77. Ukrainian Impressionist Painters

of THE UKRAINIAN IMPRESSIONIST PAINTERS

An important movement in painting that arose in France in the late 1860s and is linked with artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, August Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, impressionism had a strong influence on Ukrainian painting. The first Ukrainian impressionists appeared at the end of the 19th century and were graduates of the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Impressionism remained a major trend in Ukrainian painting until the early 1930s and it gave rise to Neo-impressionism, which attempted to base painting on scientific theory; Postimpressionism, which cultivated the esthetics of color; and Pointillism, which broke down colors into their elementary hues and distributed them in mosaic-like patterns.

In the fine arts, besides Alexander Archipenko, who left Ukraine in 1906, the following artists in Ukraine were closely associated with futurism of the constructivist rather than the anarchist bent: A. Ekster, Oleksander Bohomazov, Anatol Petrytsky, M. Semenko's brother Vasyl, Vasyl Yermilov, Kazimir Malevich, Ye. Prybylska, Yevhen Sahaidachny, Osyp Sorokhtei, Pavlo Kovzhun, and the members of the Nova Generatsiia circle. Still, before all the literary and artistic organizations were disbanded in Ukraine in 1932, futurism was officially denounced as bourgeois and was banned.

Krychevsky first achieved public recognition in 1903 by winning the architectural competition to build the Poltava Zemstvo Building (now the Poltava Regional Studies Museum). His design of the building inaugurated a new style based on the traditions of Ukrainian folk architecture, and set a new trend among young architects in Ukraine. He continued to work in this style, using it for a number of public and private buildings and monuments such as the People's Home in Lokhvytsia (1904); the residences of D. Myloradovych (1905), I. Shchitkivsky (1907), and Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1908–9); the Shevchenko Memorial Museum in Kaniv (1931–4); and monuments to M. Myloradovych (1908), Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (1928), Danylo Zabolotny (1932), and Hrushevsky (1935). This distinctive Ukrainian style marked his interior designs for private homes and exhibition halls.

As a painter Krychevsky was deeply influenced by French impressionism. Krychevsky is one of the main founders of modern Ukrainian book design. In his work he used traditional folk ornamentation and motifs in old Ukrainian books, and revived the old techniques of wood engraving, etching, and lithography. He designed over 80 bookcovers, some bookplates, and a number of entire books, including the deluxe edition of Ukraïns’ka pisnia (Ukrainian Song, 1935)

78 Creative activity of o.Archipenko

Archipenko, Alexander, b 30 May 1887 in Kyiv, d 25 February 1964 in New York. Modernist sculptor, painter, pedagogue, and a full member of the International Institute of Arts and Literature from 1953. Archipenko studied art at the Kyiv Art School in 1902–5, in Moscow in 1906–8, and then briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His first one-man show took place in 1906 in Ukraine. He moved to Paris in 1909. In 1910 he exhibited his works with a group of Cubists at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants and then exhibited his works there annually until 1914 In 1911 his works appeared also at the Salon d'Automne. In 1912 Archipenko joined a new artistic group—La Section d'Or, which numbered among its members P. Picasso, G. Braque, J. Gris, F. Léger, R. Delaunay, R. de la Fresnaye, J. Villon, F. Picabia, and M. Duchamp—and participated in the group's exhibitions.

In 1912 Archipenko opened his own school of sculpture in Paris. In 1913 Archipenko’s works appeared at the Armory Show in New York, and he held his first individual exhibition at Galerie der Sturm in Berlin. In the following year he participated in a cubist exhibition in Prague and a futurist exhibition in Rome, and exhibited such works as Carrousel Pierrot and Boxing at Salon des Artistes Indépendants.

In 1927 he created and received a patent for changeable pictures (peinture changeante) known as Archipentura and Apparatus for Displaying Changeable Pictures. (Archipentura was lost in 1935.) Besides working at his art, Archipenko devoted much time to teaching. He was in constant contact with various universities, among them those in Oakland, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago (the New Bauhaus School). In 1927 an exhibition his works was arranged in Tokyo. In 1929 he established a school of ceramics, Arko, in New York. In 1933 his work appeared in the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. The Nazi regime confiscated 22 of Archipenko's sculptures in German museums in the 1930sIn 1956 Archipenko tried his hand at moving figures (figures tournantes), which were mechanically rotating structures built of wood, mother of pearl, and metal. In 1959 he received the gold medal at Biennale d'Arte Trivenata at Padua, Italy. In 1960 his largest monograph, Fifty Creative Years, 1908–1958, appeared. Parts of it had been published previously in Ukrainian art journals.

As a cubist, Archipenko utilized interdependent geometrical lines and introduced new concepts and methods into sculpture. Juan Gris wrote about Archipenko’s influence on the art of the early 20th century: “Archipenko challenged the traditional understanding of sculpture. It was generally monochromatic at the time. His pieces were painted in bright colors. Instead of accepted materials such as marble, bronze or plaster, he used mundane materials such as wood, glass, metal, and wire. His creative process did not involve carving or modeling in the accepted tradition but nailing, pasting and tying together, with no attempt to hide nails, junctures or seams.

Archipenko's purpose was to discover the laws of formal relationships through a precise examination of the great historical styles and to preserve the old foundations of the plastic arts while transforming them in his own way. His creative and logical thought was also opposed to his dynamic personality, and this dramatic conflict endowed his art with an intriguing vitality.