Kirill Zdanevich

The present composition dates from the artist’s time in Georgia between January 1917 and October 1920. Having returned from the front, Zdanevich, along with many other Georgian, Russian and Armenian artists joined the vibrant artistic life of Tiflis which became a temporary refuge from the social unrest sweeping through cities across Russia. This early post-revolutionary period is considered to be the most prolific in Zdanevich’s artistic career. In addition to the preparation for his first solo exhibition in October 1917, the artist, along with his brother Ilya and poets Aleksei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov, became a founder and artistic director of the influential literary-artistic group 41°. The collectively published poetry books with cubo-futuristic illustrations that became one of the flagships of the avant-garde movement in Georgia.

Around the same time the artist developed a theory of so-called ‘orchestral painting’. Based on the principle of ‘everythingism’ or ‘vsechestvo’ the concept manifested the pluralism of styles. In Zdanevich’s own words it ‘describes the purest artistic mastering. Here the viewer’s eye, getting past the life, enters the sphere of artistic interference where pictures and only pictures, tightly packed, clear the colours enhancing the already enhanced texture. Simple matching of square pictures is being diversified by triangles and complicated by curved lines (…) The orchestra of several pictures combined by one composition is so intensive and multi-coloured that a small-scale picture acquires the spatial strength of frescos, the solidity of architectural towers.’ (K.Zdanevich, 'The Leftism. Painting in Russia', Mnatobi, 1924).

Remarkable for its size and expressive qualities, the present composition is an exceptional example of Zdanevich’s artistic experiments from this period.