Odysseus and Nausicaa

Odysseus and Nausicaa (1910), at the Tretyakov Gallery, is among Serov's last completed works and exemplifies his late engagement with ancient mythology in a radically simplified decorative style. The subject — Odysseus encountering the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa and her handmaidens on the beach, from Book VI of Homer's Odyssey — was a relatively unusual choice compared to the more commonly depicted episodes of Odysseus's voyage. Serov traveled to Greece in 1907, where he visited ancient sites and studied archaic sculpture and pottery, absorbing the visual language of ancient Greek art directly. The result was a series of mythological works — including Rape of Europa and this canvas — in which the influence of Greek archaic art is translated into a contemporary decorative idiom. Executed on cardboard, the work has the quality of a definitive sketch: bold, direct, compositionally complete without the elaboration of a finished exhibition piece. Serov died in 1911, and these late mythological works represent the final development of his art — a radical departure from the naturalism of his beginnings toward a decorative modernism that places him in dialogue with Matisse and the Fauves.

Executed on cardboard in oil paint, with the loose, rapidly decisive handling characteristic of Serov's late mythological works. The figures are simplified into flat or near-flat shapes with outlines recalling ancient vase painting; background and foreground merge in shallow space rather than receding naturalistically. Color is used decoratively — for aesthetic effect — rather than descriptively.