Still Life. The guitar. 1917

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this 110 by 87 centimeter oil painting, Still Life. The Guitar, at an unknown date. Konchalovsky was a key member of the Jack of Diamonds group of artists, who sought to bring modern Western styles to Russian art. You can see the clear influence of Cubism in the broken planes and abstracted forms of this still life. The guitar, the vase of brushes, even the draped cloth, are all fractured into geometric shapes. This was a progressive, even rebellious stance in the Russian art world of the early 20th century, which was dominated by traditional academic styles and state-sponsored realism. Artists like Konchalovsky were challenging those established artistic institutions, pushing for a more experimental, international style. To understand Konchalovsky's place in this history, you could look to manifestos and exhibition catalogs from the Jack of Diamonds group. These sources reveal their artistic goals and their relationship to the broader European avant-garde.