Gardeners on the Vines

A Rayonist book designed by poet Sergei Bobrov and the movement's co-founder Natalia Goncharovain 01913.






















Capsule explanations of Rayonism (also known as Rayism and, most tellingly, Cubo-Futurism) . . .

The Tate online glossary: 'Rayonism, or Rayism, was an early form of abstract art, based on landscape and consisting of dynamically interacting linear forms ultimately derived from rays of light.'

Wikipedia: 'The Rayonists sought an art that floated beyond abstraction, outside of time and space, and to break the barriers between the artist and the public. They derived the name from the use of dynamic rays of contrasting color, representing lines of reflected light — crossing of reflected rays from various objects.'

Rollins College online gallery: 'Rayonism was described as naturally encompassing all existing styles and forms of the art of the past, as they, like life, are simply points of departure for a Rayonist perception and construction of a picture.'

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts website compellingly explains Gardeners on the Vines this way: 'The 10 inserted double-page blue and brown plates are Goncharova's only colored Rayist lithographs and were conceived independently of the author's text. . . . Bobrov, himself an illustrator and especially interested in book design, concludes his texts with a short article proclaiming that "Rayism was the only proper form of book illustration because it did not attempt to add anything to the poet's conception but enabled the artist to use an analogous metaphor."'