When the USSR dissolved in 1991, the hold on “official” artistic imagination produced many satires. Among them, Dubosarsky and Vinogradov’s Luncheon on the Grass reverses rigidity and social realism and embraces sexuality and lascivious behavior for the fun of it.
Luncheon on the Grass (2002) is a satire of Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass (1863). The setting is a jungle paradise inhabited by lions, a giraffe, lemur, eland, parrot, and some of the great artists of France. Lounging in the nude are Manet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, and Pissarro. The model facing the viewer is eating a slice of watermelon is not identified. As with Manet, there is a particular delicacy, not without humor, in the portrayal of nudity. Tolstoy, for instance, holds a hedgehog in his lap.
The prominent slice of watermelon is a wry comment on the Russian love for the melon and its sexual connotations.
Featured Image: Vladimir Dubosarsky and Alexander Vinogradov. Luncheon on the Grass (2002). Centre Pompidou, Paris