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vermutandherring · 5 months ago

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This is gonna be really long long read

Recently, my post with the paintings of Wilhelm Kotarbinski attracted a lot of attention from a couple of individuals. In this post, I share paintings for The Sims 4. 41 paintings that represent Kotarbinski's work in different periods of his life, on various motives. Against the background of my other publications, this is a rather unpopular post with a small number of likes and reposts (big respect to those who do this). This post is practically invisible by the standards of Tumblr and especially the Internet.

But it is noticeable for certain individuals who came under this post not for sims or even pictures. They appeared to restore justice and correct me, although I would rather call it bullying and humiliation of the national dignity not only of me, but of the entire Ukrainian people. But I don't want to play the victim. I just want to refute these arguments in a good way.

Take 1 – Kotarbinski is a Polish artist. Calling him Ukrainian means appropriating Polish heritage.

A lot of confusion arises when we talk about the past - the times of the existence of empires, when most modern countries (in this context, European ones) were under the oppression of metropolises. For some reason, a certain number of people still think in these categories, dividing countries into "newer" and "older". The purpose of such distribution is simple – to diminish the importance of the mentioned country. But we will gradually return to this issue.

But there is another, less obvious reason why it is difficult to talk about people of the past. Centuries ago, people did not think the way we do today - I am a citizen of this country, and therefore I carry its culture. Before the First World War, people preferred to identify themselves with a certain social class, a certain stream of like-minded people, a type of employment or religious denominations. They were subjects of their states, members of their noble and not so noble families, were Christians, Jews or representatives of other denominations, and only then representatives of some country or nation. And if the things created by people themselves do not give us a hint of their own position, our own thoughts are only speculations.

T. Shevchenko. Self-portrait 1860 (with a candle) (paper, etching on pleura, aquatint)

For example, let's take the artist Taras Shevchenko. He was a subject of the Russian Empire, which he hated, his work and life took place in Ukraine, he was Ukrainian by birth and wrote in Ukrainian, criticizing the government. There are no questions about his nationality and self-identification.

How about, for example, the artist Vasyl Tropinin? Tropinin was born in the Novgorod province, the territory of russia. He was of russian origin, studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and lived most of his life in russia. At the art academy where I studied, among the various art history courses, we had a separate subject on the history of 'russian art'. The art of no other country or period was defined as a separate subject. Except for russian (which somehow miraculously had a special status). But surprisingly, Tropinin did not appear in this subject as a russian artist. He was considered in the context of the history of Ukrainian art as an artist who represented the Ukrainian culture of the first half of the 19th century. Tropinin himself spoke about his work as follows:

Again, notice - I do not indicate that he was considered Ukrainian by origin. It was his work that was defined as Ukrainian, and therefore he himself is defined as a Ukrainian artist in the scientific studies of art critics based on the nature of his works. He owns many portraits depicting the Ukrainians of Podillia and their national clothes, emphasizing the diversity of Ukrainian culture. We can say that Tropinin is a russian by nationality, who has a Ukrainian period of his art.

Art by Tropinin

Speaking of this, I would rather pay attention to such a Ukrainian artist as Ilya Repin (real name - Ilya Ripa), Ukrainian artist of Armenian origin Ivan Ayvazovsky (real name - Hovhannes Ayvazyan) or composer of Ukrainian origin Pyotr Tchaikovsky ( real name is Petro Chayka). At this moment, you will most likely raise an eyebrow and distrust what you read, because all your life you have heard that these are Russian artists. But they are russian only because of the imperial hand of the russian empire, which represented the culture of the captured territories as its own cultural diversity.

Moreover, playing along with the empire and pandering to its colonial policy was the only way to "break out into the high society" and become something more than an ordinary peasant from the colony. For this, you had to do a few simple steps: to give up one's cultural identity, speak russian, and change a difficult (by russian standards) surname to one that is easier for russian to pronounce. That is why I added their real names in parentheses.

They know perfectly well what it means to sell one's soul to the devil

What does Wikipedia tell us?

Ukrainian-born, but still Russian. After all, I cannot deny the simple fact that their work, their life and fame really have a very close connection with Russia, at least because they were its citizens. In Tchaikovsky, you will find many works inspired by Russian culture, such as the operas Oprychnyk, Yevgeniy Onegin, The Queen of Spades, etc. The Cossack origin did not prevent the composer from distorting the image of the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa in the opera of the same name. The image, which in contrast to the Russians, who historically perceived Mazepa as a traitor, had an epic and romantic image in the works of European artists (in the works of Lord Byron, for example).

Ukrainian motifs prevail in Ilya Repin's work. His most famous works depict the Cossacks and the Ukrainian countryside, but he himself, despite his descent from the Cossack family and great love for his native land, identified himself as a russian, separating himself from the 'little russians'.

