This is particularly true of the character of Levine in Leon Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, a landowner and farm labourer raised by the author as a quasi-divine being and guardian of ancestral wisdom, at a time when the end of the century was marked by a spectacular advance in technology that Russia