Zinaida Serebriakova - Katya in the Kitchen ~ composition/color

I am addressing an artwork by one of my favorite painters, Zinaida Serebriakova.

Katya in the Kitchen 1923

by Zinaida Serebriakova

Zinaida's life was filled with much hardships, including being a woman painter during the Russian revolution era (1917). Despite extenuating circumstances of her husband dying young, and even being separated from half her children for several decades due to the war, she turned out a large body of solid artwork. In fact a large portion of her work involves paintings of herself and her children as the main subjects.

The reason I gave you background info is because the painting I'm covering today is one of of Zinaida's two daughters, Katya, or as my wife pointed out Katerina (Katya is a Russian name, short for Katerina. Its nice having a wife that speaks Russian).

Collection of Zinaida's paintings online: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/zinaida-serebriakova

----Never at any point will I attempt to break any picture down in its entirety; just a quick analyzation of some of its strengths. ---

As I began to break the picture down I noticed something that stood out...

If you draw a line following the ACTUAL lines in her painting in the lower portion, and then the implied lines in the upper half it creates a diamond. The diamond compositionally frames and contains the busiest and most important elements of the painting. Notice how she craftily included elements outside the diamond that give us a moment to reflect (the negative space), and then to gradually lead us into the heart of the piece (such as the blue fish tail, radish tails, and the orange pot).

If that wasn't enough, the disovery continues... One of the most useful methods I've found in analyzing a picture is to take it out of context: greyscale, flip it backwards, or in this case paint over it/simplify it.

Despite the obvious predominantly use of complimentary colors (orange/blue, red/green), I found some interesting relationships with the colors as focal points. As I took the painting out of context, I also drew lines relating the colors throughout the painting...the results were almost mathematical, which surprised me for a domestic casual looking subject.

Interesting facts to note: all but the yellow and green start or bounce outside the diamond. In fact the green is the only color that does not have a relating jump-point. Overall a very balanced painting.