12 Nudes by Mykola Hlushchenko
Exclusive by Ukrainian Art Library“Hlushchenko’s women are loving friends who invite to take pleasure”
The album of erotic lithographs by Mykola Hlushchenko was published in Paris in March 1928. The circulation was 132 copies, of which 12 copies were printed on Japanese paper numbered from 1 to 12, each with an original drawing enclosed; 20 copies of non-commercial, marked from A to T; 100 copies on Dutch paper numbering from 13 to 112. The album of the ”Cousin Pons publishers” immediately became widely known in the artistic circles of the European countries.
Hlushchenko moved to Paris in 1925 and quickly attracted the attention of the local artistic bohemia, in particular the journalist and art historian Floran Fels. He wrote a poetic and mysterious preface to the album, and also found the publisher.
“Cousin Pons ”has been watching for several years the development of Hlushchenko, his hard work and searches,” as it was written in the publishing announcement, “we are the first to talk about him since he has appeared in Paris. He was able to find a new theme in landscapes and gave us his vision of the topic,but this does not mean that the artist neglected portraiture and ”nu”. Just the latter, give to Hlushchenko’s landscapes a special charm”.
Mykola Hlushchenko 1920th
Mykola Hlushchenko is an amazingly versatile artist but his biography is not a topic of a short publication but of a complete study. He was equally successful in his landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and a complex genre of “Nu” (translated from French as “naked nature”).
The delight of watching at ”nus”does not need words. But we can not do without a few quotations by Floran Fels from the preface to the album “Douze nus de Gloutchenko”:
– “… I am convinced that when you conceived the idea of your lithographs of nude women, than love itself inspired your talent for your exaltation. All of us have a certain code of this beautiful and dangerous game”;
“What kind of language and women does our artist imagine at night!” Are moral sufferings, false betrayal,affected contempt inaccessible to every man with imagination? Who does not torture the flesh, it is not worth being loved, and that’s exactly because you provided with certain sense the poses of your models, you are doomed, my dear Glushchenko, to be a master of erotic “;
– “Because of the fact that among our young artists he is one of the most gifted in all genres, without false stigma, he encourages his models to show invitation or self-oblivion which can be considered in accordance with the mood of a spectator. As he works with a generous brush and a broad soul, he would like to make us the accomplices in his observations and comrades in his own savors. What a noble soul! He lacks reproaches of conscience, just like his models lack covers, he knows that the greatest artist of the present (no , ladies and gentlemen, not Cézanne, but Renoir) would not get lost in full view of a proudly bold nipple. The nude nature achieves its perfection when it comes to the desire to slap it down the buttocks. This is the axiom and the purpose of the aesthetic aspirations of this artist who can decorate the woman with her own beauty. “