Art by Ilya Repin

After this lengthy passage, in which I prove that often the origin does not say much about the affiliation of the artist, we can return to so much suffered Kotarbinski. Wilhelm Kotarbinski was born in Neborów, in the central region of Poland. The boy was interested in drawing from childhood, so after entering the Warsaw gymnasium, he additionally attended drawing courses. While studying in Warsaw, young Kotarbinski fell in love with a cousin - a relationship that the family could not allow, and therefore gave the girl in marriage to someone else. Shocked by this, Kotarbinski decided to leave Warsaw and go to Rome. Kotarbinski lived in Italy for 15 years, where during this time he managed to graduate with a silver medal from the Art Academy of St. Luke.

The joke about the fact that Kotarbinski studied and lived in Italy, but for some reason is not considered an Italian artist, looks a bit lame. As Viktoriya Sukovata points out in the study "Wilhelm Kotarbinski, the forgotten genius of Ukrainian Modern", being a Pole, Kotarbinski received an academic base in Rome, and therefore to some extent he can be called a representative of the Italian art school.

Roman Orgy

In 1888, Kotarbinski returned to Warsaw, where he was able to marry his already widowed cousin, although over time he realized that this marriage did not bring him the desired joy. So at the invitation of his old friends from the Roman period, the Svedomskyi brothers - russian artists - Kotarbinski moved to Kyiv. Here he actively took part at exhibitions, being one of the most active Kyiv artists.

Imitating the organizational forms of The Itinerants (association of artists of the russian empire, including Ukrainian artists), in May 1893 Wilhelm Kotarbinski, together with Vladyslav Galimsky and other artists, appealed to the authorities with an official request to approve the charter of the Kyiv Society of Art Exhibitions. In 1897, he became a member of the Kyiv Society of Antiquities and Arts, which was reformed from the Society for the Promotion of Arts. It can be said that the Kyiv cultural environment was not alien to the Polish artist at all, and he actively contributed to his work with his creativity and social activities.

Paintings Roman Orgy and Death of Messalina at an exhibition in Lviv, 1894

If you are a little familiar with the history of art, you will notice that Kotarbinski's works, with their Ancient and Oriental motifs and chosen themes, is very reminiscent of the works of representatives of mid-19th-century academicism, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Henryk Siemiradzki. However, as Viktoriya Sukovata points out in her already mentioned article, this perception is a bit wrong, since Kotarbinski was working at the end of the century. Instead of the romantic interpretation and fascination with the past, inherent in the middle of the last century, Kotarbinski perceived exotic Orientalism through the prism of the decadent present, on which was superimposed the mystical aesthetics picked up by Kotarbinski from the cultures of Eastern Europe.

This mysticism is particularly visible in his erotic female images. According to the researcher, they are inspired by such currents of European modernism as Jugendstil and Vienna Secession, which enriched his Italian academic base with "bright decorativeness, sophisticated plots and symbolism." It was during this second Polish and Kyiv period that Kotarbinski painted many canvases depicting creatures from Slavic mythology. Numerous mavkas, mermaids, female spirits of nature, ghosts and other creatures are permanent characters in his works.

It is also worth mentioning the fact that, in addition to easel works, Kotarbinski had extensive experience in painting churches. He painted Orthodox and Catholic churches in Ukraine and Belarus, the most famous of which is the Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv, as well as the Church of St. Nicholas in Radomysl (Zhytomyr Region, Ukraine), the Cathedral of Tree Anastasias in Glukhiv (Sumy Region, Ukraine), etc.

The ceiling in Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kyiv, painted by Kotarbinski.

This, in turn, could not help but leave an imprint on Kotarbinski's work. In Orthodoxy, the temple is the embodiment of God's house on earth and a semblance of paradise for Christians. Its inner space should remind the believer of his purpose and life path, in which he is accompanied by saints, martyrs, archangels and other forces of the heavenly host. Kotarbinski worked on the frescoes of the church under the supervision of Sviedomskyi, because as a Catholic, he could not be allowed to independently paint an Orthodox church. Perhaps that is why, in this period of Kotarbinsky's work, in addition to nymphs, he also depicts numerous angels of death, drowning women or paintings with the leading motif of death, full of the same aesthetic mysticism, but in different context.

"Stop. What all this does with the aesthetics of mysticism ?" - you ask. This is about my answer to not so respected person that the environment has a considerable influence on the creativity of any artist:

I'm sorry for the 'forks' typo, it was about works.

