The Art of Old Artists as a Source of Inspiration in the Bookplates by Konstantin Kalinovich

Konstantin Yuryevich Kalinovich (b. 1959), an artist and illustrator who demonstrates exclusive techniques and a high degree of detail in the field of printed graphics, is the owner of a large number of international awards, prestigious art prizes and the title of Corresponding Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers of the United Kingdom (1992). K.Yu. Kalinovich’s professionalism is also convincingly manifested in small forms — in the art of ex-libris. The artist’s formation as an etcher began in the Leningrad period of his studies in the experimental lithographic workshop of the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineering under the guidance of G.P. Pakharevsky, and then continued at the Faculty of Graphics of the Ivan Fyodorov Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute. The creative heritage of A. Brunovsky and personal acquaintance with the Slovak master had a great influence on the formation of the individual graphic style. The artist’s bookplates, made in etching, are often homages in memory of old masters: the images created by H. Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, A. Dürer, H. Avercamp, J. Vermeer, and Rembrandt excite and inspire him to visual interpretation. The chosen range of artistic means is miniature, synthesis, printmaking as an independent expression of ex-libris. The technique is etching, less often watercolor, gouache. The type is a plot bookplate with the preserved function of belonging to a private library and the implementation of the customer’s idea. To the depth, picturesqueness and wide tonal range of etching, the artist adds original technical features: a dial from an old clock is selected as an etching board, and details of the clock mechanism are involved in the image base, correcting and warping the format and field of the etching with blind impressions. The plot echoing with the great artists and the meticulous thoroughness of K.Yu. Kalinovich’s technique generate original stories about the joy and pain of being, framed by a high form of appreciation for the art of the past. In the works of Kalinovich, the involvement in the composed metaphysical world, the visual images of which are fantastically realistic, monstrously attractive and historically filled, is clearly accentuated. The homage to the old artists’ art in Kalinovich’s bookplates is his world, forcing the viewers to reach for a magnifying glass so as not to miss a single line, while mastering the knowledge of the world art history.

1. Konstantin Kalynovych, Sacred Art Pilgrim: John Kohan on Sacred Art. Available at: http://sacredartpilgrim.com/collection/view/110 (accessed 15.08.2022).

2. Olikh I. “Shadows of the Winter Garden”: An Exhibition of the Graphic Artist Konstantin Kalinovich in Kiev, Artkhiv [Artchive]. Available at: https:// artchive.ru/news/2882~Teni_zimnego_sada_Vystavka_ grafika_Konstantina_Kalinovicha_v_Kieve (accessed 15.08.2022) (in Russ.).

3. Ivanova E. God Is in the Details, MENU Magazine, 2012, November, no. 11, pp. 20—27 (in Russ.).

4. Shostak E. Shadows in the Snow, Teni na snegu. Konstantin Kalinovich. Al’bom [Shadows in the Snow. Konstantin Kalinovich. Album]. Kharkiv, Globus Publ., 2020, pp. 7—8 (in Russ.).

5. Zvontsov V.M., Shistko V.I. Ofort. Tekhnika. Istoriya [Etching. Technique. History]. St. Petersburg, Avrora Publ., 2004, 269 p.

6. Golikova I.S. Tvorchestvo V.I. Shistko v kontekste pechatnoi grafiki Leningrada — Sankt-Peterburga [V.I. Shistko’s Creativity in the Context of Leningrad — St. Petersburg Printed Graphics], cand. art. diss.: 17.00.04. St. Petersburg, 2021, 351 p.

7. Aleshin V. Lviv Artist Oleg Denisenko, Redkie zamety nemolodogo idealista [Rare Notes of an Elderly Idealist]. Available at: https://vakin.livejournal.com/306970.html (accessed 15.08.2022) (in Russ.).

8. Konstantin Kalinovich (Konstantin Kalynovych), Ugolok nezhivoi prirody [A Corner of Inanimate Nature]. Available at: https://eanarris.livejournal.com/5587.html (accessed 15.08.2022) (in Russ.).

9. Zotova V.V. Artistic Capabilities of Etching as a Book Illustration on the Example of Albin Brunovsky’s Works, Vestnik MGUP im. Ivana Fedorova [Bulletin of the Ivan Fyodorov Moscow State University of Printing Arts], 2011, no. 6, pp. 476—480 (in Russ.).

10. Lozinskaya R. Albin Brunovsky: A Master of Fantastic Realism, Artkhiv [Artchive]. Available at: https:// artchive.ru/publications/3683~Al’bin_Brunovskij_ master_fantasticheskogo_realizma (accessed 15.08.2022) (in Russ.).

11. In Memory of Albin Brunovsky, Dnevnik zheny khudozhnika [A Diary of the Artist’s Wife]. Available at: https://tkalynovych.livejournal.com/17000.html (accessed 15.08.2022) (in Russ.).

12. Eroshkin V.F. Ex-Libris as a Graphic Composition, Omskii nauchnyi vestnik [Omsk Scientific Bulletin], 2014, no. 4 (131), pp. 201—205 (in Russ.).

13. Romanenkova Yu.V. The Bookplate in the Artistic Culture of Ukraine at the Turn of the 21st Century, Tekst. Kniga. Knigoizdanie [Text. Book. Publishing], 2021, no. 25, pp. 122—143. DOI: 10.17223/23062061/25/7/ (in Russ.).

14. Lavrenko G.B. Specific Features of Visual Imagery Creation in Bookplates in the 1980s—2010s, Pechat’ i slovo Sankt-Peterburga. Peterburgskie chteniya — 2015. XVII Vserossiiskaya nauchnaya konferentsiya: sbornik nauchnykh trudov [The Print and the Word of St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg Readings — 2015. The 17th All-Russian Scientific Conference: collected scientific papers]. St. Petersburg, 2016, pp. 141—147 (in Russ.).

15. Kohan J. Konstantin Kalynovych. The Great Mystificator, Sacred Art Meditations. Available at: http:// sacredartmeditations.com/moments/detail/41 (accessed 15.08.2022).

16. Konstantin Kalinovich in the Gallery “Triptych”, Zhurnal “Kommersant’’ Weekend” (Ukraina): sait [Kommersant Weekend Magazine (Ukraine): website], no. 89 of 30.05.2008, p. 11. Available at: https://www. kommersant.ru/doc/897732 (accessed 15.08.2022) (in Russ.).

17. Dmitrieva A.A. The Picture “Allegory of Painting” (“The Atelier of Artist”) by the 17th Century Dutch Artist Jan Vermeer. The Main Problems of Iconography, Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Istoriya [Bulletin of the St. Petersburg University. History]. St. Petersburg, 2009, no. 3, pp. 130—139 (in Russ.).

18. Daniel S.M. Rembrandt. St. Petersburg, Avrora Publ., 158 p. (in Russ.).

19. EL des Monats September 2020 — Konstantin Kalynovych: Vineyard in Heaven, DEUTSCHE EXLIBRIS-GESELLSCHAFT. Available at: https://www.exlibris-deg.de/2020/09/01/el-des-monats-september-2020- konstantin-kalynovych-vineyard-in-heaven/ (accessed 15.08.2022).

20. German M.Yu. Impressionizm. Osnovopolozhniki i posledovateli [Impressionism: Founders and Followers]. St. Petersburg, Azbuka-klassika Publ., 2008, 516 p.

21. Vipper B.R. Vvedenie v istoricheskoe izuchenie iskusstva [Introduction to the Historical Study of Art]. Moscow, AST-Press KNIGA Publ., 2004, 366 p.