In presence of the Madonna

This year ‘The Artist and the City’ project is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Savitsky

Summer Minsk is traditionally rich in open air events — more often in music format, but there are exceptions. ‘The Artist and the City’ project traditionally offers to get acquainted with the masterpieces of Belarusian painting for the 11th time. Over the years of its existence and under this initiative works by Marc Chagall, Kazimir Malevich, Nikolai Seleschuk, Zoya Litvinova, Georgy Skripnichenko, Leonid Shchemelev have been demonstrated in the open air. This year Mikhail Savitsky, whose 100th birthday we celebrated in February, is the hero of the project.

Photo: www.minsknews.by

‘The Artist and the City’ stands out from the general series of the master’s anniversary exhibitions: this is probably the easiest way to, perhaps, hit the high spots of the work of Savitsky, and to become interested in the fate and life of the Hero of Belarus, who went through the Great Patriotic War, concentration camps and captured everything he experienced on canvas.
“The name of Mikhail Savitsky is significant for the Belarusian fine arts. The artist’s works reflect not only his personal fate, but also important historical events that befell the entire Belarusian people in the second half of the 20th century. The tragedy of the Great Patriotic War, the partisan movement, peaceful life and creative work, motherhood, biblical stories, ecology and the Chernobyl man-made disaster are the main themes of his work...” convinced the Director of the Museum of the History of Minsk Galina Ladisova, who is also the co-organiser of the project.


Reproductions of classical paintings were previously placed on Yakub Kolas Square, but for the second year now, a charming promenade location, the pedestrian zone of Komsomolskaya Street, has become a haven for the project. It was here, next to the monument to the city clock, that anti-vandal banners with works by Savitsky and his students were placed. 
“It is wonderful that this project is being implemented right here, on the territory of the historical centre, in this beautiful cosy corner of Minsk. Of course, it is impossible to imagine all the diversity of Mikhail Savitsky’s creativity in this space. But still, we strived for the residents and guests of the city to watch the iconic works that have already become textbook examples and are known not only in Belarus, but also abroad. On the other hand, I wanted to show those works that, perhaps, are unknown to the public. Still, Mikhail Savitsky is the person who probably had the greatest influence on the formation of our national fine arts,” believes Galina Ladisova.


Two Partisan Madonnas — the one exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and Partisan Madonna of Minsk, created by Savitsky at the suggestion of the legendary director of the National Art Museum Alena Aladava — paintings dedicated to family and loved ones, the portraits of which the artist painted with a kind of severe tenderness, works, which reflected the grief of war and the happiness of peaceful labour, the horror of Chernobyl disaster. An icon painting dedicated to two classics — Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas: the organisers managed to fit a lot into a compact exposition.

The theme of bread, for which there was always room in the master’s work, is of particular note: a front-line soldier and a starving prisoner of a concentration camp, Savitsky, like no one else, knew the price of a loaf of bread and the work thanks to which a fragrant crust appears on the table. However, the world itself is always conquered, suffered and precious in the paintings of the artist, the eyes of his heroes say that. 

“Savitsky’s approach, of course, reflected his biography, everything he experienced — hence his sacred attitude to work and bread. In this direction, the master created works that glorify the working man and have become textbook examples. An important place is occupied by works that are devoted to the family theme: Mikhail Andreevich painted many portraits of his loved ones. He was characterised by a very reverent attitude to the family, and not only to his own. But the theme of his famous Madonnas is continued by A Bush of Roses painting. This is the artist’s favourite work, and we just couldn’t help but exhibit it!” explains Galina Ladisova.


Mikhail Savitsky cannot be considered in isolation from his pedagogical activity, the creators of the project are convinced: the artist devoted more than 30 years to the creative academic workshops of painting, graphics and sculpture he created, from which many eminent masters have come out today. Therefore, the master’s students also took part in the exhibition — famous Belarusian authors Viktor Alshevsky, Igor Barkhatkov, Vladimir Goncharuk, Viktor Dubrava, Roman Zaslonov, Vladimir Kozhukh and Yuri Krupenkov, the next generation of the Belarusian school of painting. 
‘The Artist and the City’ open-air exhibition will run until the end of September. 

‘The Artist and the City’ project is implemented by the Museum of the History of Minsk with the support of the Minsk City Executive Committee


By Irina Ovsepyan
Photos by Aleksey Vyazmitinov