Signage still life. Wine and Fruit

Mediums: oil, canvas.
Location: The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Russia).

Almost all those who joined the Jack of Diamonds used ironical crafty motifs of the market lubok and painted lurid signage products. Joining Primitivism (in the case of professional artists, we are not talking about naïve art), Shevchenko left Symbolism and Impressionism and began to write simple stories. Despite the fact that the “Signage Still Life” is built with a deliberate distortion of the shapes of objects (“crooked” bottle and a black glass), it does not look like a plane composition. Mikhail Larionov, the idol of Alexander, rightly claimed that Shevchenko managed to “drag” the academic construction of the canvas into Cubism and Primitive art. His elaborate colour schemes seem very harmonious and not at all naïve.