Ukrainian history is a leitmotif in the outstanding artist’s oeuvre

Twenty-five years have passed since the outstanding artist’s death. Valentyn Zadorozhny is a person of outstanding destiny and huge creative power, who left wonderful works executed in monumental-decorative genre. It was apparent for many people during Zadorozhny’s lifetime, but it is said not without a reason: great things are seen from afar. From the distance of these 25 years we can speak about the actuality of his oeuvre.

Monumental-decorative art flourished in Ukraine in the 1960s-1980s. Actually, it was then that the second wave of Ukrainian renaissance started. The first one took place in the time of Ukrainization in the 1920s. We remember: after Mykhailo Boichuk’s school of monumental art was destroyed and he and his students were executed (and those who survived were scattered around the world), the artistic process was leveled. The development of Ukrainian fine arts in the time of dominating ideologeme of social realism followed only in one course – easel painting.

However, in spite of ruination and leveling, the continued thread of the great teacher’s school was preserved in the work of influential artists: Stepan Kyrychenko, Hryhorii Dovzhenko, Volodymyr Bondarenko, joined by Ivan Lytovchenko, Jr., – they held the unbroken connection with the ideas, which were the living principles of Mykhailo Boichuk and his school (Boichuk’s name was a taboo, totally removed from the history of Ukrainian art). The idea of monumental-decorative section of art ripened in the circle of the artists, joined by creative youth, in the end of the 1950s-the beginning of the 1960s. Those were nationally aware people, who remembered their origins. At the same time they were looking for adequate plastic forms to realize their ideas and for innovative materials; they wanted to influence the society with their art, exceeding the limits of easel painting, strictly controlled by exhibition councils and censorship, as well as corresponding structures, which defined whether the work was loyal or not to the ruling system.

It should be mentioned that no monumental art department existed in Kyiv Institute of Arts until mid-1960s. For this is a specific kind of education, which is distinguished by its plastic means and technologies. But a generation of neophytes came to the monumental-decorative art: they had the Holodomor, repressions, and horrors of the World War II behind them. They were severely hardened and preserved the purity and altruistic attitude to art. The easel painting artists with name and influence, who could have followed a paved path included Alla Horska, Viktor Zaretsky, Opanas Zalyvakha, Mykola Storozhenko, Liudmyla Semykina, Halyna Sevruk, Veniamin Kushnir, Ada Rybachuk, and Volodymyr Melnychenko. But they were living an active public life (Club of Creative Youth), and some of them took part in creation of the monumental-decorative art section at Ukraine’s Union of Artists. In this context it is worth reminding of the incident which probably came as a shock to many.

Ivan-Valentyn Zadorozhny was at that time successful, trouble-free artist, who had an honorable title, and was a member of the board of the Union of Artists of Ukraine. Unexpectedly for many people, he joined muralists at the proposal of his fellow artists Mykola Storozhenko and Veniamin Kushnir. But a deep meaning can be discerned in his choice – a section of partisans was taking shape.

Zadorozhny’s life was full of dramatic events: his mother died prematurely, and in 1932 his father brought him, a barely alive boy, to Kyiv and rescued from starvation. The 11-year-old boy spent nights between the columns of a house in Mala Zhytomyrska Street and after all was given shelter by some kind people. In 1937-39 he studied at the Republican Secondary Art School (now a well-known structure of the History Art of Ukraine). His peers recalled that Zadorozhny often didn’t go to sleep, instead working till morning, drawing over piles of sheets, showing his fanatic love to artistic work.

During the World War II he was fighting in the front – he was a reconnaissance man (petty officer 1st class of the 68th marine infantry brigade). He found himself in very dangerous situation: he could get to GULAG camps or even be shot by SMERSH for picking up an anti-Stalin German propaganda leaflet, which he did not throw away and which was withdrawn from him. Having returned as a mature man from war, he studied in the Art Institute he dreamt about, Kost Yeleva and Anatolii Petrytsky’s studio. During his postgraduate studies, he developed historical thematics, painting the canvas Bohdan Khmelnytsky Leaves His Son Tymish to the Crimean Khan as Hostage. Since then Ukrainian history became a leitmotif in his creative work.

