Visual Arts and Nation-Building in Ukraine

In the thirty-first year of its independent existence as a modern state, Ukraine has emerged as the precarious frontier of a new Europe. This course introduces us to Ukraine’s rich history of visual arts and its role in the conception of the modern Ukrainian nation. While exploring a variety of visual arts from monumental architecture to painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, we will question the role of artistic and cultural monuments in the creation of national history and memory.

Our historical overview will begin with the early Kievan Principality and its contacts with Byzantium; proceed to the Polish-Lithuanian influence from the late 13th century to the Renaissance; and conclude with the Cossack Baroque and international classicism of the 17th and 18th centuries. Our readings will cover authors such as art historian Alois Riegl and historian Pierre Nora. By the end of the course, we will have discovered not only a profound history of art, but also how such a history can be written and re-written in the service of nation-building.

Reading

• Alois Riegl
• Pierre Nora

About the instructor

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  Tatiana Senkevitch

  Tatiana Senkevitch is a historian of art and architecture with a diverse range of research and teaching interests spanning from painting to ballet and from urban planning to skyscraper architecture.