The dissertation explores the community of the Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine (Аsotsiatsia revolutsyinoho mystetstva Ukrainy, or ARMU) at the Kyiv Art Institute, the stages of its formation and its historical influence on painting of Ukrainian modernism.
The study analyzes the historical circumstances of formation of modernism in Ukraine since the February Revolution and until the collapse of the NEP. Also studied are the creative principles of leading ARMU painters in the Kyiv Art Institute, the struggle of the Soviet government against formalism and repressions against the Ukrainian creative intelligentsia in the 1930s.
It was revealed that ARMU was founded during a short period of partial liberalization of public life in the Ukrainian SSR during the NEP and Ukrainization era, which was cut short by Stalin’s repressions in the 1930s. During this period, the ARMU became the largest artistic association of Ukrainian modernism, founded directly by the rector and professors of Kyiv Art Institute. In their activities, the leaders of the ARMU strive to intensify the artistic life of the Ukrainian SSR, protect it from the influence of the Russian art associations and to establish ties with European cultural and educational institutions. This ideological position, which combined a pro-European orientation with the desire for an anti-colonial revival of national culture, united many intellectuals in the Ukrainian SSR during the 1920s, most of whom were later repressed or physically exterminated by the USSR punitive authorities. Among the members of the ARMU, M. Boychuk and some of his followers were executed. The range of artistic pursuits of ARMU artists who taught at the Kyiv Art Institute varied from different movements of modernism to experiments with neo-primitivism. It was discovered that some of the artists, especially O. Bogomazov, M. Boychuk, P. Golubyatnikov, and V. Palmov, had a significant influence on the painting of Ukrainian modernism. Their common feature was the desire to create images rather inspired by artistic imagination, than by copying from nature that was required by socialist realism. To achieve this goal, each of them employed his own method: M. Boychuk used the method of compositional analysis of works of different eras and cultures, P. Golubyatnikov created a fantastic perspective in his paintings and enhanced color contrasts, O. Bogomazov experimentally developed his theory of visual perception of colors and shapes on a picture plane, and V. Palmov practiced expressive, unplanned improvisation. Despite the fact that their creative principles were quite different, the younger generations of artists actively synthesized them in search of their individual style. This is clearly evidenced by catalogs and reviews of all-Ukraine exhibitions held in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Dnipropetrovsk. The members of the ARMU among the professors of the Kyiv Art Institute in different periods were: B. Kratko, V. Meller, Ye. Sagaidachny, A. Taran, V. Tatlin and others. In accordance with the orientation of the ARMU on the concept of industrial art, in addition to easel painting, its exhibitions included separate sections of graphics, sculpture, ceramics, theater design, architecture, photography, etc.
The author of the dissertation analyzed and for the first time published selected visual instructions, sketches, notes of O. Bogomazov from the Central State Archive Museum of Literature and Arts of Ukraine, revealed the identities of some previously undiscovered Bogomazov’s students in the Kyiv Art Institute. The exploration of several works of the 1920s and early 1930s from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture Archives, made under the influence of ARMU members in the Kyiv Art Institute, allowed to clarify their attribution. Some publications in the 1910s–1920s periodicals, which were not previously involved in the study of Ukrainian Academy of Arts, Kyiv Art Institute, ARMU and their figures, are considered. In particular, statements about foundation of the ARMU made by I. Vrona and P. Gorbenko in the rare newspaper articles of 1925, are quoted.
