The album “God knows”is a new book released by the Library of Ukrainian Art. The publication is based on two albums of A4 format, 24 pages each, found by Kateryna Lebedieva on the antique market in Kyiv.
The drawings in the first album are dated by 1954, and in fact each of them is signed with the surname of Mishchenko. There are no signatures or dates in the second album; only the album itself was produced in 1963. The author remains unknown.
The drawings are created with pencils, automatic pen, and drawing pen.
On 48 sheets of the two albums, 19 images of humans and humanoids. The selection of characters chosen by Mishchenko clearly characterizes the very essence of the Ukrainian folklore of the Soviet period. Mykola Gogol, Taras Bulba, Joseph Stalin occupy a place next to the Witch from Konotop a crazy juggler and numerous fantastic animals. The symbols of the USSR (sickle, hammer) keep up with a traditional Ukrainian pair of pigeon and dove.
“Mishchenko is an amateur artist, an adult with a passion to art. He did not know the anatomy, but he was good at composition,” says an art critic, the head of the department of The National Folk Decorative Art Museum, Olena Shestakova. She also adds that there are no works of this kind in the museum’s collection.
The purpose of publishing the album “God knows” is to give to interested readers an opportunity to get acquainted with the unique monument of the Ukrainian culture.
In fact, Mishchenko’s “God Knows” is a museum exhibit, which is published in 100 copies.
You can leave an order for the album on the Library website.