Saint George the Victorius 1914

Natalia Goncharova made this striking woodcut, Saint George the Victorious, at an unknown date, it’s now here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. There's such a rawness to the print, a real immediacy in the way Goncharova has carved into the wood. You can almost feel the artist's hand at work, wrestling with the material, making decisive marks. The stark contrast of black and white is so powerful, so primal. Look at the way she's used these dense, inky blacks to depict the figure of Saint George looming over the scene. It’s not subtle. The textures are rough and rugged, you can see the grain of the wood coming through. I'm drawn to the skeletal remains scattered at the bottom. The simple, almost childlike rendering gives them an unsettling quality. It puts me in mind of some of the German Expressionists, like Kirchner, who were also exploring the expressive potential of woodcut at this time. You get the sense that it is less about the subject matter for Goncharova, and more about an ongoing conversation about form, and emotion.