RAYONISM

Rayonism ( Cubo-Futurism )

(1911 - 1914)

   Rayonism represents one of the first steps toward the development of abstract art in Russia and was founded by Mikhail F. Larionov and his wife Natalia Goncharova.

   The new style was a synthesis of Cubism, Futurism, and Orphism and is also known as Cubo-Futurism. In 1913 Larionov published his Rayonist Manifesto.

   For several years prior to this they had been traveling organizing exhibitions and had come under the influence of Moscow's Slavophil Neo-Primitive movement, which opposed the pro-Western European stance in St. Petersburg. They and their Neo-Primitive friends were convinced that in order to participate in the international avant-garde, they would, ironically, have to return to their own roots. Reflecting these beliefs, the paintings they made around 1905 are based on primitive form of art that drew its inspiration from Russian folklore.

   They stayed in Paris and took part in the 1906 Autumn Salon with the Union of Russian Artists and the collaboration of Sergey Diaghilev who subsequently explored the many different possibilities offered by Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism.

   They turned their back on all manner of technical formulation and all kinds of erudite cultural references.In about 1911 Larionov and Goncharova produced works made up of diagonal beams of color. Blocky Cubist shapes are closely packed in a dynamic Futurist rhythm across a surface also marked by a series of sharp diagonals. Some paintings featured one predominant color. Next, this compositions were worked out in an autonomous way: only the rhythms and harmonies then guided the painter in his attempt to make the dynamic radiation of the colors perceptible.

   After Larionov and Goncharova left for Paris in 1915 to work for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Rayonism ended. Larionov's works were exhibited in the Paul Guillaume gallery. Not long after this move, war broke out and Larionov was called to action. He was wounded and returned to Moscow.

   The brief life of Cubo-Futurism (Rayonism) suggests the considerable confusion that many Russians felt over the question of rural versus urban, agrarian versus industrial, and Russian versus French. The one issue Goncharova and Larionov were not in doubt was artistic progress and they wanted to contribute to it. After Larionov's return to Moscow, the Suprematists and the Constructivists were now center stage.