Women Working in Fields
Women Working in Fields
Boris Ermolaev (1903 - 1982)
Date: 1961
Dimensions:
450 x 610 mm
640 x 760 mm (25 3/16 x 29 15/16 in.)
Medium: Lithograph
Object number: PT0199
DescriptionBoris Ermolaev was a relatively successful Russian painter whose work is strongly inspired by Russian tradition and folk art. Such traditional art forms include religious imagery and icons. In this scene we can identify a group of women working in a field and is a typical subject of Ermolaev's print work during the early 1960s. For Soviet Russia women were an important symbolic device within the Socialist Realism movement, especially labouring women. Such figures were viewed as an honest, idealised workforce and were crucial to the Soviet ideology. The roles of women, and mothers, were positioned centrally within communal, family and domestic life.
Ermolaev has rendered the image using bold, vibrant colours, flattening spatial devices, and strong linear shapes. Sunflowers are recurring motifs Ermolaev's rural, agricultural scenes.
A similarly themed work by the artist is called 'Mothers' (1961).
Ermolaev has rendered the image using bold, vibrant colours, flattening spatial devices, and strong linear shapes. Sunflowers are recurring motifs Ermolaev's rural, agricultural scenes.
A similarly themed work by the artist is called 'Mothers' (1961).