Caricatures of the Kobzar

Volodymyr Yatsuk, a renowned Ukrainian art historian and collector, has dedicated his life to researching Taras Shevchenko’s artistic legacy. He is the author of several books and monographs on the subject. One of his works is a study of Shevchenko’s images during his lifetime: portraits, self-portraits, and photographs. His unique photo album entitled Face to Face with Shevchenko is a collection of all illustrations on this topic.

“There are more than 100 images of the poet, which were made during his life,” says Yatsuk. “More than 50 of these were painted by Shevchenko. There is no other famous artist in the history of Ukrainian pictorial art who paid so much attention to self-portraits.”

Do you mean that Shevchenko suffered from narcissism?

V.Ya.: On the contrary, he was very self-exacting. After all, a self-portrait is a test of one’s professionalism. Also, self-portraits created by true artists are always the results of self-analysis and self-perception. Shevchenko sometimes referred to them as “portraits,” and these self-portraits are marked by quality as well as complex psychology. Chronologically compiled, they make up an image-bearing life story of the artist. When you study Shevchenko as an artist and poet, you can note a certain regularity; his self-portraits emerged precisely when Shevchenko was working especially fruitfully as a poet or when he felt inspired as an artist.

You mean when Shevchenko was writing poems with great inspiration, he was painting self-portraits?

V.Ya.: Precisely. What we know as his first self-portrait dates from February 1840, at almost the same time as he obtained permission from the Russian censorship committee to publish his first collection of poems, the Kobzar . He may have made that self-portrait to use it as an engraving in his book. Later, he gave preference to his friend Vassily Shternberg’s composition entitled “Kobzar with a Guide,” because the young poet’s image was somehow at odds with that of his lyrical hero, a blind, old kobza-player, who had experienced much in his life.

KARL BRIULLOV’S CARICATURES OF SHEVCHENKO

The first self-portrait of the art academy student and the last Indian ink-and-pencil sketches dating back to 1859 are separated by only 19 years — but it seems like half a century. The image of the creative young man filled with inspiration, who had just been bought out of serfdom by Vassily Zhukovsky and Karl Briullov, had changed into that of an old man tired out from his long travels, losses, and disillusionments. Yet this old man was only 45 years old. That was how Shevchenko saw himself and how he painted himself. How did his contemporaries view him?

V.Ya.: First of all, there is less tragedy in their portrayals, because they were painted mostly before Shevchenko’s exile. Among the portraits of Shevchenko painted by his contemporaries are those by Karl Briullov, Vassily Shternberg, Mikhail Mekeshin, Oleksii Chernyshov, Mykola Stepanov — these are mostly pencil and ink drawings, lithographs, and watercolors. Other surviving works of art are sketches done by famous men of letters and cultural figures, among them Vassily Zhukovsky, Panteleimon Kulish, Yakov de Balmen, and Mikhail Bashyrov.

Is it true that caricatures of Shevchenko dominate the pencil sketches of Zhukovsky, Briullov, Steinberg, and Mekeshyn’s?

V.Ya.: Yes. This attests to the ironical-friendly relationships that were predominant in their milieu. After all, only a person with a wonderful sense of humor can laugh at himself with others. Shevchenko was like that. His friends’ caricatures portray him as a big-headed idler. His features are deliberately exaggerated. It was impossible to take offence at these caricatures because they contained so much good-natured humor.

Photography began evolving during Shevchenko’s lifetime. What did he think about it? Are there any photo portraits of Shevchenko?

V.Ya.: Photography began emerging while Shevchenko was serving his 10- year exile. At the time, many people regarded photography as magic, while some artists were enchanted by it and dedicated their further creative endeavors to photography rather than pictorial art. Shevchenko’s attitude was more restrained; he believed that photographs “do not contain high fine art.” At the same time, he used photography as ancillary material. He used photographs, not a mirror, when he was etching his self-portraits.

Fortunately, Shevchenko was fond of posing for photographs. He knew a number of photographers and became friends with the Kyiv photographer Ivan Hudovsky, a fellow student from the St. Petersburg Art Academy. He lived for a time at his place on the corner of Malozhytomyrska Street. Photographs of Shevchenko, made in St. Petersburg and Kyiv, are extremely truthful sources of information about the poet’s outward appearance. When we were discussing his self-portraits, I shared your amazement: the 45-year-old poet looks surprisingly older and physically exhausted. Photographs are even more merciless. There is a surviving photograph made on the third day after Shevchenko’s return from exile. Looking at it, one is reminded of Hryhorii Halahan, who wrote: “Our poet has changed a lot, he has aged; his high forehead is crowned by a bald patch; his thick beard is gray, and the penetrating glance of his eyes liken him to one of our Cossack colonel grandfathers to whom people often go for advice.”

Photographs are also priceless material for biographers of this poet and artist, for they show his environment. There are many group photos with Shevchenko and his friends and acquaintances, which have given a fresh impetus to biographical studies and discoveries.