Mykhailo Osinchuk) by Lubow Wolynetz, Curator

SOWER APRIIL 27,, 2014 TThhee UUkkrraaiinniiaann MMuusseeuumm aanndd LLiibbrraarryy ooff SSttaammffoorrdd “THE ICON – A PAINTED PRAYER” (Mykhailo Osinchuk) by Lubow Wolynetz, Curator The Fine Art collection in our Association was eventually dissolved by the So- served: the tradition of our Liturgies and the tra- the prevailing effect of a harmony of colors Museum has substantial holdings of the viets. Some of the members were able to escape dition of our icons. The icon creates in the and values, and thus evoked an exalted creative output of a considerable number of Soviet occupation by fleeing to Western Europe, Ukrainian soul a prayerful mood, because it is in mood – which together with the singing, prominent Ukrainian artists. Among them and later immigrating to countries of the free itself a painted prayer”. makes our Liturgies so enchanting”. are the numerous works in our collection of world. Others, those who remained, were ar- In all, Osinchuk painted murals Mykhailo Osinchuk (1890-1969) – painter- rested and sent to concentration camps. and ornamental works in 20 churches in iconographer, graphic artist, portraitist, mu- Mykhailo Osinchuk fled to Western Europe, and Ukraine, 4 in the United States and 2 in ralist, church decorator, pedagogue, all de- in 1947 immigrated to the United States. His pre- Canada. In addition to this, he painted at serve, appropriately enough, special war sacred art works, which were housed in the least a dozen iconostases and many single consideration. National Museum in Lviv, were destroyed by the icons. His graphic works and portraits Soviet authorities. were all done in the iconographic style. Mykhailo Osinchuk de- The art work of Mykhailo Os- voted his life to the study of ancient inchuk in our Museum’s collection is sub- Ukrainian sacred art, especially stantial. We have over 30 individual icons, iconography and fresco painting, to its portraits of historic personages, and mem- preservation, and to its restoration. bers of his family, and woodcuts. When the During his student days in Cracow and Pavillion was built on our Eparchial later in his travels to Greece, Italy and grounds in the late 1940s, Osinchuk Constantinopole, he meticulously painted and constructed a portable iconos- studied Byzantine iconography and tasis. Because there was a constant demand mosaics. He carefully researched an- for home icons by villagers in Ukraine, cient Galician iconography, its tech- shrewd merchants imported all kinds of niques, particular compositional and holy pictures, often primitive, foreign to our stylistic characteristics. His fascination tradition, and sold them to the naïve peas- and extensive knowledge of ancient antry. To counteract this, Osinchuk did tra- sacred art and iconography led him to ditional icons of Our Lord and the Blessed the choice he made as an artist and his Virgin Mary, and made printed colored artistic creativity. Another reason he versions available to the villagers. We have As to how many of the churches in chose this path was because he was printed copies of these in our collection. After Ukraine which Osinchuk painted have sur- troubled by the fact that centuries old Mykhailo Osinchuk’s death, some of his works, vived in their original look, I do not know. traditional icon painting and icono- drawings, photographs, and other seemingly But in 1995, a journalist from Lviv, upon see- graphic décor in the Ukrainian Greek paraphernalia type of materials were stored in his ing our large collection of Osinchuk’s works Catholic Churches in western Ukraine brother’s home, the home of Dr. Roman Os- was enthralled that we have preserved his was slowly being replaced by west- inchuk. Dr. Roman’s widow, upon cleaning out works. She bitterly explained that in the 60’s ernized religious painting. The begin- the house, brought to our Museum shopping and later in the 80’s with the political and re- Mykhailo Osinchuk was born in ning of the 20th century, after the bags full of ligious thaw, there appeared a gang of con- Zbarazh County of western Ukraine into a War, western Ukraine wit- such unidenti- tractors. These contractors, at the request of priestly family. He demonstrated artistic tal- nessed a mass effort of restoring fied material, members of church committees and pastors ent from an early age. After graduating from the old and the building of new telling us to do who lacked not only proper but also basic the Ternopil High School, he was accepted churches. If this work fell into with them cultural and art education, painted over the to the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts where the wrong hands, ignorance and what we wish; murals of Osinchuk and Kovzhun with pas- he studied art and graphics from 1910- carelessness might bring about otherwise they tel colors of pink and green and covered them 1914, as well as history and philosophy of the destruction of priceless an- would be dis- with primitive ornamental designs. Again, art and literature at the Jagellonian Univer- cient monuments, art, and reli- carded. Upon we face the tragedy of the destruction of our sity. During World War I he served in the gious artifacts. Osinchuk, inspection of cultural treasures not only at the hands of an Ukrainian Galician Army. After the War he together with a few other artists these shopping enemy but also by our own hands. Many a taught drawing at the Academic Gymna- like Pavlo Kovzhun (1896- bags, we found time we have witnessed the fact that Igno- sium in Lviv, and later was professor of art 1939), Mykola Fediuk (1885- a treasure trove. rance, carelessness, and indifference can ac- at the Lviv Academy of Arts. He was also 1962) and their predecessor The bags were tually do more harm than an enemy. Let us a founding member and later the president Modest Sosenko (1875-1920) filled with hun- hope that in today’s turbulent times in of the Association of Independent Ukrain- were instrumental in reintro- dreds of col- Ukraine we will not be witnesses of yet an- ian Artists. This Association was founded ducing and reinstating the icon, ored drawings other era of destruction. by young, talented, and well educated iconographic sacred art (which of different or- Ukrainian artists, some of whom had stud- they named neo-byzantine namental mo- ied, worked, and lived in Paris. They saw style) into the Ukrainian Greek tifs to be used the need to advance Ukrainian art in Eu- Catholic Church in western in the décor of rope, as well as to introduce the newest Ukraine and into the Ukrainian Eastern Rite trends in art to the Galician society. In the home. Osinchuk and a few other émigré artists church walls, pillars, arches, vaults, frames for span of nine years (1930-1939) they or- did this as well in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic the iconostasis, etc. This is just another example ganized 14 exhibits and even published an Churches in the United States and Canada. On of how by pure chance these items were pre- art magazine entitled Mystetstvo. But this this subject Osinchuk said “ it became evident to served, because the current owner was wise us that if Ukrainian art was to have enough to deposit them with us. characteristic traits of its own, the Mykahilo Osinchuk used the tempera iconographic tradition had to be technique in his iconographic art. His icons are respected – namely, the further bright in color and serene in outlook. The artist progress of Ukrainian art must be explained that “in my re-introducting of iconog- based on the art of icon painting”. raphy into the church…I had to take only the He also stated that “ for each na- basic features of the old icon: the linear, the rhyth- tion tradition is very important. It is mical color movements, and the symbolic the root that holds up the tree. Our meaning… the faces in my painting…had a failures, very often were caused more naturalistic expression, and had lost some by the absence of tradition. Our of their schematic severity. Instead of the local national tradition was often de- colors of the icon I introduced the correlative stroyed by internecine wars and tones according to modern colors concepts… by the brutality of foreign occu- The color arrangement of the ornamental adorn- piers. But our religious tradition ment was produced in the same way…There- was imbedded deeply into the fore this polychromia of the church, equally souls of our people and was pre- treated in the ornamental and pictorial parts had EExxpplloorree aanndd EExxperrieencee Ouurr PPasstt.

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