A short career and the tragic death of Alexander Murashko - one of the most famous Ukrainian artists

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

The work of this artist brought Ukrainian painting to the international level. His paintings are filled with air and sunlight. Alexander Murashko is rightfully considered a classic of the visual arts of the early XX century. He could have created dozens of more masterpieces, but in 1919, when the artist was only 44 years old, his life was cut short by a shot in the back of the head - thus began a series of Bolshevik executions of the best representatives of the intelligentsia.

The future artist, teacher and public figure was born in Kiev. His stepfather had an icon painting workshop, and his uncle, Nikolai Murashko, was the founder of the Kiev drawing school. Alexander Alexandrovich Murashko studied with Repin himself, at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. His thesis was "The Funeral of the Koshevoy". It was for this work that Murashko received the title of artist with the right to travel abroad for a pensioner (a pension was called an allowance for improving skills). In this picture, the influence of Repin's painting "The Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan" is noticeable - Murashko's canvas is just as monumental.

During a trip abroad, Murashko succumbed to the influence of impressionism - this is noticeable in the creation of complex lighting effects, in the play of chiaroscuro, in the plein air of his works. His paintings are overflowing with light, and not so much external as internal - the characters in his paintings seem to be radiant, as if the light comes from themselves. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that Murashko painted mostly not custom-made ceremonial portraits, but portraits of acquaintances - those people for whom he himself felt sincere sympathy. Therefore, there is so much warmth and light in the works, conveying the state of harmony in the souls of the characters and in the entire interior surrounding them.

Alexander Murashko urged: "Be in art like children - sincere and spontaneous." And he himself followed this commandment throughout his life. That is why all his canvases - both on historical, and on everyday, and on religious themes - look so luminous and fully convey the emotional state of the author.

A striking example of this is his most famous work "The Annunciation". The religious principle in this picture fades into the background - in the girl depicted on the canvas, you can see both the Virgin Mary and the collective image, which is the embodiment of purity, beauty, tenderness and spontaneity. The authenticity of the realities of the subject - flowers in a vase, threads for embroidery, a riot of greenery behind the blue fence of the terrace - make one believe that this plot can take place at one of the summer cottages near Kiev.

A characteristic feature of the female portraits of Murashko's work - the elusive trepidation, grace and insecurity of the images created - makes his work easily recognizable among hundreds of others.

The artist is also sincere in depicting ordinary Ukrainian peasants. According to art critics, their portraits reflect both the external signs of national identity (costume) and the artist's deep inner understanding of the mentality of the Ukrainian people.

The artist's personal exhibitions were held in many European cities. In 1917 he became one of the organizers and the first rector of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts. Murashko's life ended abruptly and tragically: not far from his own house, three soldiers detained the artist and killed him with a shot in the back of the head. There is a version according to which the execution was planned by the Provincial Cheka, due to the clearly defined national position of the author.

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