The subheading of this article is, in fact, the name of an exhibit now held at the Ukrainian National Museum of Literature. It is a joint project of the museum and the Embassy of the United Mexican States, which presents over 100 works of 28 Ukrainian icon painters.
The icon is one of the most exalted manifestations of human spirituality. As a worldwide artistic phenomenon, it was first created at the dawn of Christianity and spread throughout Europe, varying its face in each of the countries and absorbing the cultural and philosophical ideas of the epochs it represented. It is the Kyivan Cave Monastery that was the main inspirer of Ukrainian icon painters for many centuries. Ukraine’s borders were always open to the East and to the West, so national icon painting combined Byzantine and Catholic trends. The 21st century has set an especially difficult and topical task of creating modern-style icons. And although the project “Mexican and Ukrainian Icons in the Oeuvre of Ukrainian Icon Painters” sounds unusual and slightly exotic, such things as spontaneity, emotionality, and sincerity unite our cultures.
“The Mexican icon painting tradition takes us back to the distant past of Ukrainian temple art,” says Dmytro Hordytsia, project manager, trainee teacher at the Department of Painting and Temple Culture of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. “Here the two different cultures experience a sacred union. It is nothing but a generous spiritual tribute to the true faith which propagates the idyll of family unity and the integrity of eternal Christian truths. Mexico and Ukraine — the Maya, Slavs, Aztecs, Trypillians, the defenders of Orthodoxy, and Roman Catholics — all of them have been transforming their earthly existence into a more exalted world.”
Many countries of the world see a growing interest in the Ukrainian icon and the Catholic Church is gradually reverting to the Eastern rite, i.e., worshipping icons. There is an ongoing debate in the world of sacral art about what icon painting should be like in a present-day temple. The reason for this is that the icon is perhaps something more than just a piece of art. Everybody has always expected it to work a miracle, and the icon painter has always been facing a difficult task: to depict a boundless world, using some symbols and signs.
Mexican icons are an original and inimitable phenomenon. It is a country of the blazing sun, a fiery temperament, and profound religiousness. They display a deep-rooted link of generations and the extreme spiritual strength of the Mexican people who combine childish naivety and sensitivity. Painted with the use of the artistic methods typical of the Ukrainian temple painting school, the images of Catholic and Orthodox saints bring forth the truth of the Christian traditions on the intercontinental level and open the world of the Mexican icon to the spectator. Traditional themes are telling, via new colors and new efforts, a new history that began 2,000 years ago.
The head of the Mexican Mission in Ukraine, Cesar Oscar Ocaranza Caste eda, emphasized in his speech at the exhibit: “This project is a good illustration of the invaluable efforts of Ukrainian creators, many of whom are for the first time portraying the saints who are an important component of Mexican society, invested in the understanding and closer proximity of the two peoples.”
