A few weeks ago I posted a thing called ‘Literariness’ wherein I showed a grouping of Gontcharova hands, the idea being that she has no particular style of hand that she does over and over, rather the form of the depicted hand varies according to meaning within the picture. It’s the hand as a literary device, an element of storytelling.   

Here I am today presenting something to you that has just occurred to me. This is the living art history component of what I’m doing. I make a connection and due to its clarity and strength conceptually I am able to present it to you straight away. No filters or complications. She is very direct.

It’s ungulates. That’s right our gentle farm animal friends, the ones with hooves. Horses, cows, goats, sheep. She substantially alters their roles within her pictorial stories as time moves on and the human relationship with the natural world continues to degrade. This again is often a change between Russian period works and those that are executed in the West.   

In earlier works, the ones when she is inspired by humanity and by the potential we all share, ungulates are dynamic, naturalistic and true. Although they are not drawn realistically as in they don’t look real, you would never confuse one for an actual horse or cow, their story telling function is accurate and we believe them, take them for what they are, our cohorts and partners in the natural world. They move with grace and power.

Later, as satire and skepticism about our future on the planet grows in her work, the ungulates become ridiculous clown animals with incorrect gaits and flaccid energy, anti dynamic and dumb, their relationship to us is as props. Their movements are wrong and their legs don’t bend correctly. Like the backwards hand we examined before, hind legs often have backwards knees and therefore tell part of the story. Things are amiss and what are we gonna do about it?