Ukrainian Theatrical Drawings and Sketches of the Avant-Garde Era

YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Yuliya Maystrenko-Vakulenko Ukrainian Theatrical Drawings and Sketches of the Avant-Garde Era: Representation of a Four-Dimensional Space-Time Continuum 1 Introduction The first third of the twentieth century was a unique time in Ukrainian history. Many factors influenced the unprecedented explosion of creative thought and development of avant-garde movements in Ukraine, among which were revolutionary events, the people’s struggle to gain their sovereignty, the pursuance of freedom from the centuries-long oppression under the Russian empire, rapid industrialization and urbanization, expanding relationships between the Ukrainian creative elite and the cultural environment of Western Europe, which included joint exhibitions and actions, memberships in art groups, education in Western Europe’s academies, and adoption of new philosophical and worldview ideas. Discoveries made by mathematicians1, physicists2, and philosophers3 not only changed the fundamental concepts in science and the wider worldview, but also shaped new art practices. Without a doubt, Henri Poincaré’s ideas of a sensorimotor space and the non-Euclidean geometries developed by Lobachevsky and Riemann, all related to the Bergson’s philosophy (Dukhan, 2009, 195), directly influenced avantgarde artists. In the early twentieth century, the important step was made towards eliminating the borders between temporal and spatial arts, established by eighteenthcentury Classicist concepts. 1 2 3 At the beginning of the twentieth century, Henri Poincaré, Hermann Minkowski, Bernhard Riemann, Charles Howard Hinton and other mathematicians developed the idea of the ndimensionality of space. The physics discoveries of electromagnetic and radio waves, X-rays, and radiation at the end of the nineteenth century filled the emptiness of Euclidean space with different types of energies; Albert Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity combined four dimensions in a single continuum. For further reading on the connection between the formation of Cubism and Suprematism with these scientific achievements, see Henderson, 1975–1976; Ambrosio, 2016; Luecking, 2010. Henri Bergson introduced the concept of duration (la durée) (1889); time became a major theme in Edmund Husserl’s thought (1928), Oswald Spengler dedicated his work The Decline of the West to the evolution of concepts of time and space and its influence on the nature and development of world cultures (1928). DOI:10.4312/ars.15.1.197-211 197 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM 2 Time-Space Continuum in Cubism and Cubo-Futurism The fourth dimension — time — was in the spotlight of Cubist research. The Ukrainian theorist of a ‘new art’ Kazimir Malevich4 particularly stressed the need for introducing a time dimension to how an artist perceived and depicted reality. This had been a recurrent theme of his works. According to Malevich, “Cubists reached a new stage of perception, moving from static, three-dimensional perception to four-dimensional” (Malevich, 2003, 107). Movement “as representative of time” (Bergson, 1912, 58) had a particular value for Ukrainian avant-garde art. There’s a reason why Ukrainian-Russian avant-garde gave birth to Cubo-Futurism5, a style that values the research of both time and movement and finds the balance within the dynamics. We should also take into account a social and cultural shift Ukraine was experiencing at that time: it was changing dramatically from an agrarian provincial part of the Russian Empire that existed in a slowed rhythm of sowing and harvesting seasons into an urban and industrial country. “The unprecedented number of villagers are moving to cities. What happens to a human being in a modern city? (...) A megapolis sets the intensive pace of daily life. The intensity of city life brings emotional stress and controversies, traumas and neuroses” (Muzei kino, 2019). Ukrainian avant-garde artists fully understood the power of the city’s image and its very essence that showed a fundamental difference between the worldviews of villagers and city residents6. Movement and its properties became the focus of artists’ attention: “everything exists in time, (...) in movement, and to learn the true state of things, one needs to take the movement’s point of view (Malevich, 2003, 85). This fast pace of life in Soviet Ukraine at the end of the 1910s and during the 1920s, with industrialization, urbanization, and rapid change of surroundings became the defining characteristic of the ideas of avant-garde art: “The Futurists thus came to idealize movement as such” (Schapiro, 1978, 209). Movement is where time and space meet, it is a characteristic of time-space relations, the amount of time needed to cover a certain distance in three dimensions. It is a question of expressing non-uniform acceleration and deceleration, the impulse of movement, its amplitude and vector, its negative or positive curvature, etc. The space-time continuum was considered as a volatile environment that contains all possible variations of movement, creates them, and changes under their influence. 4 5 6 Kazimir Malevich came from a Ukrainian-Polish family. He was born in Kyiv and lived in Ukraine until seventeen. For details about his later connections with Ukraine, see AvantGarde…, 2019. For details about his pedagogical work in Kyiv Art Institute, see Filevska, 2016. According to Jean-Claud Marcade, “Malevich created the term ‘cubo-futurism’…” (Marcade, 2013, 78); also about the origin of the term “cubo-futurism”, see Kashuba-Volvach, 2012, 219–225. For further study of the origin of this difference, see Spengler, 1928, 85–111, 94–95. 198 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM 3 Ukrainian Avant-Garde Theatre The search for means of representing new properties of the space-time continuum in avant-garde fine art embraced the specificities of each branch of art, including both two-dimensional (painting, drawing, graphic art) and three-dimensional (sculpture, architecture). Four-dimensional theatrical art and recently born art of cinema were different as they inherently reflected a complex mix of how image and action are developed in space and time. Blending different two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and four-dimensional kinds of art into a complex continuum marked the establishment of fundamentally new properties of a work of art as a phenomenon of human activity. The theatre art gave a grounding for Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concepts developed in Phenomenology of Perception: “the unity of space can be discovered only in the interplay of the sensory realms” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005 [1945], 258). Given that a theatrical sketch is a two-dimensional project of a future four-dimensional work, avant-garde scenographic sketches represent a unique phenomenon for learning the evolution of space-time continuum representation. The name of Les Kurbas stands at the origins of Ukrainian avant-garde theatre. He was a pioneering Ukrainian director who thought of a theatrical performance as of a synergetic entity where the result of interaction between individual components — motion, rhythm, sound, image, colour, light — was greater than the sum of the parts. Kurbas’ ideas were supported and developed by prominent artists such as ballet dancer and founder of the School of Movement Bronislava Nijinska, avant-garde painters Oleksandra Exter, Vadym Meller, Anatol Petrytsky, and others. According to these ideas, a theatre director and a scenic designer were inseparable in their work. Thus, a painter had to acknowledge all the details of the play, from the rhythmics of actors’ movements defined by a director to the stage constructions, costumes, makeup, light, and a principle that would guide the character’s movement on stage. 4 Cubism in the Scenography Prominent Ukrainian avant-gardist Oleksandra Exter also worked with Nijinska’s School of Movement and created a series of costume sketches for ballet performances such as Spanish Dance (1918). In her costume sketches for famous performances in Tairov’s Moscow Chamber Theatre, Famira Kifared (1916), Salome (1917), and Romeo and Juliet (1921), (Fig. 1) she used mutually balancing movements-gestures and movements of drapery built on the contrast between straight and curved lines7 as basic compositional elements. These movements shape the energy while unfolding around 7 ‘Formative or additional elements of Cubism’ as defined by Kazimir Malevich (Malevich, 1998, 130, fig. 3). For more details on additional elements in avant-garde movements, see Malewitsch, 1927, 8–63. 199 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Figure 1: Oleksandra Exter, Costume sketch for the Romeo and Juliet play (William Shakespeare), 1921, Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine, Kyiv. Source and copyright permission: Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. human bodies. In costume sketches for Two Hebrews (1917) and Herodias Salome. Dance of Avant-Garde (1917), sharp diagonal lines created by the folds of clothing, all coming from a single point, structure space like the rays of a lightning projector. The folds overlapping one another convey a sense of some permanent alertness, the potentiality of the movement energy. Many famous scenic designers studied in Exter’s Kyiv-based studio: Vadym Meller, Oleksandr Tyshler, Anatol Petrytsky, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov, Isaac Rabinovich. Having a sound background of European education (from The Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière in Paris), Vadym Meller created some of his signature works for Nijinska’s School of Movement — these were costume sketches for Assyrian Dances in the ballet City written by Sergei Prokofiev (1919– 1920) (Fig. 2). Meller’s scenery sketches created in the second half of the 1910s and in the 1920s, as well as Exter’s works, are based on the combination of a straight line, a curved line, and an arch which creates a “sickle element” that, according to Kazimir Malevich, 200 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Figure 2: Vadym Meller, Assyrian Dances, Bronislava Nijinska’s School of Movement, 1919, Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine, Kyiv. Source and copyright permission: Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. constitutes the “formula of Cubism”8. “Vadym Meller shows the internal dynamic of movement in seemingly static figures. (…) A figure is divided into many geometric surfaces and points of view that aim to show the viewer the most complete information” (Melnyk, 2009–2010, 14–25). Such an aspiration to deliver “the most complete information” implies the search for the whole time field continuum, which was the major objective of Cubism. According to Edmund Husserl’s work, the time field, just like the field of view, consists of retentions (primary memory) and protentions (primary expectation) that move from the moment of now to the nearest past and the nearest future (Husserl, 1990 [1928], 33–41). Meller’s work reflects a similar search; it can be felt in the contemplative nature of shifts in concentrations of the tone of surfaces created by the intersection of straight and radial lines, by volumes being included in one another, by energy impulses coinciding. It makes the viewer glance through the vector directions of movement again and again, putting a linear amplitude into a temporal circle. 8 “Now I would like to focus your attention on a general nature of building a Cubist work: the whole composition leans towards a sickle shape. A sickle-shaped form of lines is like a common denominator any Cubist work should be brought to. In other words, a sickle shape is a formula of Cubism” (Malevich, 1998, 184). 201 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM 5 Byzantinism Along with the development of Cubism and Futurism, a powerful school called Renovation Byzantine founded by Mykhailo Boychuk in Paris in 1909 was experiencing growth in Ukraine. Later, Boychuk was developing his ideas of a national style in the Ukrainian Art Academy9. The name itself — Neo-Byzantinism — reveals the nature of this inherently Ukrainian movement: it was based on the Kyivan Rus art, rooted in the magical culture of Byzantium, where time isn’t put against space, as it is in the Western culture, but shapes the cavern-like nature of both space and time10. These ideas are reflected in scenographic drawings by Kost’ Yeleva, Boychuk’s student. Costume sketches for Freedom by Maurice Pottecher (directed by Konstantin Berezhnoi in Kyiv, 1921–1922) are drawn by a line that blends into a tint (Fig. 3). The pristine space of paper is perceived as the impenetrability of background, its absolute spacelessness, lengthy two-dimensionality, while its third dimension — depth — was excluded and combined with the fourth one — time — to create a supradimensional eternity. This absence of the third dimension which could have led from the foreground away into the distance, this excluded energy of depth, the direction of will11 which Oswald Spengler called a rigid time (Spengler, V.1, 1928, 173) is what, in Neo-Byzantinism, gives volume to time and creates eternity. Figure 3: Kost`(Kostiantyn) Yeleva, Sketch of the Woman from the Crowd costume for the Liberte play (Maurice Pottecher), 1921–1922, Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine, Kyiv. Source and copyright permission: Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. 9 10 11 Mykhailo Boychuk was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and professor of the monumental art workshop until 1931. He was repressed in 1937. “Not only world-space, but world-time also is cavern-like” (Spengler, V.2, 1928, 238). “... in reality there is only one true ‘dimension’ of space, which is direction from one’s self outwards into the distance, the ‘there’ and the future” (Spengler, V.1, 1928, 172). 202 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM 6 Constructivism Constructivism had a significant impact on the evolution of Ukrainian avant-garde theatre. Brand new concepts of organising performative space allowed for structuring the stage space with moving elements and multi-level venues, exposing constructions, accentuating different textures. Through an innovative approach to the notions of time and movement, constructivism was also embracing space. Defining a mutual trajectory of the movements of actors and stage elements was important in the construction of the stage space. Constructivist structured space intersected with temporal beings of characters: it correlates with Bergson’s understanding of duration (“la durée”), of movement as an abstract unity which holds the n-amount of moments (points on a trajectory) together, of tendency as a change of movement’s direction (Bergson, 1912, 58, 65). Anatol Petrytsky used a Constructivist approach in costume sketches for Eccentric Dances (directed by Kasian Goleizovsky in 1922) (Fig. 4). Using mutually reinforcing movements of geometricised structures, the artist makes space the primary compositional means of expression and it becomes an active character. The figures he depicts are not placed in space but are this space; it’s not the person who acts in space but the space is created by the movement built by trajectory vectors12. Figure 4: Anatol Petrytsky, Eccentric Dances, Kasian Goleizovsky, choreographer, Moscow Chamber Ballet, 1922, Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine, Kyiv. Source and copyright permission: Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. 12 Based on Kant’s assumptions, Merleau-Ponty claims that “There must be, as Kant conceded, a ‘motion which generated space’ which is our intentional motion, distinct from motion in space” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, 450–451). 203 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Constructivist principles were most greatly embodied in the artistic environment in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s capital during 1919–1934. The Kharkiv-based artist Borys Kosarev (1897–1994), one of the prominent Ukrainian theatrical designers, created decorations for a lot of performances in the 1920s and 1930s. Depth and time (the third and the fourth dimensions) do not have that much significance in his drawings tended toward Constructivism: it seems they are cancelled out and belong only to the actual events happening on stage in real-time in a three-dimensional space. A two-dimensional space of drawings, structured with objects-constructions, is waiting to be filled with a space-time movement of the active will of characters. Sketches of actors in a role represent a particular segment of the theatrical sketch genre. Normally they were realistic and served as a historical fixation of events. The drawings by Vadym Meller’s student Mylytsia (Maiia) Symashkevych made in the 1920s in Berezil are totally different. The laconic black ink drawing of Pavlo Dolyna in Ernst Toller’s The Machine Wreckers (1924), for example, is like a construction set made with clear straight lines supplemented with curved lines of different thicknesses. Images shaped by these geometric lines and, more importantly, by the compositional space left empty, quite accurately illustrate Oleksandr Bogomazov’s idea about the power of the potentiality of a line which is “developed from the motion of the Primal Element which is part of mass” (Bogomazov, 1996 [1914], 114) and is “a definite effective quantity of mass” (Bogomazov, 1996 [1914], 117). 7 Futurism The emphases on objects and subjects are dramatically shifted with Futurism becoming established in Ukrainian theatre. The actor’s body is deprived of the active, willed element of action, and becomes an “object, mechanical model, stage prop, and decoration” (Sahno, 2008, 652), while space takes over the role of a forming impulse and adopts properties of an acting element. This shift is clearly observable in such works as Kosarev’s costume sketches for Ivan Kocherga’s Marko in Hell (1928). A costume sketch for Three Witches (Fig. 5) demonstrates a high degree of plasticity: well-weighed curved lines flow through one another and combine three figures in a single object, concentrating viewers’ attention on the space between the figures. Flat and decorative, with no sign of volume modelling, these figures share the same objective space with the background. This is how the idea of making space an active subject is embodied, just like in Petrytsky’s sketches mentioned above. 204 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Figure 5: Borys Kosarev, Sketch of the Three Witches costumes for the Marko in Hell play (Ivan Kocherga), 1928, Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine, Kyiv. Source and copyright permission: Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. 8 Suprematism Suprematism had a special connection to with performance: “the birth of the square that had to conclude all the painting’s objectivity into a single sign” (Marcadé, 2013, 114) was happening — although, as Malevich claimed, “unconsciously” (Malevich, 2004, 66) — while he was working on decoration sketches for the opera Victory Over The Sun (1913). A quadrangular shape that is not yet a square but something close to it serves as a foundation for all six sketches for the opera. According to Jean-Claude Marcadé, “this sign, the black quadrangular, ‘the tsar’s child,’ ‘the icon of our time’ [...] emerges in the sketches for the 6th scene and the stage curtain” (Marcadé, 2013, 114). Paradoxically, the stage that represented a place full of objects and subjects pushed the emergence of objectlessness. Afterwards, while further developing the theory of Suprematism, Malevich put the domain of Suprematism above the time and space limits, freeing the depicted from all aspects of real nature — “weight, immovability, isolation, time, space” (Malevich, 2000, 90). 205 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM This complex system of relations between the objects and a performative environment, between movement and tranquillity, between time and space, created objective scenic images at the intersection with Suprematist objectlessness, built with the elements of Suprematist art. Anatol Petrytsky used surfaces, straight lines, diagonals, circles, rectangles while creating numerous character images for Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot directed by Louis Laber (1927). The composition is based on connecting the large geometricised surfaces of the figures with the white infinite space of paper. Additional Suprematist elements (Malewitsch, 1926) used for structuring a two-dimensional sheet of paper gave the clear surfaces the subjective space, that way neglecting the existence of a live actor’s body in a scenic space and emphasising the artificial nature of characters. These sketches, especially different variations of the executioner’s costumes, chime with Malevich’s character drawings for the opera Victory Over The Sun (1913): they follow the principles of a “new scenic design” where “…‘live’ costumes and masks became acting characters” (Sahno, 2008, 654). 9 Style combinations Another prominent Ukrainian scenic designer, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov used the expressive potential of Suprematist elements in combination with Constructivism. In his sketches for The Valkyrie (1929) he was discovering the ideas of a “new materiality” (Avant-Garde…, 2019, 145–9) through compositions of straight lines and geometrical figures — circles, semicircles, rectangles, truncated cylinders and prisms. The feeling of supertemporality, exclusion of time from the compositional equation is what distinguished these sketches. In costume sketches for Sergei Prokofiev’s opera The Love for Three Oranges (1926) that did not go into production, Khvostenko-Khvostov combined geometricised figures of Tchelio and Fata Morgana with a decorative resonance of colour. He masterly places anthropomorphous parts (faces, limbs) under a general structure of paper. A duplication solution repeatedly used in costume sketches for soldiers and servants is particularly striking. The rhythmics of squares divided by rhombuses of contrasting colours — emerald and red — is fuelled with diagonals of the marching soldiers’ arms and legs. The Suprematist play of two rectangles that build a compositional basis of the servants sketch (Fig. 6) intensifies the emotional expressiveness of marching characters. This is how the artist creates a complex feeling of a permanent, endless, cyclical movement. In scenery sketches for this performance, Khvostenko-Khvostov also implements Futurist elements, adding abstract diagonals to a circular movement of objects and characters. 206 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Figure 6: Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov, Sketch of the Two Coolie (servants) costumes for The Red Poppy ballet (Reinhold Gliere), 1928, Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine, Kyiv. Source and copyright permission: Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. 10 Conclusions Oswald Spengler claimed that “every culture has its own philosophy, (...) closely related to that of architecture and the arts of form” (Spengler, V. 1, 1928, 364). Along with the beginning of a new era, the shift in philosophy, and the development of physics and mathematics, the background of the common worldview had also changed and “the notions of time, movement and action, moment and eternity, past and present” thus evolved (Vipper, 1970, 317). Avant-garde movements of the first third of the twentieth century introduced a new understanding of the time-space continuum. Essentially, the approach to represent time — the choice of the research method, the focus on showing a certain characteristic of time — is what evoked the avant-garde movements. Cubist artists were discovering four dimensions of objects and were trying to find the directions of a temporal perspective, transforming them into linear, mutually directed vectors of movement. Futurists were interested in all possible variations of objects’ movement, as they existed in space-time, while CuboFuturists were focused on the interactions between time and space through the link of movement. Constructivism approached space, giving it the properties of objectivity and subjectivity, blurring the line between object and space. The closed field of a Neo-Byzantinist space-time continuum created the permanent becoming that 207 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM would never be settled. Suprematists moved their research to supertemporality, sublimating all the energy of the third and fourth dimensions in an effort to embody the spatial n-dimension. Owing to the synthetic nature of project thinking, Ukrainian scenery sketches of the first third of the twentieth century — this avant-garde “disegno”13, the concept of a performance — embodied a wide range of ways to show motion in a four-dimensional space-time continuum, combining means of expression from different avant-garde movements. The historical background — Stalinist repressions, limitations of creative freedom with the Procrustean framework of social realism — put an end to the overwhelming development of the Ukrainian avant-garde in the mid-1930s. Prominent avant-garde artists, including Les Kurbas, were repressed, while those who managed to escape persecution had to switch to the agenda of social realism. Any “formalist” elements were under a strict ban. The empirical nature of the Stalinist totalitarian state demanded certain artistic support, and the “art for people” slogan pushed artists back to a commonly understandable classicist concept of the three-dimensional space and perspective depth. There were no attempts to restage avant-garde plays in Ukraine, but the ideas of Les Kurbas’ school and his fellow artists continued inspiring generations of scenic designers. A young generation of artists did re-evaluate the avant-garde theatre ideas during the Thaw in the 1950–1960s (Kovalchuk, 2019, 82–89). Even though most of their attempts were not brought to life (plays would often be blocked by the government), they played a crucial role in building resistance and helping fight the official doctrines of Soviet totalitarianism. The art of Ukrainian non-conformism of the 1960s is often called “the second avant-garde.” With that said, our continuing research aims to spot the parallels and differences in how Ukrainian scenic designers of the avant-garde era and theatre designers of the 1960s represented the space-time continuum. Ukraine’s declaration of independence at the end of the 20th century spurred the second wave of interest in Ukrainian avant-garde art. Many contemporary Ukrainian artists derive inspiration from avant-garde ideas perceived as art free from political suppression. In this context, an important part of our research is analysing how scientific concepts, philosophical theories, and social and political background influenced the way Ukrainian scenic designers embodied time and space. 13 ‘The Italian term ‘disegno’ denotes both ‘design’ and ‘drawing’ (Bambach, 1999, 16). As the embodiment of project thinking, a theatrical sketch reflects the double meaning of this term. It is the idea, the concept of a future work (two- or three-dimensional) in its entirety. 208 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM References Ambrosio, C., Cubism and the Fourth Dimension, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 2–3, 41, November 2016, p. 202-221. Ambrosio, C., Avant-Garde. In Search of the Fourth Dimension, Kyiv 2019. Bambach, C. C., Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop. Theory and Practice, 1300–1600, Cambridge 1999. Bergson, H., An Introduction to Metaphysics, New York and London 1912. Bergson, H., Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience [Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness], Paris 1889. Bogomazov, A., Painting and Elements, Kyiv 1996. Dukhan, I., Iskusstvo dlitelnosti: filosofiya Anri Bergsona i hudozhestvennyiy eksperiment [The Art of Duration: Henri Bergson’s Philosophy and Artistic Experiment], Logos 3 (71) 2009, pp. 185–202. Filevska, T., Kazymyr Malevych. Kyivskyi period 1928–1930 [Kazimir Malevich. Kyiv Period 1928–1930], Kyiv 2016. Henderson, L. D., The Merging of Time and Space: The Fourth Dimension in Russia from Ouspensky to Malevich, The Structurist 15–16, 1975–1976, pp. 97–108. Husserl, E., On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917), Dordrecht 1990 [1928]. Kashuba-Volvach, O. D., Istoriia vynyknennia terminolohichnoho poniattia “kubofuturyzm” [The History of a Term “Cubo-Futurism”], Artistic Culture. Topical Issues 8, 2012, pp. 219–225. Kovalchuk, O. V., Stsenohrafichna praktyka u prostori XX stolittia: kyivski realii [Scenographic Practice in the Space of the 20th Century: Kyiv Realities], Kyiv 2019. 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Malevich, K., Zhivopis v probleme arhitektury [Painting in the Problem of Architecture], in: Sobranie sochinenij v pyati tomah. T. 2 [Collected Works in Five Volumes. V. 2], Moskva 1998, pp. 129–141. Malewitsch, K., I Tell: Einfuhrung in die Teorie des additionale Elements der Malerei, Die gegenstandslose, 11, Münich, 1927, pp. 8–63. Marcade, J.-C. Malevich, Kyiv 2013. Melnyk, T., Pohliad na stsenohrafichnu spadshchynu Vadyma Mellera: [The Perspective on Scenery Designs of Vadym Meller], Prostsenium 3 (25) – 1 (26), 2009–2010, pp. 14–25, http:// www.tmf-museum.kiev.ua/nauka/37-мельник-т-погляд-на-сценографічну-спадщину-вмеллера.html [Accessed 1. Apr. 2020]. 209 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Merleau-Ponty, M., Phenomenology of Perception, London 2005. Muzei kino. Vystavka VUFKU. [Film Museum. Exhibition of VUFKU] Lost&Found. https:// vufku.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/210x110_putivnyk_print.pdf [Accessed 10. Dec. 2019]. Sahno, I., “Stratografiya tela” v futuristicheskom teatre [“Stratography of the Body” in Futurist Theatre], in: Avangard i teatr 1910–1920-h godov [Avant-Garde and Theatre of the 1910– 1920s], Moskva 2008, pp. 651–661. Schapiro, M., Nature of Abstract Art, in: Modern Art. 19th & 20th Centuries, New York 1978, pp. 185–212. Spengler, O., The Decline of the West. V. 1, New York 1928. Spengler, O., The Decline of the West. V. 2, New York 1928. Vipper, B., Stati ob iskusstve [Writings on Art], Moskva 1970. Yuliya Maystrenko-Vakulenko Ukrainian Theatrical Drawings and Sketches of the Avant-Garde Era: Representation of a Four-Dimensional Space-Time Continuum Keywords: avant-garde, space-time continuum, drawing, Ukrainian theatrical drawing, sketch The study of time, space and movement as constituent art elements was a focus of attention of avant-garde artists. The theatre where events unfold both in space and time became a place of consolidation of Ukrainian artists, with the synergistic association of representatives in various art branches and movements. A scenographic sketch, that is, a two-dimensional realisation of idea of a future four-dimensional work, is a unique phenomenon to study the evolution of the avant-garde’s concept of the space-time continuum. Through the example of works of both distinguished and less known Ukrainian theatre artists we have studied features of the realisation of time and space categories according to the key stylistic directions of the Ukrainian avant-garde: cubism, futurism, cubo-futurism, constructivism, suprematism. A theoretical basis for the study has been provided by works of Western thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Edmund Husserl, Henri Bergson, Oswald Spengler, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Meyer Schapiro, along with the Ukrainian art theorists Kasimir Malevich, Aleksandr Bogomasov, and Les Kurbas, as well as works of modern researchers such as Linda Henderson and Igor Duchan. We have drawn a parallel between the development of art concepts in the Ukrainian avantgarde and scientific achievements, and the sense of time and space categories in the philosophical thought of that epoch. 210 YuliYa MaYstrenko-Vakulenko / ukrainian theatrical Drawings anD sketches of the aVant-garDe era: representation of a four-DiMensional space-tiMe continuuM Yuliya Maystrenko-Vakulenko Ukrajinske gledališčne slike in skice iz avantgardne dobe: predstavitev štiridimenzionalnosti časovnega prostora Ključne besede: avantgarda, časovni prostor, risanje, ukrajinsko gledališko risanje, skica Raziskovanje časa, prostora, gibanja kot sestavin umetnosti je v centru pozornosti avantgardnih umetnikov. Gledališče, ki odvija dejanje tako v prostoru kot tudi v času, je postalo kraj za konsolidacijo umetniških moči Ukrajine, sinergijske povezave zastopnikov različnih umetniških področij in smeri. Scenografska skica je dvodimenzionalni izraz ideje prihodnjega štiridimenzionalnega ustvarjalnega dela - je edinstveni pojav za preučevanje evolucije časovno prostorskih zasnov avantgarde. Na primerih umetnosti tako priljubljenih umetnikov kot tudi manj znanih ukrajinskih gledališčnih umetnikov so bile raziskane posebnosti izražanja časovnih in prostorskih kategorij glede na osnovne smeri sloga v ukrajinski avantgardi: kubizem, futurizem, kubofuturizem, konstruktivizem, suprematizem, neobizantinizem (boychukizem). Teoretični temelji za raziskave sestavljajo dela zahodnoevropskih mislecev konca ХІХ do začetka ХХ stoletja Edmunda Husserla, Henrija Bergsona, Oswalda Spenglera, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Meyera Schapiro; ukrajinskih umetniških teoretikov Kazimirja Maleviča, Alexanderja Bogomazova, Lesa Kurbasa ter dela sodobnih raziskovalcev Linde Henderson, Igorja Duhana in ostalih. Orisali smo vzporednice med razvojem umetniških zasnov ukrajinske avantgarde in znanstvenimi dosežki, razumevanjem kategorij časa in prostora v filozofski misli dobe. About the author Yuliya Maystrenko-Vakulenko graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (NAFAA), Graphics Art Department (2000), then she continued studying graphics art at the Post-Graduate Department of the NAFAA (2000–2003). She is mainly interested in the philosophy of art, focusing on studying Ukrainian drawing as an independent form of art. She has been a participant in more than 150 art exhibitions since 1993 in Ukraine and abroad. She has a PhD (2012) and is an Associate Professor (2013), Honoured Artist of Ukraine (2013), and Head of the Department of Scenography and Screen Arts (NAFAA) (2019). O avtorici Yuliya Maystrenko-Vakulenko je diplomirala na Nacionalni akademiji lepih umetnosti in arhitekture (NAFAA) na oddelku Grafike (2000); nato je študij grafike nadaljevala na akademiji (NAFAA) na podiplomskem oddelku (2000–2003). Njeno področje raziksovanja je filozofija umetnosti, znotraj katere se predvsem posveča ukrajinski risarski umetnosti kot neodvisni umetniški veji. Od leta 1993 je sodelovala na več kot 150 razstavah v Ukrajini in v tujini. Doktorirala je leta 2012, od leta 2013 je izredna profesorica; leta 2013 je bila imenovana za častno umetnico Ukrajine; od leta 2019 dalje pa je predstojnica Oddelka za scenske umetnosti na Akademiji NAFAA. 211