INTERIOR DESIGNS OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY IN THE WORK OF VASIL KRYCHEVSKY, AMVROSIY ZHDAKHA, OLEKSANDR SAYENKO

Abstract

Among the legacy of prominent universal artists of the early 20th century, the interior designs of Vasyl Krychevsky, Amvrosy Zhdakha, and Oleksandr Sayenko attract attention. Once upon a time, their searches in this area were called the «Ukrainian style». Although, when it comes to national heritage, it is difficult to connect such experiments with the concept of great European historical styles. However, if we understand them as the styles of ancient civilizations that have preserved a certain hermeticity and refinement for centuries, this interpretation may be considered appropriate. Since, undoubtedly, the listed authors sought to achieve a certain stylistic unity in their interior designs and introduced a number of elements that correlated with the historical past of our country. Thus, Vasyl Krychevsky in the 1900s. in the Poltava zemstvo he initiated the tradition of interior design in the national «Ukrainian style», which met the contemporary needs of the local population of Eastern Ukraine. And if in the first project he was helped by outstanding artists Serhiy Vasylkivskyi and Opanas Slastyon, who espoused the ideas of the development of Ukrainian ornamentation of the Art Nouveau era, then in the 1930s, together with Petro Kostyrk, the artist and architect tried to implement projects in the national version within the framework of Art Deco, in particular – the interior of the lobby of the T. G. Shevchenko Reserve in Kanev. In return, Amvrosy Zhdakha left watercolor designs of the interiors of Ukrainian traditional housing, as well as living rooms in tenement houses of the 1910s, which are stored in his fund in the rare book department in the collection of the State Scientific Architectural and Construction Library named after M. Zabolotny in Kyiv. In them, the artist showed himself as a proto-designer who comprehensively studied the interiors of the dwellings of Southern Ukraine, in particular the Transdanubian Cossacks, as well as Podolian narratives, close to the Art Nouveau Zakopane style, and formed his own designs for the design of the environment of traditional housing, in which he tried to take into account all the needs of the time. In this series, it is worth mentioning the work in the specified field of Oleksandr Sayenko in the 1920s, who developed watercolor designs of rooms taking into account the design of the stove, furniture and textile decor in the style of Boychukism.