Taras Shevchenko once said that if you can’t write, you should paint. That’s what happened to Mykola Tkachuk. Volhynian poetry lovers admired his first collection of verse Tender Rage. His popularity grew after the appearance in print of the books Grass Centennial and The Farewell of a Bee. But his poetic career was destined to be short. He suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right hand. He no longer could teach at a small school in Zalistsi, a village in Rozhyshche raion. However, he was fond of painting even as a teacher and his pictures were true masterpieces. After a difficult rehabilitation period painting became his life, although he now had to paint with his left hand. His artist friends insist that the Lord bestowed this talent on him in place of sound health.
All who are familiar with Tkachuk’s poetry agree that his paintings are his poems on canvas, considering that almost every poem extols the forest, water, and sun. Tkachuk thus explains his love for nature: “The trees are like people whose roots are in their land, whose life is inseparable from it. I am one of them. Water, the sky and the sun are what keeps man alive, makes him want to live. Everyone must have a road in life, for this road leads to your dream and fills you with hope.” This unusual perception of the surrounding world explains the life-asserting, optimistic mood of his canvases with their light-and-air effects and specific color nuances.
Over the past two and half years Tkachuk has painted more than 60 landscapes. His wife Tamara, now the principal of the school in Zalistsi (it has a large collection of his pictures on constant display), speaks about his incredible determination and dedication to art: “It has become his life. His speech is slurred, he can’t write, but he has found a way to communicate with the world. All his pictures are understandable, they need no explanation or assessment, even if not all of them are professionally made.”
Toward the end of August, the district organization of the Prosvita Society displayed Tkachuk’s first exhibit, with Tchaikovsky’s epigraph: “Nothing helps the development of one’s creative strength and crystallization of thought as does the forest.” Tkachuk flatly refuses to sell his paintings, so he has a mini art gallery at home. Also it was quite some time before he agreed to the first public display of his works. This poet-artist wrote once: “There is so little one needs: /A home, a cherry orchard, /A small spring rain, /A sprout green and fragrant. /One needs sorrow and joy, /A taste of life /And big love — perchance, /For one can also live without it…”
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Yulia Yaruchyk is enrolled in Den’s Summer School of Journalism
