Personality of Mykhailo Lishchyner without exaggeration defined artistic look of Lviv in the 1960s through the 1980s. Some works of the artist remind the brush work of the famous Pablo Picasso, even though Lishchyner didn’t base himself on the work of the great Spanish painter. He worked in another time – Soviet era, when it was important not to fall out from the plane of social realism and when search for one’s own philosophy and any mo-dernistic trends were condemned. Lishchyner managed to maneuver between permitted and desired. Showing “the joy of life on the collective farms,” he, at the same time, was able to get very deep into a soul of a man, his feelings, me-mories, and hopes.
Art critic Anna Bantsekova in her book Mykhailo Lishchyner, published for the artist’s anniversary, quotes his son Viacheslav Lishchyner: “My father survived the famine, war, revolution, was a lightweight man and lived in his studio. Not once in his life he would go on a vacation. In the 1960s I tried to take over the artistic spirit of my dad. I took up the paint. But I live by the principle: either do something good, or don’t do it at all. That is why I pursued another artistic path – music.”
By the way, in his last interview, recorded by Bantsekova in May 1991, Lishchyner said that he believes music to be the closest to the painting. Then he said: “The composition, the general state of things, shape, its sharpness – work of both a composer and an artist has the same principles. Henri Matisse in one of his paintings had red dancers on turquoise background… An amazing piece of music!” That time answering the question about what is important in art he said: “To be relaxed. To hear the voice inside of you and not to change. To be able to do many things but never turn into a crafts man.”
Lishchyner would not limit himself to one genre – he painted multi-figured compositions, still life paintings, portraits, and landscapes. The artist would unexpectedly combine different traditions and artistic trends. Bantsekova notes: “Evolving from the early works, made in impressionistic manner with nervous, pulsating stroke, which would even make canvases vibrate, Lishchyner came to neo primitivism of the late 1980s and 1990s, when the artist made maximum actual images using minimal means for it.”
Lishchyner’s works are now in collections of Lviv art gallery, National Museum in Lviv, Chisinau Art Museum, Khmelnytsky Art Museum, and in private collections in Ukraine, Russia, the US, Germany, Israel, and England.
The artist was always proud of the fact that he lived in Lviv, even though it was not his home town. Lishchyner was born in 1912 in Tiraspol, and yet he loved Lviv, where he moved to live in the late 1940s. “I am a Lviv artist,” proclaimed the artist proudly. This has become the name of the exhibition launched on December 5 in the art gallery “15/5” on Instytutska Street. Visitors can admire Lishchyner’s 20 paintings for two months. Admission is free.
