UKRAINIAN MONUMENTAL WALL PAINTING: MEDIA VARIATIONS AND CULTURAL ATTRIBUTIONS

Abstract

This article offers a comprehensive historical and art-historical analysis of the development of Ukrainian monumental wall painting, tracing its trajectory from prehistoric ornamental murals to contemporary forms of muralism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The study examines the evolution of medium-specific variations in monumental painting against the background of shifting sociocultural, political, and ideological paradigms. Particular attention is paid to the formation of a national model of monumentalism in the period of Kyivan Rus, the transformations of Baroque wall painting, the influence of imperial stylistic canons of the nineteenth century, and the modernist breakthrough of the early twentieth century associated with Mykhailo Boichuk and his school. The Soviet period is analysed as a time of ideological unification of monumental art and, simultaneously, of latent preservation of national codes through decorative and symbolic solutions. A separate section addresses the generation of the Sixtiers and the phenomenon of monumental art as a form of cultural resistance to a totalitarian system. The article explores the continuity of Boichukist principles in the artistic practices of the second half of the twentieth century and their influence on the emergence of contemporary Ukrainian mural art. The central argument is that Ukrainian monumental wall painting possesses a dual nature—both aesthetic and ideological—and throughout centuries has functioned as a means of shaping cultural memory, national identity, and social communication.