The artist Natalia Goncharova said: “Colours have an effect on one’s psychological makeup.” In this painting Goncharova used bold Fauvist colours and curved lines to show the peasants’ joyful movement, and borrowed stylized techniques from woodcuts and iconography for the clothes and faces. For this ekphrastic series, I took the enormous liberty of imagining what may be just beyond our view outside the painting, and what may have inspired the dance.
The form is free verse. More of my ekphrastic poetry here.
Vodka
joy in these clod-footed peasants
line-dancing men of earth
in tunics of brown, red and blue
their black-clad feet plodding
flat-footedly in a cultural jig
centuries of tradition in their hips
comrade and vodka on their lips
joy in the fauvist style
men’s bodies outlined in gold
a compound noun cartoon of men
on revolutionary navy and purple
tumult without, but the dance within
centuries of tradition in their hips
comrade and vodka on their lips
joy in peasant number four
the distracted drunk uncle of the village
while peasants two and three dance dutifully
peasant one’s wrist curls in supplication
his face down but his eyes dart
seeking comrades amongst the bolsheviks
overthrowing centuries of tradition with their hips
plying comrade and vodka with their lips
©elsp 2026
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