How the son of Polish emigrants painted America in the style of primitivism and conquered the world: Charles Wysocki

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Russian audience is practically not familiar with the works of Charles Vysotsky, but in his homeland he is very famous. As a contemporary of ours, he created postcards and posters of New England's early settlers and farmers. Cozy provincial towns, harsh but joyful Protestant labor, noisy fairs and peacefully dozing cats … His works depict a whole world that has irrevocably gone into the past - or perhaps never existed.

Charles Wysocki was born in Detroit in 1928 to a Polish émigré family and grew up in a Polish community. This is largely because he perceived American culture as an observer, a researcher, as a person, in a certain sense, alien to it. However, his childhood was happy and prosperous. The boy was upset only by the unwillingness of his parents to take seriously his decision to become an artist. “An artist, son? What are you going to eat - paint? Better be a stockbroker … or an auto mechanic. On the other hand, they did not prevent the boy from taking painting lessons, and his brother made a career in art.

Vysotsky's works seem simple and naive, as if executed by an unprofessional artist, but he received a good education. After serving two years in the army, he found a job as an illustrator - making drawings of tools, detailed sketches of technical details for catalogs and instructions. It was terribly boring, but it was then that the precise and dry creative style was formed, which later made him popular. His brother convinced Charles to go to conquer Los Angeles - there he could get further art education. The parents were not happy, but they provided their son with financial support during his years of study.

But Charles could not break the threads pulling him back to Detroit, to the Polish community, and after school he returned home for another couple of years - before realizing that he had nothing else to do in a smoky industrial town, where his lot was to illustrate car catalogs. … He wanted to see the sky and the sun, but could not, forever hanging over the city. One day, Charles Vysotsky rallied himself and left Detroit for good.

In Los Angeles, he found a home, a job and … love. His heart was captured by a graduate of the University of California, gifted and famous artist Elizabeth Lawrence. Their romance developed rapidly, and six weeks after they met, they got married. Meeting Elizabeth's family was a great creative shock for Charles. They were farmers, descendants of the first settlers, they rooted with the American land, loved to work, enjoyed life, thanked God for every day they lived and for every piece of bread that they got by hard and blessed labor. The simplicity and warmth of a farmer's life became the leitmotif of Vysotsky's work.

Vysotsky's works are influenced by Rousseau, Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper, Ben Shan, Norman Rockwell, Clara Williamson and grandmother Moses - artists and illustrators who glorified everyday life. Charles and Elizabeth traveled extensively throughout America, studying traditional and naive American art. However, Vysotsky himself was never “naive” (he turned out to be too educated for this) or “primitive” (because he never deliberately tried to hide his technical capabilities) artist. He was an artist of the "traditional values" of 19th-century provincial America, praising tiny towns, farming, small shops, family gatherings, and annual fairs.

In Vysotsky's works, not real places are captured - the America that he wrote is not on the map. He combined everything that he liked inside one composition - motifs of old American architecture, images from posters and books, ornaments of old bedspreads accidentally seen at a flea market and a landscape seen from a train window … and return to work again - that's why Vysotsky became so popular in the USA. In addition, he created America's ideal past - a past in which he would like to live.

Gradually, Vysotsky formed his creative methods, polished his style. The correctness of the composition was achieved by a special method, reminiscent of collage. Vysotsky drew fragments of the composition on tissue paper and moved, rearranged them in various ways in order to achieve the desired result. It could take weeks - he was always not quite happy with what came out in the end. But sometimes each element immediately appeared in its place - and then a miracle happened.

The harsh Protestant life of New England had a special charm for Charles and Elizabeth. They both loved peace and quiet, they preferred small companies and cozy gatherings by the fireplace to noisy parties, did not strive for fame or accumulation, knew how to enjoy trifles. They dreamed of living in the past, rather than striving towards the industrial age with its high-speed transport, ubiquitous plastic and rapidly growing metropolitan monsters.

In search of silence, the artists moved to the San Bernardino mountains and settled there. They had three children, the eldest of whom is engaged in the preservation and popularization of their creative heritage. Vysotsky's house became their main work of art. It was filled with dozens of beautiful antique bottles (Elizabeth's collection), all kinds of ceramics and folk carvings, lace, western bronze, paintings, ancient artifacts, dried flowers, baskets … They painted the walls themselves, weaved rugs and sewed bedspreads themselves … But the real owners of the house were cats - as many as six. Cats, especially the red ones, not as humanized as, for example, Wayne's, but quite on their own, inhabit Charles's paintings.

Charles Vysotsky died in 2002. Today his works are in private collections, and they are also reproduced as posters and prints without losing their popularity.