49 The style of Classicism in Europe

In some ways, rococo represented the continuation and conclusion of the baroque period in art and architecture. At the tame time, it signified a fundamental departure from the pathos and striving for the supernatural and spiritual that characterized the creative mind of a baroque artist. Rococo developed at first in a decorative art in the early 18th century in France. Lighter designs, graceful decorative motifs with many shell forms (rocaille in French) and natural patterns, as well as small-scale sculpture inspired by trivial subject matter progressively replaced the flamboyant forms of the baroque architecture, overloaded with unrestrained ornamentation. In Ukraine, where baroque influences were particularly strong and long-lasting, rococo and baroque architectural influences were often intermingled. Rococo influences in Ukrainian sculpture can be seen particularly in iconostases, where carved shell motifs and interlace patterns replaced grapevines and acanthus foliage, often without structural logic. Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli and Bernard Meretyn were among the most important rococo architects in Ukraine

Rococo. An architectural and decorative style that emerged in France in the early 18th century. It replaced the plasticity of the baroque and was characterized by light, graceful decoration, trivial subject matter, and small-scale sculpture. In decoration the open shell (rocaille in French) motif became popular. Rococo was used in church architecture throughout Ukraine, but because baroque influences were strong the two styles were often intermingled. Examples of the rococo style in Ukraine are Saint Andrew's Church (1747–53) in Kyiv; the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God (1752–63) in Kozelets, Chernihiv gubernia; the Roman Catholic churches of the Dominican order in Lviv (Dominican Church in Lviv, 1747–64) and Ternopil (Dominican Church in Ternopil, 1745–9); Saint George's Cathedral (1745–70) in Lviv; the Dormition Cathedral at the Pochaiv Monastery (1771–83) in Volhynia; and the town hall (1751) in Buchach, Galicia.

Rastrelli, Bartolomeo Francesco, b 1700 in Paris, d 1771 in Saint Petersburg. Architect of Italian origin. Having arrived in Saint Petersburg in 1716 with his father, Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who did many sculptures for Emperor Peter I, he was appointed court architect in 1730. His renovations of the Great Palace in Peterhof (1747–52; now Petrodvorets), the Catherinian Palace in Tsarskoe Selo (1752–7), the Winter Palace (1754–62), Mikhail Vorontsov's palace (1749–57), and S. Stroganov's palace (1752–4) in Saint Petersburg are the finest examples of late baroque and rococo architecture. He designed two outstanding buildings in Kyiv, Saint Andrew's Church (1747–53) and the Mariinskyi Palace (1752–5).

50. Ukrainian painters of Classicism (D.Levitsky, V.Borovykovsky)

Classicism came to Ukraine from central and southern Europe in the mid-18th century. Ukrainian classicist painters had an important influence on the development of Russian painting; among these painters were Antin Losenko, who founded the historical school at the Russian Academy of Arts; Dmytro H. Levytsky, who was the leading portraitist of his time; and Levytsky's student Volodymyr Borovykovsky, who painted icons and portraits. All of them worked in Saint Petersburg.

Levytsky, Dmytro H. b 1735 in Kyiv, d 16 April 1822 in Saint Petersburg. The most prominent portraitist of the classicist era in the Russian Empire. In 1753–6 he helped his father and Aleksii Antropov decorate Saint Andrew's Church in Kyiv. From 1758 to 1761 he worked in Saint Petersburg. From 1762, while living in Moscow he was a portraitist in great demand among the Russian aristocracy. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1769, and he won the highest award at the summer exhibition in 1770 held by the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts and was elected a member of the academy. Building on the baroque, classicism, and Western European traditions, Levytsky created a school of portrait painting. His portraits reveal his expert knowledge of drawing, composition, color, and the appropriate gesture. He executed over 100 portraits, including ones of Empress Catherine II (Portrait of Catherine II, 1783), other members of the Russian imperial family, King Stanislaus I Leszczyński, the French encyclopedist D. Diderot (now in the Geneva Museum of Art and History), his own father, brother, and daughter (Portrait of the Artist's Daughter), and six of the first graduates of the Smolny Institute for aristocrats' daughters. Many Ukrainian (eg, L. Myrypolsky, S. Maiatsky, L. Kalynovsky) and Russian portraitists studied with Levytsky at the academy, and his works influenced Volodymyr Borovykovsky.

Borovykovsky, Volodymyr b 4 August 1757 in Myrhorod in the Poltava region, d 18 April 1825 in Saint Petersburg. In 1788 iconographer and portrait painter Borovykovsky went to study portrait painting under Dmytro H. Levytsky at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. In 1793 he became an academician there. Until 1787 Borovykovsky lived and worked in Ukraine. During his career he painted many churches, icons, and iconostases, only some of which have been preserved: the icons of Christ (1784) and the Virgin Mary (1784 and 1787), now in Kyiv, the icon of SS Thomas and Basil (1770s, in Myrhorod), the iconostases and wall paintings in the village churches in Kybyntsi in the Poltava region and Ichnia in the Chernihiv region, several icons in the Church of Saint Catherine in Kherson, the religious painting King David (1785), now in Saint Petersburg, and the iconostasis in the Church of the Holy Protectress in the village of Romanivka in the Chernihiv region (1814–15). Borovykovsky's religious art departed from the established norms of Byzantine iconography in the Russian Empire and tended towards a realistic approach.