Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Art & Architecture
Ukraine may not be immediately synonymous with art and architecture, but
that means there's a lot to discover in this corner of Eastern Europe. It's not
all Soviet realism and drab Soviet blocks as any visitor to the country will
quickly learn.
Some of Kyiv's most impressive Soviet architecture can be found underground in the
shape of its ornate metro stations.
Painting & Sculpture
Few would associate Ukraine with the arts and architecture, but as anyone who's been to
the country will tell you, the country's museums and galleries showcase exquisite local art
and traditional crafts, much of it with a folksy rural theme, and Ukrainian architecture is
not all about USSR-era concrete blocks and Stalinist pomp.
Icons
Icons are small holy images painted on a lime-wood panel with a mix of tempera, egg
yolk and hot wax. Brought to Ukraine from Constantinople by Volodymyr the Great in the
10th century and remaining the key religious art until the 17th century, icons were attrib-
uted with healing and spiritual powers. Icon painters - mostly monks - rarely signed
works, and depicted only Christ, the Virgin, angels and saints. Many of the oldest ex-
amples can be seen in museums, the best being Lviv's National Museum and Lutsk's Mu-
seum of the Volyn Icon. Church murals, mosaics and frescoes, as well as manuscript illu-
minations, developed at the same time as icons. Some of the oldest frescoes are found in
Kyiv's St Sophia's Cathedral.
Pysanky
Painted Easter eggs
(pysanky)
are an ancient Slavonic art found across Eastern Europe.
Designs are drawn in wax on the eggshell (emptied beforehand), the egg is dyed one col-
our and the process continually repeated until a complex pattern is built up. Different sym-
bols represent varying natural forces - a circle with a dot in the middle is the sun and so
on - but each Ukrainian region has its own traditions. The place to see them is Ko-
lomyya's Pysanky Museum housed in a purpose-built structure that looks like an Easter
egg.
