Arts of Ukraine

The arts of Ukraine comprise all works of art created during the history of Ukraine's development.
The development of art in Ukraine dates back to ancient times.
Folk art of Ukraine is a layer of Ukrainian culture associated with the creation of the worldview of the Ukrainian people, its psychology, ethical guidelines, and aesthetic aspirations, covering all types of folk art, traditionally inherent in Ukraine: music, dance, songs, decorative and applied arts, developing as a single complex, and organically included in the life of the people throughout its history. One of the most famous Ukrainian folk artists is Maria Prymachenko.
One of the most interesting periods in the history of Ukrainian architecture is the end of the 14th and the first half of the 15th centuries. Many settlers came to Ukrainian cities, mostly Germans, who brought new stylistic forms to art, and in particular to architecture. Painters created frescoes and altarpieces, but the most vivid Gothic paintings were embodied in stained glass, which filled huge openings of windows, and upper floors of chapels.
The period of the last quarter of the 16th to the first half of the 17th century is called the Renaissance period. In general, the architecture and fine arts of the Renaissance in Ukraine are characterized by the spread of architectural art forms of the Italian Northern Renaissance, the sensation of new acquisitions of European art, and their synthesis with the traditions of Kievan Rus and Ukrainian folk art. New artistic means, techniques were not an end in themselves, but a means to personalize architectural buildings and artistic images of humanistic ideals. The artistic culture of the Renaissance of Ukraine became the basis for the unique Ukrainian Baroque. During the Renaissance, Ukrainian culture in polemical works of art embodied national spiritual values, national ideas, and internally prepared, created, the social atmosphere in which the national liberation war led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky ended with the restoration of the Ukrainian state.
Details: Ukrainian Baroque
The period of the second half of the 17th to the 18th centuries is called the epoch of old Ukrainian culture, i.e. the one that preceded the new one, created in the last two centuries. The art of that time developed in the Baroque style, which penetrated into all cultural spheres and flourished in the 18th century as the world-famous "Ukrainian Baroque."
During the Soviet era art in Ukraine, like in the rest of the Soviet Union, experienced first an era of experimentation where artists sought to break out of traditional formalism in art. Soon, however, Soviet art became strongly formal with the imposition of Socialist Realism. Experimental art was replaced by topics and forms of art that the political elite approved of.
Contemporary Ukrainian art is represented in its breadth and depth by many art groups. These groups, although following different artistic paths, pursue one goal: to seek a clear expression of Ukrainian art, to deepen its formal values, and to contribute them to the treasury of world art.
Contemporary Ukrainian art is inextricably linked with the West-European course in its development and purpose. Due to the political situation of the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian art was somewhat late in its development during the enslavement by the tsar, but now, with rapid steps, it has crushed everything that was needed for its further evolution.
Impressionism in Ukraine has already given impetus to the work of such brilliant masters of Ukrainian art as Burachek, Vasylkivsky, Izhakevych, Dyachenko, Zamirailo, Zhuk, Krasytsky, V. Krychevsky, F. Krychevsky, Levchenko, Kulchytsky, Murashko, Manievich, Novakivsky, Pymonenko, Sosenko, Samokish, Kholodny, Trush, Shulga, Yaremich, and many others. Their activity in painting practice and in the promotion of Ukrainian art through exhibitions, articles, and pedagogical work laid the foundations for the contemporary work of our artists.
During the activities of these artists, there was a need for art organizations to plan and organize their work and give it organizational shape. And so began the first artistic organization – the Society of Ukrainian Artists in Kyiv, and a similar one in Kharkiv, and later in Lviv.
A new generation of Ukrainian artists has completely changed the artistic situation in Ukrainian lands. The scope of their activities has grown so much that there is a need for ideological art organizations in the artistic sense, and the spread of their activities on a large scale. The pace of artistic life was manifested itself in great acceleration. In fact, a number of such organizations are emerging, with dozens of active members and their diverse artistic activities attracting broad sections of Ukrainian society to art and bringing the achievements of our art far beyond the borders of Ukrainian lands.
The Association of Revolutionary Artists of Ukraine is an organization with purely Ukrainian artistic problems, which, in addition to the practice of European art, united a group of neo-Byzantines at its core, who based their work on the Byzantine art era in Ukraine.
The achievements of this group are very significant, and its stylistic pursuits have left a deep mark in Ukrainian art and have drawn attention to their work in the Western European art world. This group included the following artists: Boychuk, Sedlyar, Padalka, Nalipinska-Boychuk, Azovsky, Sakhnovska, Mizyn, Hvozdyk, Byzyukiv, and others, graphic artists and art critics.
Ukrainian artists working in the form of Western European reality from expressionism to neoclassicism were organized into the Association of Contemporary Artists of Ukraine, which included Taran, Palmiv, Tkachenko, Sadilenko, Kramarenko, Zhdanko, and others as the main representatives.
Close to both of these organizations in an artistic sense is the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists in Western Ukraine with the following artists: Andrienko, Butovych, Gryshchenko, Glushchenko, Hordynsky, Dolnytska, Yemets, Kovzhun, Osinchuk, Lyaturynska, Muzyka, Selsky, and others.
A large group of artists based on Ukrainian folk art in the broadest sense of the term, which is also adjacent to the Impressionists were united in the "Association of Red Artists of Ukraine" with such names as F. Krychevsky, Mikhailov, Novoselsky, Shovkunenko, Zhuk, Trokhimenko, Kozyk, Korovchinsky, Ivanov, Sirotenko, and others.
These main and leading art organizations with a broad program of activities, include an active artistic element of all areas of art and art journalism, are complemented by a number of smaller organizations that in one form or another spread the framework of art including "Association of Young Artists of Ukraine," "October," "Ukrainian Art Association," "Peace," and the Prague and Paris group of our artists, expand its practice.