Do you really believe that after living in another country for more than 30 years, you can remain completely untouched by the local culture? But in the eyes of someone, I am the thief here for calling Kotarbinski a Ukrainian artist for his conscious choice to incorporate local motifs into his works. However, his most significant role for Ukrainian art is bringing the style and themes of European art of that time to Ukrainian. Viktoriya Sukovata writes about this in the already mentioned work:

Panels from the Tereshchenki-Khanenki house, created by Kotarbinski. Photo from the site Culture.PL

Returning to the question itself - whether Kotarbinski can be called a Ukrainian artist based on the nature of his creative heritage, I believe that there is every reason for this. Firstly, Wilhelm Kotarbinski spent a significant part of his life in Kyiv, surrounded by its artistic life, in which he actively participated. He not only enriched Ukrainian culture with European modern trends, but also borrowed local motifs in his work, creating his mystical worlds full of mythical creatures.

Take 2 – Kotarbinski could not be a Ukrainian artist, because Ukraine did not exist.

Here I'd like to address both disreputable individuals who repeated this slogan twice in different variations:

Can you guess who else likes to use this narrative about "Ukraine didn't exist"?

Here I would like to introduce my Polish not-friends to one russian under my post, dated October 31, 2023. This was a post in which I adapted for The Sims 4 novel "Vyi" by the writer Mykola Gogol, calling him Ukrainian because of him (you won't believe) being a Ukrainian.

I will not raise a historical polemic about who owns which lands and when which state arose. After all, in such a case, it is possible to reach extremes, in which Ireland never existed without Britain, and Poland without the soviet union. Doesn't sound very nice, does it? But the imperial past of Poland and russia still allows certain individuals to draw this trump card and throw it in the face of Ukrainians, whose separate country really did not exist for a long time precisely because of them. But for some reason they don't like to mention it. Currently, Ukrainians are going through a difficult stage of self-identification, collecting parts of our culture, scattered by empires over the centuries, barbarically looted and erased from the face of the earth. A very convenient position is to ban culture and language, erase at least a hint of its existence and appropriate it, and then declare that neither such a nation nor its "poor culture" exists.

I want to add only one thing: Kyiv has always been Ukrainian, and no barbaric capture by another state for over 10 centuries made it either the cradle of some imaginary civilization, or the mother of distant and foreign cities for us.

I wrote "Polish-Ukrainian" artist precisely because Kotarbinski was an important part of Ukrainian cultural life of the beginning of the 20th century; precisely because that is how it is defined by the art history scientific community, and not my personal whim. It is thanks to him that the St. Volodymyr Cathedral has its majestic interior full of mystical awe, the house of the Khanenkos is filled with exotic panels with Oriental motifs, and Ukrainian museums preserve rare easel works of the artist, which embody the tragic uncertainty of the future, so characteristic of all European art of this era.

Wilhelm Kotarbiński in his workshop in the hotel 'Prague', Kyiv. Photo: Central Archive-Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine.

Unlike the Ukrainian works in the Tretyakov Gallery in St. Petersburg, Kotarbinski's works were not stolen, illegally exported, or shamelessly appropriated under the guise of "evacuation" or forced restoration. Kotarbinski spent the last years of his life in Kyiv. Against the background of the First World War, his fate was not the best. He died poor and forgotten, unable to return to his homeland in Poland. Today, his works are kept in museums in Warsaw, st. petersburg, Ukrainian Kyiv and Sumy. His work is examined from the perspective of all three countries with which he was in contact, and the scientist of each of the countries will emphasize those aspects of his work that are related to this country. But for God's sake, no one tries to steal from a dead person, unless you're into strange practices.

What to do to see Ukrainian culture?

For example, to begin with, open your eyes. This can be especially difficult if you're a prejudiced chauvinist, but it's worth a try. Next, as the fastest solution, I can offer you the blog @vintage-ukraine, where works of Ukrainian fine art, films, famous Ukrainian cultural figures, historical photos, musical works, etc. are published every day. As a next step, I can recommend the Культуртригер channel, in which the authors talk about Ukrainian fine art and refute imperial narratives about Ukrainian art that have been cultivated for centuries. This channel is in Ukrainian, but it seems quite similar and easy to understand for Russian and Polish speakers, so I think you won't have any problems with it. According to the same principle, I can recommend the Ukrainian-language literary channel Твоя Підпільна ��уманітарка, where authors research and talk about Ukrainian literature, language and mythology in an accessible form.

If you don't see something, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist

Many thanks to my Ukrainian friends for their support 💖

P.S: If you think that all this post is about my personal drama and offence, I kindly recommend you to pay a visit to @lichozestudni and read just a bit more. You'll find a lot of interesting things 👋 (Please, I'm not calling for threats and humiliation. You can use Tumblr's tools for regulating this kind of thing).

#vermutandherring #ukrainian art #ukrainian history #ukrainian culture #ukraine #ukrainian tumblr #ukrainian #eastern europe #poland #polish art #art #art history #painting #art critique #art criticism #essay #long reads #long post

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