Already mature and recognized artist, he joined the section of muralists – in 1966 he became the deputy head of the section. This period is represented by symbolical works in his oeuvre, which indicate his stylistic transformation. Those include the famous work which entered the history of Ukrainian art, On the Site of Past Battles (“My Fellow Countrymen,” 1964). This work appeared in the time of creative boom both in Ukrainian cinema (Volodymyr Denysenko’s Dream and Sergey Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors were shot). Zadorozhny resolutely breaks his ties with the foundations of social realism and traditional cliches in depicting of a worker with a happy smile “for the good of his Motherland.” Zadorozhny expresses the idea of indestructibility of people with the help maximum generalization of images, like epic portrait. People in the canvases embody the land, they are rooted in it. Their images show their dramatic life experience and hope for the future. There is no false beauty; there is a beauty of the soul. The canvases Gardens will Flower, Grandmother Nila can be mentioned in this connection.

In 1974 the event took place, which may be called a catharsis of self-purification: the artist burned his easel paintings of realism period. This act seems incomprehensible to us, because those were wonderful professional creations. But this is an honesty of a creator, who serves his Muse up to abnegation.

Since then unique objects which became a glory of Ukrainian art have been created, following his design. These works include stained glass windows Our Song, Our Glory (150 sq. m.) in Petrovsky Palace of Culture in Kremenchuk, Poltava region; Necklace (70 sq. m.) in the village Kalyta, Brovarsky raion in Kyiv oblast; People, Take Care of the Land! in the Palace of Culture of Tire Plant in Kyiv oblast; mosaic Oh, Evening Star in the Palace of Culture in the village Kalyta; wood-carving Melody of Friendship in the Palace of Culture in Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk region, panel picture Scythia (40 sq. m.) in camping motel Prolisok near Kyiv.

In 1976-82 Zadorozhny decorated the hall Bratyna in Lybid hotel in Kyiv, a unique example of synthesis, when in one object the artist designs the space of interior and exterior as a wholesome structure, uniting monumental sculpture, tapestry, stained glass, encaustic painting, and author’s furniture design. For this complex he created “Slavic Mythical Images.” It was a painstaking work, when the author plunged into old-Ukrainian mythology and to some extent recreated the pantheon of pagan gods. He found a unique plastic language for these sculptures, making the pictures trustworthy and convincing that they should be what they are. This is a power of transformation: the artist does not reconstruct archeological archetypes, but via artistic vision and intuition creates the images that work for the matrix of memory. This complex includes the unique tapestry Kyi, encaustic frieze May the Sun be Glorified in the World, and may you, Good People, be Happy on Earth!

However, the destiny of this complex is tragic: it became a victim of modern vandalism. In 1988 the master passed away, and several years later this object was purposefully destroyed. The new owners of hotel Lybid threw out of their premises the unique works of the artist. Only owing to selfless devotion of his family, friends, and colleagues they were transferred for preservation to the National University “Kyiv Mohyla Academy”: the tapestry Kyiv was placed in the vestibule of the Culture-Art Center, and the easel paintings and sketches to monumental works are on display in Zadorozhny’s room-museum in the center. Unfortunately, the wooden sculptures of gods are being mercilessly ruined under the influence of the time and need to be restored, but investors’ funding is required for this.

In the Union of Artists of Ukraine, in particular, the bureau of muralists’ section Valentyn Zadorozhny was a charismatic personality with all attributes of a leader, who was able to defend his position on any level. That was a position of defending high culture of monumental art rooted in Boichuk’s school, as well as mosaics and frescoes of Kyiv Rus’, folk art, which absorbed the best things from the treasury of the world art: antiquity, Middle Ages, and modernism of the 20th century.

As his friends and colleagues recalled at the commemoration meeting (Volodymyr Pasyvenko, Vasyl Andriiashko, Volodymyr Priadka, Oleksandr Melnyk, Oleksandr Fisun) he was not a direct teacher, but had a talent of organizer, helping his young colleagues to reveal their talent.

Ivan-Valentyn Zadorozhny’s oeuvre does not lose its actuality even today, because his art operates the categories of eternity, and his works are most modern at the biannual of historical painting “Ukraine from Trypillia till present day.”