Isak Tartakovsky is by far the only Ukrainian artist whose paintings have adorned practically all republican exhibits of the late 20th century, an artist whose numerous canvases are being stored and regularly displayed in Ukraine’s 33 museums. On April 25 the refined landscape painter and unmatched portraitist would have turned 100.
A well-known master of painting Tartakovsky felt the love for painting on the very day his father bought him, spending practically last dime, an album of Italian Renaissance artists, when he was a child. Since that time, in spite of his talent, masterfulness, and recognition, Tartakovsky, who worked in the style of classical realism, deliberately or unknowingly tried to follow the amazing models of the classic of the world painting. As he admitted to his children, currently well-known artists as well, Anatolii Tartakovsky and Olena Palamarchuk, his childhood memories about familiarity with the replicas of famous paintings by great artists, from time to time emerged in his mind even when he was in a respectful age. Maybe that is the reason why Tartakovsky always remained in creative agitation, seeking the new form, interesting images, universal techniques of portrayal, having tried his hand practically in all genres of figurative art, like landscapes, portraits, thematic pictures, still life, and numerous sketches.
“I consider the portraits, which are plentiful in his oeuvre, especially interesting,” Liudmyla KOVALSKA, senior researcher at the 20th century art department, Ukraine’s National Museum of Art, told The Day, “Every portrait shows a soul of a contemporary. The uniqueness of Tartakovsky the portraitist, in my opinion, is that whenever he painted a portrait of a concrete person, he was always trying to give him a generalized image of his contemporary. Practically in every concrete personality the artist sought to trace the typical features of the 20th century Ukrainian.”
“His oeuvre is a model of painting mastery, perfect drawing, and compositional perfection,” art expert Valentyna YEFREMOVA opines, “Along with his everyday work on portraits, Tartakovsky painted many thematic pictures, full of love for nature and life on the whole; they are distinctly figurative and metaphorical. Tartakovsky’s creative wells are full of amazing energy, which are fueling and will continue to fuel many generations of admirers and experts of figurative art.”
Tartakovsky did not found his unique author’s style at once. In the 1950s he professionally admired the works of Spanish Velasquez. Art experts admit even certain similarity in the manners of portrayal in the work of both artists. In the 1960s-1970s Tartakovsky was attracted to impressionism, and in the 1970s, the refined and at the same time stark style of his canvases grew gradually milder. Since that time the author, as he worked on portraits, paid more attention to psychological picturing of the inner world of his character. Therefore most admirers of figurative art know Tartakovsky above all as a portraitist. Indeed, when you look at the portrait gallery of the artist, there is almost entire creative Ukrainian intelligentsia of the later 21st century. His canvases look like a separate page of Ukraine’s history. The numerous portraits also show unknown people. The critics note even today that in his portraits Tartakovsky did not simply visually depict people, rather conveying their inner world on canvases.
“Father painted with equal creative ardor both the portraits of well-known personalities, and average people,” Olena Palamarchuk recalls. “One day a man ferried him across the Dnipro. Father opened his painter’s case and painted his portrait for an hour. He painted practically everywhere: in the street, in trains, at concerts. In a word, wherever he came, he took out a notebook and a pencil from his pocket and started to draw.”
According to Olena, the work on one portrait could last between several hours and several weeks. Everything depended on how frank was the person who sat for the portrait. “The emotional characteristic of the portraits created by Tartakovsky is reinforced by the special magic of the look of selected persons. The artist gets emotionally involved with the characters of his works, giving them his feelings and respect. It paves the way for the confidential dialogue between the picture and the viewer,” Yefremova notes, “Tartakovsky had no match in conveying the deepened look, I would say. Those looks portray the life destiny, intellect, and spirituality.”
Critics assume that Tartakovsky’s special creative thinking was set in the 1930s, when he was a student of the Kyiv Institute of Cinematography, from which he successfully graduated in Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s studio as a cameraman. Hence “the magic of perfect compositions, which have no unnecessary things, the telltale melody of movement of the light-bearing palette.” After the war Tartakovsky studied at the Kyiv State Institute of Art (1945-51). “Father always recalled his teachers, Shovkunenko, Yeleva, Shtilman, Sharonov, and Hryhoriev, with especial tenderness,” Palamarchuk recalls, “These well-known artists laid the groundwork for his creative agitation, which later gave way to his own artistic manner.”
Having entered the history of Ukrainian painting above all as a portraitist, Tartakovsky painted many refined landscapes. His works are always original. He was able not only to illustrate what he saw, rather, so to say, letting it through, present the admirers of painting with his own vision of material and spiritual worlds that merge at the same time. “Light is in the foreground in Tartakovsky’s landscapes, making the composition look large-scale and monumental,” Yefremova considers. “Interestingly, all these works were painted from nature, in Kyiv and Poltava oblasts, in Transcarpathia and the Crimea, A Seagull and the Sea, Yachts on the Dnipro, Village Bohdan, A Dock in Gurzuf, March in the Countryside, Evening Sun, Sea Breakers.”
Tartakovsky authors numerous thematic pictures that are distinguished by their figurativeness and sincere love for people. His canvases In Liberated Kyiv, Everything for the Front, Heroes of the Dnipro are proof of this; warm and at the same exciting events from Taras Shevchenko’s life are conveyed in the pictures Death of Taras’s Mother, Shevchenko in a Studio. These canvases are stored in Taras Shevchenko museums in Kaniv and Kyiv.
In the 1990s Tartakovsky turns to the topic of the genocide of Jewish people, he creates the pictures Last Road, Captivated Jews, Jews and Political Instructors, Come Out!, The World Sorrow, The Tears of Babyn Yar.
“We have always felt our father’s background and erudition in the topics he selected for landscapes, heroes of his portraits, thematic sketches,” Palamarchuk recalls, “Father took interest in things far beyond painting. He loved classic music and literature, Ukrainian cinematography and theater. Maybe all this helped him practically in every work to find a certain implication, show the art connoisseurs the inner essence, real weight of what he painted.”
As years passed, Tartakovsky moved away from the complicate genre of portrait and focused his creative ardor on landscape and still life. Going to Kyiv environs, Koncha-Zaspa or Osokory, for a couple of days, the artist painted for hours the touching nature of the charming suburbs. In the landscapes of this period the author’s acuteness with which he depicts the surrounding world is especially impressive. In his works the artist masterfully depicts the many-colored Ukrainian life in the 20th century.
On the occasion of the artist’s birth centennial, on May 17, at 4 p.m., the Central State Archive Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine (22a Volodymyrska St., Sofia Kyivska National Preserve) will launch the exhibit of works by the People’s Artist of Ukraine Isak Tartakovsky.
