The Department of Restoration and Examination of Works of Art of the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts in the History of Restoration in Slobozhanshchyna

Abstract

The article is devoted to the scientific, practical and pedagogical experience of the Department of Restoration and Examination of Works of Art of the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts throughout its existence in the context of the development of this industry in the historical territory of Sloboda Ukraine. The REWA department of KSADA is the only educational institution in the East of Ukraine that trains artists-restorers of easel and monumental painting, specialists in expertise. Over the years, the department has restored many hundreds of works of art, and graduates of the department successfully work in restoration and museum institutions in Ukraine and the EU. The establishment of the REWA department was preceded by a long historical process of restoration activities in the region, which dates back to the second half of the seventeenth century, the time of the founding of Slobozhanshchyna. The first local restorers were icon painters, who were invited to perform works of art in cities and monasteries. Later, in the nineteenth century, the role of restorers was performed by local, including well-known, painters (I. Bunakov, I. Kulikovsky, M. Uvarov). Restoration education in Slobozhanshchyna dates back to 1902, when the training and icon-painting workshop was opened in Sloboda Borysivka, where the restoration of icon-painting was taught for the first time in the historical Ukrainian lands. During the First World War, the unveiling of the icon of St. Nicholas of Miletus Monastery became a significant event in Kharkiv (1915). In the 1920s and 1930s well-known restorers and representatives of related professions who mastered the profession of a restorer (M. Kasperovych, I. Sviatenko, P. Fomin, etc.), worked in Kharkiv. A restoration workshop operated at the Ukrainian Art Gallery in 1930s, and in 1938 the first Ukrainian-language edition on this subject was published and a separate section devoted to restoration (V. Lokhanko “Artistic Materials and Painting Techniques”). In 1984, Kharkiv branch of the State Research and Restoration Workshops was opened. Higher restoration education in Slobozhanshchyna was started in 1988, as a section of painting restoration, which was transformed into an independent graduating department in 1994. Teachers and students of the department within the educational process carry out practical restoration of works of art, monitoring of private and museum collections, the state of preservation of monumental paintings. They develop and improve methods of restoration, publish and patent developments and discoveries. The Department of REWA is constantly working on improvement of teaching and methods of evaluating the work of students, planning to open new educational programs.