Sculpture

By its chronological limits, the sculpture collection dates from the second half of the 19th century to the early 21st century.

Sculpture as an art form is based on the principle of a three-dimensional, physically volumetric depiction of an object. Two main kinds of sculpture are distinguished: sculpture in the round and monumental sculpture.

Sculpture in the round includes the statue (a full-length figure), the group (several figures forming a whole), the statuette (a figure much smaller than life size), the torso (a waist-length depiction of a person) and the bust (a head-and-shoulders depiction).

Monumental and decorative sculpture is designed for a specific architectural and spatial solution or natural setting. It has a markedly public character, is addressed to mass audiences and is placed in a crowded place. Small-form sculpture includes works created for a living interior and in many respects merges with decorative and applied art.

The “Sculpture” group in the collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum includes, among others: the bas-relief “Prayer in the Synagogue”, a high relief after I. Yu. Repin’s painting “The Zaporozhian Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan”, a model of V. Mukhina’s monument “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman”, a bust by M. Samokysh, a souvenir that is a fragment of the memorial complex “Mamayev Kurgan” in Volgograd, a plaque dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Poznań, the sculptural group “The Cossack’s Farewell to His Wife”, and the statuette “Buddha”, made of various materials: metal (bronze, copper, cast iron), stone (marble, granite, sandstone, serpentinite), ceramic masses (biscuit, faience, alabaster, plaster), papier-mâché, cardboard, plastic and wood.

Unlike other works of the fine arts, sculpture has a more expressive character thanks to its plasticity, its play of light and shade, and its depiction of reality in three-dimensional forms.

Some of these works are already on display today in the exhibition halls of the Kharkiv Historical Museum, complementing the displays in a meaningful and vivid way. Among them are works by such well-known sculptors as P. K. Klodt, Ye. O. Lansere, M. Lanz, M. F. Ovsiankin, M. L. Riabinin and P. P. Verna.

P. K. Klodt (1805–1867) was a Russian animal sculptor and master foundryman, the author of the four equestrian groups on the Anichkov Bridge. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds a miniature copy of “The Horses on the Anichkov Bridge in St Petersburg”.

Ye. O. Lansere (1848–1886) was a Russian sculptor who worked in genre composition. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds only two of his well-known works: “The Cossack’s Farewell to His Wife” and “The Zaporozhian Cossacks after the Battle”.

M. F. Ovsiankin (1922–2009) was a Soviet sculptor, born in Kirov, who studied at the Kharkiv Art Institute (1948–1954) and worked in easel and monumental sculpture. He was a member of the Kharkiv branch of the Union of Artists of Ukraine from 1961, an Honoured Art Worker of Ukraine and a laureate of the Taras Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR in 1977. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds about five of his works. The most interesting are “Bust of O. Yarosh” and “K. Shevchenko, Full Cavalier of the Order of Glory”.

M. L. Riabinin (1919–1992) was a sculptor and People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR who worked in easel sculpture. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds his work “The Young Doctor”.

P. P. Verna (1867–1966) was a master of artistic wood carving and an Honoured Master of Folk Art of the Ukrainian SSR. The collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum holds his work “Bust of T. H. Shevchenko”.

M. Lanz was a drawing teacher at the educational school of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. He created a sculptural composition devoted to Pestalozzi, the Swiss educator of the 18th century and founder of the theory of primary education: “Pestalozzi with Children”.

Thus all items of a pictorial nature have sufficient informative content and are actively used in scholarly research and in creating displays.