The launch of a unique art book entitled Johann Heorh Pinzel: Sculpture and Transformation, published by the Hrani-T Publishers jointly with Yi, the independent Lviv-based cultural journal, recently took place at the National Museum of Ukraine. Until now, few Ukrainians were aware of this 18th-century master of Baroque sculpture, whom Western researchers call the “Slavic Michelangelo.”
The dramatic history of Ukraine in the 20th century was not favorable to preserving the artist’s wood sculptures, which were once displayed on the altars of Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. At the request of the starosta (royal administrator) of Kaniv, Michal Potocki, at whose court a sculptor appeared in the mid-1740s, Pinzel created allegorical stone figures that were placed on the attic of the Buchach town hall (Ternopil region). Later, he created an iconostasis for the Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Buchach, a pulpit and altars for the churches of St. Nicholas and the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a crucifix for St. Martin’s Roman Catholic Church in Lviv.
Pinzel also worked in Lviv’s archcathedral of St. George on whose facade he sculpted the stone statues of SS George, Louis, and Athanasius, the latter two who were patrons of the Sheptytsky family and involved in the construction of the church.
From the works of the master that miraculously survived, the staff of the Lviv Picture Gallery and its director Borys Voznytsky, Hero of Ukraine, created a museum based on the works of Pinzel and his pupils, whose collection forms the nucleus of the art book. The large-format album features close-ups of nearly 50 sculptures, made possible thanks to modern optics. The works are presented in a very organic and cyclical way: they range from the Annunciation to the Assumption. Each work is accompanied by quotations by well-known people of the time (Jacob Boim, Ivan Velychkovsky, and Ivan Vyshensky) and writers from the 20th century.
“Pinzel’s works are often called modernism in Catholicism,” notes Diana Klochko, editor in chief of Hrani-T Publishers. “This led us to examine some interesting personalities of the 20th century. Sociologist Leonid Finberg comments: “For us, the publication of this art book is the discovery of a great artist. I am certain that I am not the only one who for years looked for the chance to have Pinzel’s works accessible not only to the residents of Lviv but for people in other Ukrainian cities, and other countries, in the final analysis. We are contemporaries, who have the possibility to write and publish; in a sense, we are discovering completely different worlds — real ones. And in these real worlds the value of what Pinzel did for 18th-century Ukrainian culture is obvious.”
The Pinzel book was recently presented at the Warsaw Book Fair, where the Poles launched their own album called Jan Jerzy Pinzel, which was financed by the Polish government. The Ukrainian book was published thanks to private initiatives. “It became clear at the launch of these two art albums that Pinzel is our shared heritage,” Klochko says. “This will make us think about the way our national creations are enriching the world’s cultural heritage. When we were consulting with Borys Voznytsky, we learned that it is impossible to say with any certainty whether one work or another belongs to Pinzel or one of his pupils. That is why I would like our book to spark a discussion among art specialists about the personality of this mysterious master, information about which is mostly preserved in birth-registry books.”
The Hrani-T Publishing House has issued a whole series of works related to Pinzel’s art. Besides the newly-published book on Pinzel, it recently issued an art calendar featuring all his sculptures, as well as a work of fiction by the well- known Ukrainian writer Yevhenia Kononenko, entitled The Sacrifice of the Forgotten Master.
