Prerequisites for the Formation of the Kharkiv School of Mural Painting

Abstract

The article is devoted to the formation of the profession of the monumental and decorative painting artist and its incorporation into the system of higher art education in Kharkiv. It is demonstrated that the process of professionalisation of this artistic field extended over a considerable period, while its most significant achievements are associated with the Art Nouveau era. At that time, Kharkiv, transforming into a major industrial centre of Ukraine, underwent rapid urban development, which created an urgent need for artistic decoration not only of sacred architecture but also of numerous newly constructed civil buildings. It is shown that during that period, monumental painting was introduced for the first time as a separate discipline within the city’s art education system, the core of which was represented by the private art and industrial school of Maria Raievska-Ivanova. It is emphasised that it was no coincidence that a teacher of this school, M. Pestrykov, together with his students – S. Vasylkivskyi, M. Tkachenko, and M. Uvarov – played an active role in the development of monumental and decorative painting in Kharkiv. The role of the Kharkiv artistic centre in shaping the features of a national style in the architecture and mural painting of that period is outlined. At the same time, it is revealed that as a result of the socio-political upheavals of the late second decade of the 20th century, the German–Soviet war of 1941–1945, as well as the negative attitude of the Soviet authorities toward the preservation of monuments of Ukrainian national artistic and cultural heritage, very little of the achievements of monumental and decorative artists at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries has survived to the present day. Moreover, what has survived continues to be destroyed as a result of artillery shelling by the Russian Federation, which launched its war against Ukraine. It is proven that the ideological aggression of the Soviet system, directed against the national traditions of Ukrainian art and its figures, persisted took place throughout the entire period of the totalitarian regime – from, the time of agitational mass propaganda of 1918 to the early 1920s, and up to the early 1960s. It was only then that, based on the experience of previous generations, the training of specialists in monumental and decorative painting began at the city’s higher art institutions.