Sailboats 1921

David Kakabadzé made "Sailboats," an abstract painting, most likely with oil on canvas, in 1921. The image presents geometric forms, sharply delineated in bright colors. Kakabadzé lived most of his life in Georgia, at that time briefly independent, but then incorporated into the Soviet Union. His work in the early 1920s combined native Georgian folk traditions with European modernism. After studying mathematics and physics in St. Petersburg he came to consider Euclidean geometry as a basis for a new pictorial language. The vivid colors and bold shapes of "Sailboats" are certainly of their time. The work can be understood as a progressive embrace of modern technology and science in the service of a new vision of art and society. We can investigate the ways this vision was enabled and also constrained by the institutions of art and by Soviet power. We can research exhibition histories, archival documents, and the writings of the artist himself to discover the significance of this artwork.