Lino engraving in the creative work of Grigory Galkin: the artistic and figurative peculiarities

Abstract

The purpose of the article. The article presents the results of the graphic heritage research of the outstanding representative of the Kharkiv art school of the Soviet period, Grigory Galkin. The basic attention is paid to the examination of the engravings on linoleum. This technique was one of the most popular in the 60–70s of the last century and occupied a prominent place in the author’s creative work. The purpose of the work was to establish the characteristic technique of embodying the artistic images in the master’s lino engravings, to clarify the genre priorities and the stylistic peculiarities, which were manifested in the prints at different phases of Galkin’s activity. Methodology. The methods of the art criticism analysis became the main ones in the course of the work (figurative-stylistic, comparative-typological, iconographic), that allowed identifying the artistic and figurative peculiarities, the thematic diapason and the nature of the formal and plastic solutions of the works. The scientific novelty is to expand the idea of the G. Galkin’s graphic achievements, whose heritage is not subject to complex analysis and requires a systematic consideration from the standpoint of the contemporary art criticism and the revision of the existing stereotypes. The results of the work complement the existing picture of the development of the local art center of the last century and contribute to the introduction of the not popular visual materials into the scientific circulation of the contemporaneity. Conclusions. It has been established that the linoleum engraving, which was used by many artists of the 1960s and 70s, including those from Kharkiv, found an uncommon embodiment in the Grigory Galkin’s artistic practice. Some individual sheets and series of prints are marked by a variety of artistic and figurative interpretations, which reflect both the general tendencies of the «thaw» era Ukrainian graphics formation and the original author’s search for the formal plastic, compositional and coloristic solutions.