Motdinamo

by rbdhin abstraction, avant-garde, France, futurism, Russiaon Posted on

PARNAK, Valentin. Motdinamo [Slovodvig]. / Avec huit illustrations d’après les dessins de N. Gontcharova; la couverture et sept illustrations d’après les dessins de M. Larionow / [Валентин Парнах. Словодвиг: восемь иллюстрацій с рисунков Н. Гончаровой; обложка и семь иллюстрацій с рисунков Ларіонова.] –– Paris, La Cible [Мишень], 13 rue Bonaparte, 1920.
Quarto – Octavo (263 x 165 mm). 25 numbered leaves of different sizes; 15 unnumbered leaves of illustrations (9 by Goncharova and 6 by Larionov). The edition is limited to 150 copies.

Title page in Russian
Title page in French
Courtesy of Litfund Auction House

The handwritten text and black and white illustrations are reproduced in lithography. The first 18 leaves are poems in Russian, the leaves 19-25 are translations of these poems into French. The edition was designed in style of the Russian Cubo-Futurist or avant garde books that combined original lithographs with a hand-written text. Parnak dedicated these poems, written in a semi-futurist style, to Larionov and Goncharova.

As Anthony Parton suggests, Parnak in this book “praised the revitalizing effects of modern dance, music and scientific discoveries, all of which would allow us to triumph over the banalities of contemporary life”. Both artists’ illustrations alternate in the book and complement each other, interacting with Parnak’s handwritten lines of poetry that form its own graphic pattern. Compared to Larionov’s illustrations which always look antropo- or zoomorphic, Goncharova’s images are surprisingly detached and almost technical.

Illustrations by Mikhail Larionov (left) and Natalia Goncharova (right). Courtesy of BnF

Goncharova’s illustrations for this edition demonstrate her experimentations with line and form, responding to the abstract art she saw in Paris in 1920. The small format of the book illustrations allows her to dissociate from the style à la russe in which she had been working throughout the previous six years, designing Diaghilev’s ballet sets and costumes. This work could be categorized as the last vivid example of Goncharova’s cubo-futurist or purely Russian avant garde book illustrations.

BNf catalogue entry