Ok let’s roll on. You know how I love to use her own words as a jumping off point for a discovery so here are these words from the 1913 manifesto. She says she wants to: ‘make continuous use of contemporary achievements and discoveries in art’. Continuous use! All the time she wants to be involved with the latest thing. Her deep reverence for the past is not threatened by her zeal for the contemporary. We ought to be like that ourselves eh?

Achievements. Things accomplished, progress made. Natalia Gontcharova was a doer and a maker of things, as much artisan as artist. An artisan of the now. She made art, costumes, décor, fashion, textiles and she did it all with equal seriousness. She did not dabble. When she made designs for the ballet, that’s what she was, a designer for the ballet, not an artist on a lark trying their hand at costume design. When she performed artisanal work or work for hire, that’s who she was. She was not a Fine Artist stooping down to the artisan level, she was the Artisan.

Previously I did a post called ‘The Fine vs the Decorative’ and in it I included a unisex fashion or fabric design from a partial folio with connections to the textile mills in Roubaix and Lille in northern France. Here is another design from the same folio but today I’m posing a question along with it. Follow me here and keep in mind Natalia’s commitment to the ‘new’ and the thoroughness, the fully engaged quality with which she worked.

The design and the accompanying receipts are clearly marked. The material being ordered was called ‘Viscose’. The receipts and her design are dated 1922. In 1922 ‘Viscose’ was the trade name for what was to become known by 1924 as ‘Rayon’. The French term for Goncharova and Larionov’s non objective art style was ‘Rayonisme’. It is not that difficult to put two and two together and surmise that perhaps the term ‘Rayon’ comes from ‘Rayonisme’ which would make Natalia, whether on purpose or not, the mother of Rayon. It makes sense right? There is no claim on the invention of the term Rayon, only that it came into usage around 1924. What do you think?

My thinking is that she loved the new fabric and was excited to be working with it. A silk substitute made from wood fibers? How modern! I’d also be curious to know if you think she was the designer of the fabrics or just the illustrator of the advertisements. Until next time.