Watercolour as an Artistic Means of Fixing Cultural Heritage Monuments of Ukraine in the Middle of the 19th – Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to clarify the role and features of the development of watercolour painting as a means of artistic fixation of cultural heritage monuments of Ukraine in the mid-19th – early 20th centuries, to highlight the function of documentation, to determine the impact on modern practices of preserving historical and cultural heritage and reconstruction of lost objects, subjects, and works. The focus of the study is the work of Vasyl Tropinin, Taras Shevchenko, Konstantin Trutovskyi, Serhii Vasylkivskyi, Olena Kulchytska and others. The research methodology is based on a cultural-historical approach in assessing the conditions and trends in the development of watercolour, its function in the creative interpretation of reality and fixation of cultural monuments, their documentation; historical and source analysis made it possible to select, systematise, review and evaluate literary sources in determining the state of development of the topic; a hermeneutic approach in combination with iconographic analysis was used in the processing of factual material, contributing to the clarification of the time and place of the depicted monuments, their condition at the time of creative fixation of the general appearance, individual elements and details; a comparative analysis of the creative manners of artists in depicting monuments revealed their value orientations and worldview principles in the formation of the ‘visual archive’ of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by a new approach to assessing the role of watercolour painting in the preservation of cultural heritage. Conclusions. Watercolour as an artistic and documentary means of recording objects and cultural monuments during the 19th and early 20th centuries contributed to the formation of a ‘visual archive’, which plays a multifunctional role in the system of preservation and study of cultural heritage. In this context, watercolour combines science, technology, art, cultural values, representing the past and the present. Its contribution to the development of interdisciplinary research, restoration, museum work, digital education, and humanities is significant in the context of modern challenges of protecting cultural heritage during the Russian-Ukrainian war.