A leader of the Russian avant-garde, Nathalija Gontcharova was among the first to rediscover folk art and icons, drawing on their characteristic flatness, decorative nature, and simplicity for her own avant-garde style, Rayonism. Her prodigious output included theatrical designs for Sergei Diaghilev, the patron and founder of the Ballets Russes. This work was inspired by the artist’s 1916 visit to Spain, as well as by designs she prepared for several Spanish-themed ballets that Diaghilev planned but never realized. Spanish Dancer combines the monumental presence of the dancer with the delicate, lacy expanses of her costume. The angular planes of her dress, sweeping diagonally upward, are reminiscent of the fractured and dynamic forms of Cubist and Futurist paintings.

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　Natalia Goncharova first painted the subject of the Spanish dancer in 1916, while touring Spain as a set and costume designer with Sergei Diaghilev’s traveling ballet company, the Ballets Russes. In this painting, the artist depicted a costume featuring delicate transparencies of lace and floral patterns. Inspired by the local flamenco tradition, Goncharova translated the fabric’s radial lines into the axes formed by the dancer’s hands, which fan outward in geometric vectors, building upon the abstract-cubist style she had developed in Moscow the decade before. After her time in Spain, the artist wrote, “It seems to me that out of all the countries I have visited, this is the only one where there is some hidden energy.”

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