In the heart of all European visual fine art from its very beginning there was one great basic element - the order system. Later this system was brought at the foundation of the figurative composition in art. The order system is the universal language, which with its semiotic potentialities has anticipated its time for thousands of years.

The new project of Natalya Zarovnaya is a sui generis research of architectonics as designatum. "Architecture" - is the demonstration of the harmonious base of the visual art, by means of tough formal analytics, rather than in the form of lyrical essay. Counterpoint in music, architectonics in architecture, harmony in pictorial composition - all this is essentially one and the mission of the artist in this project is to produce the image, entirely corresponding to this notion. The artist herself calls her author's statement "architectural linguistics".

All the works are created in the author's technique of many-parted mixed etching. Various techniques of easel graphic art production are used here to deconstruct this print run idea, imparting the unique character to each work. Layer after layer, impression after impression, the artist collects each sheet by piecemeal. With each layer she adds elements necessary for the visual balance, to make the composition perfect. Meanwhile, "architectural linguistics" gives the spectator an account of the harmony from completely different angles, decomposes it into independent elements, trying to single out the essence of this concept. Likewise the Formal technical department of the State Art and Culture Institute directed by Malevitch, was looking for a mysterious "additional element" of painting, affirming suprematism as the highest evolutional point of the composition.

"Architecture" issues the other challenge - archiving and assertion of the harmonious element, fixation of the significant compositional structures. Achromatic sheets, demonstrating binary modulus of harmony are neighboring with sepia and polychromic abstract ones. In each of them one discerns the elements of the order construction, as if they are compound, grind drawing of real architectural object. Classical, as if they fit into the ideal alien landscapes, buildings in Zarovnaya's etchings exist beyond time and space. The spectator observes only a synthetic project - drawings of silent majestic architecture, which are brought into the state of a perfect visual balance due to the layering of the abstract elements. There is also a connection to the counterpoint ("Architecture is the frozen music", Goethe). The task of finding a perfect element, a "gene" of the visual harmony, is utopian. It is utopian in the same way as the paper architecture of the XVIII century, and abstract art, declaring the "Harmony and counterpoint" (W.Kandinsky). But each effort, each fixation of the results of the formal search brings the artist closer to the answers to the eternal questions of the pictorial composition, architectonics and counterpoint.

Text by Andrey Parshikov

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