The picture Building a House was painted in 1913 by Olga Rozanovа, a founder of Avant-garde art in Russia. Rozanovа worked in a diversity of styles: Primitivism, Futurism and Suprematism. The composition of this art piece reflects the artist’s experiments with rendering movement in her canvases. Critic and poet Anatoly Efros said:
Building a House
Creation period
1913
Dimensions
92x109 cm
91.5×109 cm
91.5×109 cm
Technique
Оil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
3
Open in app#3
Olga Rozanovа
Building a House
#4
“By interlacing painting of soul with painting of objects, she [Rozanovа] throws multiple working hands or walking feet on her canvas, together with fierce outbursts of loud spots and sharp lines, which are the mirror of the artist”s soul, increased tenfold in strength but also diluted in a massive fury of city crowds’.
#2
The center of the composition is the image of a builder who goes down a scaffold. He has a curved back. The painter multiplied the figure, creating a file of very similar-looking builders in red caps. They follow each other monotonously on the scaffold. It is also possible that it was the artist’s way to depict various movement phases of one man. Arched lines are designed to outline ladders by which the workers are descending. The ladders are executed in ocherish and brown colors. Their curved shapes are drawn before a grid of windows on the façade of the building.
#5
In the lower right part of the painting we see grey horses drawing a cart. Their figures reiterate the arched contours of the ladders and the curved backs of the builders. The picture produces an impression of a harmonious symphony, in which every element continues a previous and generates a next one.
#6
The work was exhibited for the first time at an art show of the Youth Union in 1913—1914. The Youth Union is the first creative association of experimental art in Russia. This society of artists was at the origins of Russian Avant-garde. It was conceived as a project to unite nonacademic masters. The Youth Union was established in St. Petersburg in February 1910.
#7
The artist was born in 1886 in the Vladimir Region, to a wealthy noble family. Since an early age, the future painter wrote poetry and liked to draw. When she was 18, Rozanovа graduated from a grammar school in Vladimir and moved to Moscow. There she attended the studio of the stage designer Konstantin Yuon and Anatoly Bolshakov’s School of Painting and Sculpture. In 1910, Olga Rozanovа moved to St. Petersburg and enrolled at Elizaveta Zvantseva’s art school. Well-known painter Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin was one of her mentors.
#8
Rozanovа joined the Youth Union in 1911. She began to work in the styles of Primitivism and Fauvism. In 1916, Olga Rozanovа joined the ranks of Suprematist artists, painted more than fifteen canvases in that style, and even created her own version of Suprematism.
Olga Rozanova was not only an artist but also an art theorist. She worked for the Sumpremus magazine founded by Kazimir Malevich. Rozanovа wrote articles on modern art. In 1918, she took part in decorating Moscow for the First of May festivities.
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Building a House
Creation period
1913
Dimensions
92x109 cm
91.5×109 cm
91.5×109 cm
Technique
Оil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
3
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