Natalia Goncharova
Russian, 1881-1962
The City Destroyed/Angels Dropping Stones over a City, from War: Mystical Images of War
INV-1223
Natalia Goncharova
Russian, 1881-19621914
The City Destroyed/Angels Dropping Stones over a City, from War: Mystical Images of War
Natalia Goncharova Russian, 1881-1962 →lithographprint
Date
1914
Medium
Lithograph on cream wove paper
Dimensions
30.8 × 23.2 cm (12 3/16 × 9 3/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Margaret Fisher Endowment
In this work, the white angels are distinguished from the dark city below, a poetic dichotomy representing the sacred and profane, heaven and earth. The angular quality of the city landscape, smokestacks, windows, and rooftops epitomizes Natalia Goncharova’s Neo-primitivist style through bold, flat, crude shapes. Here angels participate as stealth warriors without any human soldiers visible. With new developments in aerial bombardment, it must have seemed to some that the heavens were unleashing an onslaught of destruction.
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