Portraits of the 18th Century from the Family Gallery of the Galagan’s: Socio-Cultural dynamics in visual images of history

Abstract

The article examines the issue of studying portraits from family galleries of the Ukrainian lordship of the 18th century as visual evidence of the social dynamics within this stratum. The concept of the article is based on the statement that a portrait as a historical source represents a person in the aggregate of personal characteristics and social role. The purpose of the article is to analyse the reproduction of socio-cultural changes experienced by the Hetmanate's elite during the 18th century in portraits from the Galagan’s collection. The authors used a set of methods of historical-anthropological and historical-artistic analysis. In particular, the facts of the real biographies of the representatives of the family were correlated with the images on the canvases. Changes in the choice of authors of works were analysed, and the evolution of artistic and technical methods of their performance was considered. Elements of clothing and materials from which they are made, the shape of hairstyles, and the presence of accessories were taken into account. Portraits of the Galagan’s illustrate the process of transformation of the Cossack-elderly family into a noble one and show the change of social roles within one family. The works of the family collection eloquently attest to two models in the behaviors of the top Cossacks and their descendants — the imitation of ancestral traditions and the borrowing of the lifestyle of the imperial aristocracy. The change in the artistic style of works is also a mirror of the dynamics of the socio-cultural priorities of society. Over the course of 50 years, the transition from Cossack portraits with characteristic features of the baroque style to academic canvases, combining elements of rocaille, classicism, sentimentalism, and romanticism, took place within one collection. At the same time, these works demonstrate how ancestral portraits became symbolic capital for Galagan descendants already in the 19th century, contributing to the formation of ideas about the Cossack roots of the family.