Prostitutes and Peasants
Later on in Pomada and in contrast to the "urban prostitutes" 'dyr bul shchyl,' a peasant woman with her breasts exposed carries a basket or some other burden. As Pomada lengthens the image of the woman-as-figure becomes more oblique and it begins to discern the sex of the figure at all. In the final image of what appears to be a woman figure, the defining motif of these female nude becomes itself obscured. Is this figure-in-horror exposing their breasts, or do they raise their arm to their chest in quiet exclamation?
Contrast between representations of the city and the village seem to have centered in representations on the people who live in them-- however, in keeping with Neo-Primitivist themes, this Individual-of-Representation often took the shape of the woman (it is no coincidence that one's place of origin is often referred to as the 'motherland.' In engaging with Marc Chagall's painting Above the Town there is (while not ubiquitous) an clear demarcation between the individual and place. Seemingly caught in a saving or pleasurably embrace, Chagall's female figure connotes a concerning specter haunting the transition from the town/village to the major city/metropolis. In the same period of time (1910-1920) this concern bubbled to the forefront of Russian Avant Garde iconography: In simple landscapes, the city (Moscow) begins to shake and climb upon itself as if reaching for the heavens by creating Jacob's ladder from its own body. Also, in the costuming of women, the peasant girl is constructed as having both agency and personhood--there is a 'capability'/potentiality present in her that is distinct from the faceless scratchings of the women in Pomada.
Like a two-headed infant conjoined at birth, the rise of technology both fascinated and demanded intervention by the Russian people. From the gruesome representations of the titular Anna Karenina preparing for death via railcar decapitation to the very presence of any portrayal of a traveling female peasant, the identity of Russia-going-forward was all but submerged by the crashing wave of questions and conflicts arising from technological advancement and integration in the social.
The presence and juxtaposition of prostitutes, peasants, cities, and villages belies a theoretical stance on reproduction and collaboration--- the deconstruction/vilification of the city, functions as a collaborative stance with the production of hand-made books. Even more than what can be done in a press workshop, in the continued supremacy of the village woman over the city prostitute, Larionov reasserts the Anti-Gutenbergian stance of early Russian Avant Garde sentiments. In doing this, Larionov accomplishes the turn from a rudimentary Neo-Primitivist discourse into a complete swerve towards mystical/fused signifier-signified systems.
