1914-1916
oil on board
36 x 23.5 cm (14 3/16 x 9 1/4 in.)


EXPERTISE
Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by Aleksandr Parnis of the Independent Scientific Research Expertise center named after P.M. Tretyakov. (Available upon request).

Maria Sinyakova's Ladder is part of an early cycle of biblical works painted in Kharkov throughout the 1910s and extant in no more than twenty works. Ladder provides an excellent illustration of Sinyakova's eclectic style, one that the artist herself characterised as a synthesis of traditional icon-painting, Russian and Ukrainian folk art, Islamic miniatures, and French Modernism. The conflation of the above results in an avant-garde interpretation of conventional forms, as in the tree crowns, modelled here as near-perfect circles. Silhouetted against a gold-and-green ground reminiscent of early Byzantine Christian art, the women, heads and arms bent energetically, are positioned in a rhythmic pattern across the composition. In choosing simple yet expressive shapes, Sinyakova deftly manipulates conventional iconographic prototypes into a remarkably modern icon. The women’s blank oval faces, framed by burnt-sienna headdresses, as well as the coiled fawns (featured also in Sinyakova's Myrrhbearers as a decorative element), serve as accentuated bursts of red — a colour common in Eastern iconography, particularly for the cycle of the Passion and other monumental events. Sinyakova rarely made the narratives of her icon paintings evident, opting instead, as here, for more symbolic readings, but Ladder likely corresponds to the Dormition of the Virgin (known in the Western tradition as the Assumption).