Petro Kholodny was a Ukrainian artist, scientist, chemist and politician. He was a prominent impressionist painter with an inclination to lyricism and a neo-Byzantinist.
Background
Kholodny was born in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, on December 18, 1876. He was the son of the Kholodnys family, a well-known national intellectual family. His grandfather and father were the burgomaster and the mayor, respectively. There were icon-painters among in the Kholodny's maternal line ancestors. "The Ukrainian elements dominated overwhelmingly in the town, and a small group of Russian officials was totally alien to us, and their life was not interesting," the artist recalled later.
Education
During Petro Kholodny's last two years at a high school, the Fourth Kyiv Gymnasium, he simultaneously attended evening classes at Mykola Murashko’s painting school. In 1897 he completed his studies at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Career
Petro Kholodny began to teach at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 1898 and was appointed principal of a Kyiv commercial school in 1906. He managed to combine teaching with art. He began to exhibit his works in 1910. These artworks unexpectedly attracted favorable comments both in the press and among professional artists. After that, Petro Kholodny devoted most of his time to painting. Kholodny became attracted by ancient Galician icons in 1914. Fascinated with the tempera technique, he began to study it immediately. His early paintings include A Tale of a Girl and Peacock (1916), Ivasyk and the Witch, The Wind, Kateryna, and A Gray Day. Due to his painting, A Tale of a Girl and Peacock, the artist positioned himself as one of the leading national symbolists.
In the years of the revolution and Ukrainian statehood, Kholodny worked at the Public Education Secretariat of the Ukrainian Central Rada and as a deputy minister at the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. In November 1920 he migrated to Poland together with the government and the army. The artist documented the whole journey in his oil studies and pencil sketches. In Tarnow, at a camp for interned UNR army officers and men, Petro Kholodny gave lectures on the current situation and prospects in national art, painted portraits of generals, government ministers, as well as a series of landscapes.
In 1921 the artist settled in Lviv. Here he organized and was at the head of the Society of Promoters of Ukrainian Art. Petro Kholodny took an active part in artistic events and exhibitions during 1922-1927. The artist created the portraits of his contemporaries M. Yunakiv, V. Silsky, M. Omelianovych-Pavlenko, Otaman Yu. Tiutiunnyk, Colonel M. Paliienko, O. Huliai-Hulenko, writers V. Samiilenko and Yu. Romanchuk; a series of female portraits, and historical compositions, including Leaving the Castle, Prince Ihor’s Campaign against the Cumans, and Oh, the Rye in the Field.
At the same time, he began to paint icons and churches and to design stained-glass windows. His works included icons and stained-glass windows of the Dormition Church in Lviv, an iconostasis and murals at the Holy Ghost Chapel of the Lviv Theological Seminary, several icons at the parish churches in the villages of Radelychi and Zubets. These works were the mixture of the Ukrainian art tradition, Byzantine iconography and the expressive coloristic techniques of folk art.
Petro Kholodny's style is usually described as a mature impressionism of a Ukrainian variety that is deeply lyrical, it was free of schematism or archaism. The artist also worked in graphic art, and eventually developed his own style of drawing.