Gennady Gorbaty's painting: crypto-realism as overcoming imitation of reality

Abstract

The purpose of this article: analysis of Gennady Gorbaty's painting, in the work of which the transition from a realistic reflection of the world to the art of postmodernism, characteristic of Ukrainian art of the late 20th century, was reflected in a peculiar way. The methodology is the application of art analysis, methods of comparison and generalization, biographical and historical approach. The scientific novelty lies in the discovery of the peculiarities of the transformation of the traditional for Soviet art reflection of reality into visual practices of the late 20th – early 21st centuries on the example of the work of a particular artist. Conclusions. Gennady Gorbaty studied at the Kyiv State Art Institute (1981–1987), so his formation was significantly influenced by the traditional school of painting with a mostly realistic reproduction of the world around it and a purely academic hierarchy of genres. The socio-political situation in Ukraine in the late 1980s and early 1990s not only contributed to the liberation from such a view of art, but also intensified attention to the development of both contemporary world art and modernist manifestations that existed  in the culture of the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, many artists became interested in the history of Ukraine, especially in its tragic or dramatic pages, which led to the emergence of numerous compositions with a complex system of symbols and associations, elements borrowed from the paintings of past eras. In the work of Gennady Gorbaty can be consistently traced a variety of influences, which demonstrate his search for his own plastic language, the gradual departure from the conditionally realistic art of the Soviet era and the formation of a peculiar manner of performance. This was facilitated by an acquaintance with Western European art of the late 20th century, as the artist has been working in Germany since the early 1990s. It was one of the German art critics G. Beck who defined the stylistics of G. Gorbaty's works as crypto-realism, in which the emotional beginning, reflected in the color scheme and expression of picturesque textures, is combined with supposedly hidden motives of visible reality. In the works of this author, the blurring of genres, the synthesis in one picture of elements of different artistic epochs – from the Middle Ages to postmodernism – is also noticeable.