History on the tip of the painter’s brush

The traditional meeting place is the Central House of Artists, and artist Oleksandr Melnyk, equally traditionally, is the project’s curator. In the organizers’ words, this biennale is  dedicated to “the Revolution of Dignity and the Patriotic War of 2014-16.” However, the exhibits include paintings and sculptures depicting scenes from different periods of Ukrainian history: the Scythians’ everyday life, the heroes of Kyivan Rus’, the Cossack Age, feverish events of the early 20th century, the Holodomor and World War II. For the first time in the project’s history, the works on display include posters, all of which have something in common with the present moment in Ukraine, although some were created more than 20 years ago.

“I CRIED FOR THE BOYS I PAINTED...”

About 300 works made it to the biennale. Their creators come from all regions of Ukraine: Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and so on. They include recognized masters, such as Halyna Sevruk, Volodymyr Priadka, Feodosii Humeniuk, as well as young artists who are still studying at Ukrainian academies of arts.

The exhibition is centered on works describing the Euromaidan and tragic events in eastern Ukraine which were created by artists who witnessed these events and participated in them. Painter Maryna Sochenko created the painted diary of the Euromaidan back in the day. Her contributions to the exhibition include portraits of heroes of the Heavenly Hundred Mikhail Zhyznevsky and Serhii Nigoyan, and soldiers of the Donbas Battalion who died at Ilovaisk. “I cried for these boys as if they were my own children,” Sochenko said about the painting of the Donbas soldiers. “I cried as long as I painted the Ilovaisk fallen, and it took me six months. Establishing their names is the historians’ job. We, meanwhile, have to know how these heroes looked. We must honor each of them. If not for them, we could have died as well. There should be no unmarked graves. It was the lack of historic memory that led us to this tragedy.”

THE CRIMSON FLOWERS OF FREEDOM

The Blossom on Fire is Melnyk’s painting depicting the legendary “cyborgs,” as defenders of the Donetsk Airport are known. The crimson figures of the soldiers look like images from Byzantine icons. “I was struck by the documentary footage and photos of mutilated and charred bodies. I could not paint it like it really looked, so I did it figuratively: our boys are on fire, they hold flowers in their hands, while female shapes above them seem to lift their souls to heaven. People compare women I painted with the angels, but when I was creating it, I was thinking about girls who are left alone because their loved ones are killed in the war,” Melnyk reflected on his painting The Blossom on Fire.

Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day

Two other works of the artist which are displayed at the biennale deal with earlier events in Ukrainian history, but still have something in common, both outwardly and in content, with the painting of the “cyborgs.” These are the portraits of Vasyl Makukh and Oleksa Hirnyk, the Ukrainians who in 1968 and 1978, respectively, committed self-immolation in protest against the policies of the Soviet regime. Firstly, they are similar to The Blossom on Fire in that all three use crimson color to paint people. Secondly, both the “cyborgs” and the self-immolating Ukrainians embody the struggle for freedom of the country. However, Melnyk stated himself that while in the Soviet time, people were powerless and protested by self-immolating, they have now taken up arms to defend themselves from Russian aggression.

GOVERNMENT HAS ONLY PROVIDED SYMBOLIC ASSISTANCE

The biennale of the history painting genre has survived for years due to Melnyk’s enthusiasm. “Under the Viktor Yushchenko administration in 2008, the Ministry of Culture allocated money to fund the project’s travels to Donetsk, Lviv, and Transcarpathia. They allocated funds for a catalog, bought some works. It was our high point! However, it all ended with Viktor Yanukovych’s accession to power, and the worst period started, when nobody could support us. We have kept going on so far due to the initiative and enthusiasm of artists. The government has only provided moral support. They explain that they must spend all the resources on the war effort now,” Melnyk shared the project’s situation with us.

The project’s curator has to occasionally face claims that the history painting genre is so passe. “However, the rest of the world lived through this past period of the art history, while Ukraine did not,” Melnyk throws up his hands “We were stateless, and we, in fact, had no history painting as a genre. One can count large paintings in this genre on the fingers of one hand: Ilya Repin’s Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire, Mykola Samokysh’s The Battle between Maksym Kryvonis and Yeremia Vyshnevetsky, Mykola Ivasiuk’s Bohdan Khmelnytsky Entering Kyiv in 1649, and Oleksandr Murashko’s Burial of a Kish Otaman. That is all, is not it? Well, there are some large works in the diaspora collections as well. We could not depict our history. Therefore, I started doing this biennale, aiming, in fact, to create the Ukrainian history painting genre.”

Learning history from paintings is an exciting experience. Of course, the artists interpret various subjects in their own ways, but by looking at their works, one can at least discover some iconic but forgotten figures, recall certain milestones of history. So, please, come and appreciate the panorama of the country’s life through the ages being presented at the 7th All-Ukrainian Biennale of the History Painting Genre “Ukraine from the Trypillian Culture to the Present as Seen by Contemporary Artists.” The exhibition will run at the Central House of Artists till February 7.