“Such works open a completely different world”
An exhibition of French engravings of the 17th-19th centuries was opened at the Donetsk Regional Art Museum on February 6. This year the museum turns 75, and this project is the beginning of the series of exhibitions dedicated to the anniversary.
There are 39 items from the museum’s collection in the exposition, they were created by using various techniques: engraving with chisel, etching, lithography, stipple engraving, pencil technique. The oldest work, Portrait of Guillaume de Brisacier, was created by Antoine Masson in 1664. Chisel technique was used for it. The proud man in a wig depicted in the portrait was a secretary to the queen Anne of Austria. The work was created after an original painting by Nicolas Mignard.
A lot of themes are united in the exhibition: religious, genre, mythological ones. Tender features of Madonna the Gardener by Demarteau are truly fascinating. This stipple engraving was created in the early 19th century after a painting by Raphael. On the other side of the room there are satirical sketches from Paris life: The Small Ones Bite, School of Pierrots, The Harlequin’s Cloak. These lithographs by the famous master Paul Gavarni from the series “Masks and Faces” (the middle of the 19th century) are the most treasured part of the collection.
Deputy director of the Donetsk Regional Art Museum and curator of the exhibition Maryna Tretiakova comments: “French printed graphics is a valuable part of the museum’s collection, which includes over 6,000 items. During the years of occupation, the museum had lost the collection, but it was restored in the 1960s. The most famous USSR museums gave their pieces, French, German, Italian, Dutch graphics among them. The major part of this exhibition was received during the 1960s-1980s from the Hermitage and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.”
Director of the Donetsk Regional Art Museum Halyna Chumak says: “It is the first time we hold such an exhibition of graphic works, we have put a lot of effort in its organization. We have been preparing for the anniversary for two years, there will be five or six exhibitions in total. We are starting a project dedicated to Shevchenko’s anniversary in February, and in September, an exhibition of works of animalistic genre from the museum’s collection will be held.”
“Such works open a completely different world! Everything is different in graphics, it is the most ancient way of image transferring, it goes back to the times of primitive society. Graphics is an oratorio, in which all genres of fine arts participate,” shared his impressions the People’s Artist of Ukraine, graphic Volodymyr Shendel.
The exhibition of French engravings of the 17th-19th centuries will be open till March 30.
