A Peasant Woman Goes for Water

A Peasant Woman Goes for Water is a significant lithograph in black on wove paper created by Kazimir Malevich in 1913. This work, classified as a print, was executed during a highly experimental and transitional moment in the Russian avant-garde, just prior to Malevich’s groundbreaking invention of Suprematism. The subject, a peasant woman engaged in the routine labor of carrying water, connects the piece to traditional Russian cultural themes, yet the execution is entirely modernist.

The composition exemplifies the artist's engagement with Cubo-Futurism. Malevich breaks down the human form into stark, planar facets and rigid cylindrical elements, prioritizing geometric structure and dynamic force over naturalistic representation. The robust black line work, inherent to the lithograph medium, emphasizes the monumentalized, almost robotic mass of the figure. This process of geometric reduction demonstrates the critical stage in Malevich’s trajectory where figurative elements served as vehicles for formal analysis, pushing the boundaries of two-dimensional space toward pure abstraction.

As a leading figure in Russian art during the influential period spanning 1901 to 1925, Malevich consistently challenged academic constraints. Prints such as this provided a means for the artist to disseminate and refine his experimental techniques. The work’s formal clarity and structural intensity offer insight into the rapid stylistic shifts occurring within the Russian movement, linking traditional subject matter to the cutting edge of European modernism. This essential piece from the Cubo-Futurist phase resides in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, contributing valuable context to the history of prints and works on paper from the early 20th century. High-resolution images of such historical masterworks are frequently available through museum and public domain art collections.