LVIV, Ukraine – When she died of tuberculosis at the age of 25 in 1884 Paris, Ukrainian painter Marie Bashkirtseff left an astounding body of work – some 229 paintings, drawings and sculptures. While most of these works were destroyed during World War II and what remains today provides only a snapshot of her considerable talent, during her short lifetime Bashkirtseff made a mark on art in Europe and her homeland as well.
Yet Bashkirtseff was only one of the first in a long line of Ukraine-born artists who traveled to Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries to hone their artistic skills and gain prominence. Nearly 260 artists uprooted themselves and migrated to Paris, a city which by the turn of the century had overtaken Rome as the world’s artistic mecca. Once there, they studied, discussed, and worked, thus officially becoming members of the famed Ecole de Paris, or School of Paris.
Despite its name, the School of Paris was not an institution or an art movement defined by any artistic doctrine, said Lviv historian Vita Susak, who recently published a groundbreaking book that looks at the many Ukrainian artists who were a part of it. “Rather, it was a milieu in which artists met, shared experiences and enriched one another in artistic work. It was a phenomenon.”
Finding its beginnings at the end of the 19th century, but truly emerging as a force in the early 20th century, the Paris school gave rise to such international greats as Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. The many styles it birthed or propagated included Cubism, Fauvism, Post-Impressionism, Surrealism and Dada, a movement which rejected prevailing standards in art through anti-art. The Ukrainian artists, particularly Mykhailo Boichuk and Alexander Archipenko, birthed their own artistic styles or pushed the boundaries of those already in existence.
She’s [Marie Bashkirtseff] important as an individual. Her popularity was fantastic.”
– Vita Susak, Lviv historian.
While Anton Lesonko (1737-1773) is believed to be the first Ukrainian artist to see Paris, the mostly widely-known Ukrainian in Paris was Bashkirtseff, said Susak, whose book is titled “Ukrainian Artists in Paris, 1900-1939.”
Born into a wealthy family in Haivorontsi outside Poltava, Bashkirtseff traveled with her mother as an adolescent to Nice and then later to Paris, where in 1877 she enrolled in the Academie Julian, one of the few institutions that accepted women in that era. She completed the seven-year course in two and was the first Ukrainian woman to receive an artistic education, according to Susak. “She’s important as an individual,” Susak said. “Her popularity was fantastic.”
Bashkirtseff’s importance, however, stemmed not only from her artistic abilities. A widely-published author who corresponded with French writer Guy de Maupassant – Bashkirtseff’s sometimes scandalous diary is still in print – she was a feminist who supported formal education for women and encouraged them to realize their potential. The painter became a leader of the women’s creative emancipation movement, noted Susak. Her experience and body of work served as an example for other women to follow their dreams and not be afraid as they set off for Paris.
At the beginning of the 20th century, European artists began to move away from the rigorous form of art that was produced at the kind of institution Bashkirtseff attended. Instead, they began to explore Art Nouveau, a style that was characterized by organic motifs and flowing curvilinear forms. Within that movement, artists from Central and Eastern Europe tried to develop their own national style, Susak noted. Ukraine experienced a Neo-Byzantine movement which was largely developed and promoted by Boichuk and supported by Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the person of its leader, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky.
Sheptytsky’s role in the development of Ukrainian art as a whole cannot be underestimated, Susak said.
Understanding that even the greatest talent could not be developed without a European education, Sheptytsky in the early part of the century started to grant scholarships to gifted young men to study in Paris and Munich. His generosity, however, was not confined to members of his own faith. He funded artists like the Orthodox Mykhailo Havrylko and Lviv-born Leopold Kretz, a Jew. Kretz, who was Sheptytsky’s student at one time, received encouragement and train fare from the metropolitan to pursue his passion in Paris. Jews would become a driving force in their own right not only in the Paris school, but Ukrainian art as well.
Boichuk, who regularly corresponded with Sheptytsky, travelled extensively throughout Europe and was drawn to monumental painting, national traditions and religious ideas propagated by the French Nabis. The Nabis drew their inspiration from the Pont-Aven School, which centered on Synthetism, a form of painting evolved by the renowned artist, Paul Gauguin. Having mastered Italian mosaic, al fresco and al secco techniques, Boichuk became head of the School for the Revival of Byzantine Art, which exhibited in Paris.
Eager to apply what he learned in Europe, he returned to Lviv. He lived in Kyiv after the 1917 Russian Revolution. A founding professor of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts, he organized a school of monumental art there, which became very popular. He died in November 1936 during the Stalinist purges, accused of being an agent of the Vatican. Most of his works, which included delicate iconography, were destroyed.
To find out more, read “Ukrainian Artists in Paris, 1900-1939,” published in Ukrainian and English by the Kyiv-based Rodovid Press and A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA. The 407-page volume is the first systematic and comprehensive assessment of the role Ukrainian-born artists played in the French art world. Despite its title, it reaches back to the 19th century and concludes with World War II, and presents the often difficult and complex journey Ukrainian-born artists undertook in search of expression and fame. A French translation of the book is currently in the works.
Kyiv Post staff writer Natalia A. Feduschak can be reached at [email protected].
