PLACE AND ROLE OF EMANUIL KHRAPKО IN BOOKPLATE SHEVCHENKIANA OF UKRAINE

Abstract

The article is dedicated to ex-libris Shevchenkiana of Emanuil Khrapko, a little-known Ukrainian graphic artist of the second half of the 20th century. Today, the artist’s Shevchenko book marks, kept in private collections of artists, bibliophiles, collectors of Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Lviv and other cities of Ukraine, remain out of the attention of art experts. This testifies to the relevance of their multifaceted analysis. The purpose of the publication is to reveal the features of the compositional and figurative-content solutions of book marks, thematically related to the life and work of Taras Shevchenko. Over the course of twenty years, E. Khrapko created 100 Shevchenko bookplates. The main impetus for their appearance was the activities of Volodymyr Vitruk and the exhibition held in Lviv in 1984. The basis of E. Khrapko’s work was a thorough study of T. Shevchenko’s life path, deep understanding of the aesthetic priorities of his contemporaries, rethinking of the traditions of the Ukrainian art school of the early 20th century and the experience of Ukrainian artists of the second half of the 20th century. By systematizing the material and performing arthistorical analysis of dozens of E. Khrapko’s ex-librises, several thematic groups are identified: portrait (image of T. Shevchenko), plot (based on T. Shevchenko’s works) and monumental (monuments to T. Shevchenko). The first of these is formed by those works in the composition of which E. Khrapko’s reinterpreted self-portraits of Shevchenko and his photographs from different years are present. The works included in the second group contain the title of the collection “Kobzar”, quotes from individual poetic works, or images of the heroes created by the poet and thinker. The third group testifies to the artist’s good familiarity with T. Shevchenko monuments in various regions of Ukraine. Working on Shevchenko ex-librises, searching for new means of artistic expression, E. Khrapko developed an individual laconic language, which is distinguished by a deep symbolic character. The artist’s ex-libris Shevchenkiana reveal the general trends in the development of graphics of the second half of the 20th century and enrich Ukrainian art with new figurative and artistic solutions.