Like so many others who visit Vienna, I went to enjoy the paintings of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele in the Upper Belvedere Museum. Klimt’s The Kiss from 1907 still attracts the crowds today. It is iconic and hypnotic, with its gold, flowers, patchwork of colours and geometric forms, the touching hands and the expression of bliss on the woman’s face.
Then, in the Lower Belvedere, I discovered another kiss – Fedir Krytschewskyj’s Love (1925-27) in the powerful exhibition dedicated to Ukrainian modernism – In the Eye of the Storm. While very different in colour choice, it shows strong structural similarities that suggest Klimt’s influence. It captures the eternal moment equally, just differently, more real-world love than Klimt’s Kiss.

There are also other clear cross-influences and shared inspiration with other artists. Olexandr Muraschko’s Washerwoman (1914) below reminds me of Bonnard’s colour palate. Viktor Palmov’s May 1 (1929) of Chagal’s colour choices. The warm yellow-orange of the former and the particular greens, blues and oranges of the latter almost make me think they shared tubes of paint.
Of course, the focus and brushstrokes are different – Bonnard represented more the idyllic country life, while Muraschko’s Washerwoman focused on the worker. Bonnard applied a patchwork of a million evident brushstrokes, like dabs of light, while Muraschko chose an augmented reality approach – everything is real but stronger. The similar colour choice evokes the same appreciation of the warmth of sunlight. They could have been paintings in neighbouring houses.

In Viktor Palmov’s 1 May (1929), the narrative differs fundamentally from the more folkloric stories and symbolism of a Marc Chagall. It is more of a workers’ rally. Interestingly, the proletariat protest is presented in a cool shadow green, compared to the emotion-filled orange family scene on the bottom left and the warm town, centre right. Does the coolness suggest a criticism of the communist gathering? The protruding buttocks of the man in the bottom left would suggest the painter mocks. The woman consoling her daughter, the bicycle and the lovers getting on with life underlines people’s real priorities. Also, the giant tree is to protect, but it looms like a golem, the flag like a gash in its torso and the two birds like the eyes of nature. We are left wondering whether Muraschko was warning all those who took the time to see that Communism was a danger. See the group of blue silhouetted people on the top left – cold, faceless, forgotten. The patches of warmth are squeezed and almost overpowered by the cool green and blue. This doesn’t seem like an endorsement of Communism.
There is much more to the exhibition than making comparisons, identifying common styles, seeking out who influenced whom and embarking on an art history voyage. I prefer to focus on three paintings that each suggest an intriguing own meaning, free from the flow of history, and thread them together.
The first is Lily (1908) by Mychajlo Schuk. At first I saw the orange open bloom on the top middle, then the half open to its left, the closed yellow flower waiting behind the open petals. Only when my eyes were tugged to the celestial blue did I notice the stars and the thin crescent moon. A moment later, the surprise: what I had thought was a protective shell or split open crystal rock, are wings. An eagle’s? An angel’s? An angel is a being of life (the flower), light (the stars), love (the protective embrace), poetic hope and freedom (the crescent moon and stars against the majestic empowering blue). But flowers are fragile and fleeting. Is this a statement of the need to protect the life and hope and opportunity of Ukraine? I shudder at the thought of missiles targetting the Lily. Protect it we must.

Mychajlo Saposchnykow’s The King of Darkness – Predawn Vision (before 1917) is a reflective, brooding ice-giant with his familiar, a white owl, in the grey before sunrise. We can only wonder at Ukrainian folktales and at the thoughts of this king, crowned with a halo, face stern, penetrating gaze locked onto something. What? I don’t know, but a king worries about his land.

Perhaps he is concerned about the Lily, the heart of his kingdom under attack. Or maybe he is remembering a lost song. This brings me to the final painting in this article – Wsewolod Maksymowytsch’s The First Symphony (1913).
The First Symphony is an astonishing piece. The centre could be the earth, green and alive; the orange halo could be an envelope of song – all the songs of all the souls on verdant earth, so vibrant that they reach into space, each curl and swirl a note, a chord, a voice. Together, they form an embracing sheath of song protecting the earth, like the wings protecting the flower, and the King of Darkness sits there, the symphony of life reverberating in his memory, his mind, his soul, and hoping that an angel will protect his kingdom in these times of need. No wonder The King of Darkness stares so.

I should declare that I have no idea as to the meaning that the artists of these paintings intended, but I build on the argument that paintings mean what we see, and I let that emerge for me. Now I can’t but see the orange swirls as a thousand melodies, the warm orange songs of the symphony, an emergence of song with sunrise, or sunset. It could also be the orange flames too often seen at war, but that wouldn’t be a symphony but a requiem no one wishes to hear. The orange is too alive, too geometrically beautiful and intact to be deathly fire. The halo is living music; it is the song of the washerwoman in the warm light of summer, the kiss of Fedir Krytschewskyj’s couple, the woman taking care of her child, a statement of the richness of life and the artistic identity of Ukraine. It is a moment of reflective beauty in the eye of a contemporary geopolitical storm.
The exhibition, also shown in Madrid, Cologne and Brussels, is in Vienna until 2 June 2024 and will be at the Royal Academy in London from 29 June to 13 October 2024. This series of exhibitions is a statement of courage – as many of the paintings left by truck during the war, a statement of Ukrainian identity – as many of the works have been falsely attributed to “Russian avant-garde”, and as a statement of solidarity with Ukraine.