CUBISM, THE ICON AND THE UKRAINIAN LEGACY OF ALEXIS GRITCHENKO

• Authors: Myroslava M. Mudrak
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper focuses on the reception, analysis, and interpretation of Parisian Cubism in Ukraine through the lens of the writings and paintings of Ukrainian modernist painter Oleksa Hryshchenko (1883-1977), best known by the French transliteration of his name, Alexis Gritchenko. Gritchenko’s own paintings, and those of his Kyiv colleagues, Alexandra Exter and, most especially Oleksandr Bohomazov, show evidence of an assimilated volumetric Cubism, a Cézanniste compression of space, and an affirmation of the picture surface through facture—an expression of the kind of “simultaneity” that the icon image offers the spectator. For his part, Gritchenko’s study of the compositional values and “rules” of colour in ancient iconography in tandem with the modernist developments of Cubism led to new discoveries for his own art, and the concept of “colour dynamos” (tsvetodynamos) —the renewal of colour as an artistic element, according to both the compositional strictness and the physicality of the flat medium of ancient iconography.

Keywords

EN

CUBISM; UKRAINE; GRITCHENKO

• Publisher: Institute of History of Art, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: ARS
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 47
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 186 – 196

Contributors

author

Myroslava M. Mudrak

• Department of History of Art, The Ohio State University, 217 Pomerene Hall, 1760 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA