Dip the brushes into the sky

In memory of People’s Artist of Belarus Vitaly Tsvirko

He was called a poet of painting, a legend and a master. People’s Artist Vitaly Tsvirko left behind a whole galaxy of magnificent students and a grandiose creative legacy over 80 years of his life, most of which, from childhood, he spent without letting go of his brush. He travelled all over Belarus, spending his time in plein airs even in the most inhospitable weather, carrying huge canvases with him and, creating one living, animated landscape after another, all his life he painted a portrait of his Motherland.

Vitaly Tsvirko was born in the Gomel Region in 1913, in the picturesque village of Radeyevo (now Buda-Koshelevo District). By the way, three years later, in the neighbouring village of Uvarovichi, another outstanding painter was born — Yevsey Moiseyenko: there is something special in this beautiful land that makes hands reach for the brush. Vitaly Tsvirko’s parents were rural teachers (according to some sources, his father came from the noble Godytsky-Tsvirko family, distinguished by their passion for painting). One way or another, Konstantin Tsvirko was a good amateur artist and was constantly immersed in work with his easel; the boy received his first drawing lessons in the family circle.
Soon the family moved to Minsk, brushes and paints followed them in their luggage. Vitaly Tsvirko called the literary classic Kondrat Krapiva, who lived next door, one of his first teachers: ‘Uncle Kondrat’ himself was no stranger to painting and quite talented in this area. At school, the boy’s success was noticed by art teachers Anatoly Tychina and Mikhail Stanyuta, future classics themselves, who undertook to teach the talented young artist privately. 
A family environment, an internal craving for art and the influence of talented teachers are precisely what ensure not just the choice of a future profession, but success along the chosen path.
Vitaly Tsvirko entered the Vitebsk Art College, which was directed by the enthusiast Mikhail Kerzin and taught by Ivan Akhremchik, who was in love with his native land. Then the Surikov School, a course by revolutionary realists Pyotr Pokrazhevsky and Georgy Ryazhsky, lessons from the master of narrative painting Sergei Gerasimov and the magnificent landscape painter Igor Grabar... When the Nazis approached Moscow, Surikovsky students along with their teachers were evacuated to Uzbekistan. This is how Vitaly Tsvirko ended up in Samarkand, where his studies ended in 1942. But he had nowhere to return — his native Belarusian land was captured by the enemy.
He never remembered the years spent in evacuation, although they were reflected in a series of paintings. Samarkand, the very heart of the desert, kills with scorching heat during the day, and at night with a freezing piercing cold, from which the thin clothes of wartime could not protect. The artist’s little son did not survive the hardships, and then his father died — these were years of great sorrow, the war reaped its harvest not only on the battlefields and in death camps, but also in the distant rear, seemingly protected from harm. There was not enough work, there was no bread, the students of Surikovka were going crazy with hunger, but they collected money for a tank column — everything for the front, everything for Victory. Perhaps it was there, in the hot heart of Uzbekistan, that the future unbending optimism of the artist was forged: it could no longer be worse than it was during the war.
As soon as the news of the liberation of Minsk arrived, Tsvirko rushed to his homeland. It is difficult to imagine what this journey through a war-torn country was like: more than four thousand kilometres through a hungry rear, exhausted by work, through lands devastated by the occupiers — to a city completely destroyed, where the artist was overcome by the realisation of both the horror experienced by the people and the unprecedented feat of the Belarusians. All this — both grief and pride — spilled out after the Victory in a series of paintings on a military theme. The most important work of the 1940s for Vitaly Tsvirko was the canvas Unconquered: the execution of a partisan who did not lose his strength of spirit even a minute before his death. The artist’s student Leonid Shchemelev recalled how in 1948, captured Germans were sent to Germany through Minsk — and were brought to an exhibition dedicated to the horrors of war, “I remember one of his paintings especially well — a plot on the theme of occupation, harsh, accusatory. And I remember the Germans discussing it admiringly. The expressiveness of the figures and especially the landscape in the background aroused their genuine delight. Among these Germans there were many educated people; they discussed art quite professionally. And although at that exhibition there were many works by other artists, they only talked about Tsvirko...”

Unconquered

There is another iconic painting in the artist’s legacy — Revolt of Fishermen at Naroch Lake, painted in 1957: this is how the theme of the struggle of Western Belarus against the Poles was reflected in his work. A Polish officer reads out to fishermen an order banning fishing, which will deprive people of their livelihood. We see the anxious, gloomy faces of women and stern men, barely restraining their rage. These are yet another unconquered people, another manifesto picture: no stranger will ever receive submission from those who are flesh and blood of the Belarusian land. 

Revolt of Fishermen at Naroch Lake

And yet, over the years, the true path of Vitaly Tsvirko crystallised — a painter of his native land, in the discreet, but so beloved appearance of which the artist discovered more and more new features. 
He, like Byalynitsky-Birulya, rarely depicted a summer filled with bright colours: he was attracted by early spring, the time of arrival of rooks, red autumn, all in the rust of falling leaves, the abyss of mud, the bare trees of November and hundreds of tonnes of winter snow — Tsvirko even made snow alive. He could freeze on the street all day long, painting another landscape, but from the outside it seemed that everything was easy and simple for him. He gardened: apples, pears, apricots, pumpkins and corn cobs — these juicy, bright autumn fruits in his still lifes were grown by himself. As he worked, he hummed frivolous arias from operettas: something related him to the composer Imre Kalman, who composed his most sparkling melodies in a paroxysm of grief, melting mental pain into bravura marches and a dance whirlwind. So Tsvirko kept his experiences deep inside, as if building a light musical shield between himself and the world, and everything that accumulated inside he poured out onto canvas — nature is beautiful because in it you can always find consonance with any state of the soul. But only a true artist can capture this.

Motherland

They say that Tsvirko had his own ritual — like a prayer: before starting work, dip the brushes ‘into the sky’. He threw them high with a special sentence and, having caught them, got down to business. 
He was a hard worker, but he easily gave gifts — either his paintings or fruits from his garden. His house was endlessly crowded with guests — everyone knew that Tsvirko could easily spend the night if there was nowhere to stay in Minsk. He did not pursue a career, perhaps that is why he was easily elected chairman of the board of the Union of Artists. He received the People’s title in the prime of his life, he was only 50 years old — for an artist this is almost youth. Four years later he was given the State Prize of the BSSR — deservedly, but no one can accuse Tsvirko of pushing his elbows. Creative squabbles and intrigues were alien to him, and although envy destroyed a lot in his life, he never complained: it couldn’t be worse than it was during the war.

Pripyat River. Spring.

From his course at the Theatre and Art Institute (the current Academy of Arts), future greats emerged: of them, only three were national artists — Viktor Gromyko, Leonid Shchemelev, Georgy Poplavsky. Without Vitaly Tsvirko, the face of Belarusian painting would have been completely different, but he trained a whole generation of wonderful masters. His surname is consonant with the Belarusian pronunciation of the word ‘cricket’ — this is how he lived, a modest artist, drawing out with reverent strokes the long song of his native fields.

By Irina Ovsepyan