In summer of 2021 when I first read Veronica Muskheli’s translation of Tsvetaeva’s essay on Natalia Gontcharova I was absolutely blown away. The first thing I saw was Veronica’s sample translation she submitted to give me a sense of what she could do and by chance, in that first little bit was this where Tsvetaeva is describing her experience of Goncharova’s studio space. She writes “...There’s a physical sense of sand imparted by wood shavings. The shavings are from boards being whittled down. They aren’t really shavings- wooden dust, pollen that like sand is a materialization of silence.”
Sawdust on the floor. What in the world? This is not what one would expect to find on the floor of a typical artist’s studio. Whittling down boards? What is going on here? Of course it all makes sense to me. I’ve been looking at wooden things by Goncharova for years now and it’s all starting to click into place. She’s making icons! She’s attempting to counter Stalin’s repressive, anti church moves of the early 20s. I think she was shocked and horrified by this development in Russia. For her specifically is the imprisonment of her home town Bishop Yuvenalii in 1922. He gets thrown in jail because the citizenry of Tula have been witnessing miracles and this goes against the prevailing political mandates.
I’m sharing today two sister icons that are cut from the same board. These are serious icons and not satirical remakes which come later as the situation worsens for the church in Russia. I think these are from the early 20s. This idea of ‘remaking’ that we have been developing here comes in my opinion directly from Natalia’s understanding of and practice of icon writing. Icons are written over and over again as different church members receive the Word of God. They are not copying but ‘doing again’ according to the Word. Icon writers are not artists per se but rather artisans who practice a divinely inspired craft. This is how Gontcharova approaches her work, as a writer of visual messages. I think I have said before that she is much more of a writer of images than she is a painter in the typical, individualistic, Western sense. Her self is involved as little as possible in her work just as the icon writer is making a devotional image devoid of personal interest or individual self.
Have a look at the visual aid and I apologize if I have gotten anything wrong about icons or the church or anything. I am truly in need of help when it comes to addressing many of the broader aspects of these discoveries but doing deep dives into the Orthodox Church is not my thing so my understanding is surface level only. Until next time.
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