IV. Read the biographies of famous Belarusian painters. Speak about your favourite artist.

Ivan Fomich Khrutsky is known for his still-lifes and portraits. He was born in the family that descended from Polish gentry in the village of Ula, near Vitebsk. In 1827, Khrutsky came to St. Petersburg and in 1830 entered the Imperial Academyof Arts. His first known works are dated 1832. The paintings gradually gathered public and critical acclaim. Khrutsky also worked as an interior designer, and became a popular amongst the wealthy home owners.

In 1836, Khrutsky was awarded the Major Silver medal of the Academy for his still-lifes. Khrutsky painted nice genre pictures and portraits. ‘Old Woman Knitting a Sock’, brought him the Minor Gold medal of the Academy.

In 1839 he was awarded the title of the Academician. After his father’s death in 1840 Khrutsky left St. Petersburg forever and settled in the family estate Zakharenichi, Polotsk region. This period is distinguished by religious art, mostly from Lithuania.

Besides religious paintings he also worked on portraits, such as Glazunov’s, Joseph Semashko’s, Mikolaj Malinowski’s and others. He died in 1885.

Napoleon Orda was born in 1807 in Pinsk district. His father was a marshal. After finishing a secondary school in 1823 he started mathematical studies at Vilnus University. However, his university career came to an end when he was arrested by the Russian secret police for taking part in an illegal polish patriotic organization. Although he was released soon afterwards, he was not allowed to continue his studies.

He travelled through many European countries, including Italy and Switzerland. Finally in 1833, he settled in Paris, where he became one of the prominent members of the Polish diaspora there and one of the close friends of Fryderyk Chopin. He studied piano play under the guidance of Chopin and wrote some music. While in Paris he also started to portray his long lost motherland in countless sketches.

In Paris, Orda married his friend Irene Bougle and worked as the director of the Italian Opera in Paris, until the institution was closed due to the February Revolution of 1848. He was also an active member of various Polish political and social organizations, including the Committee of Polish Emigrants. Most of his spare time he spent travelling. He visited France, England, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lorraine, Spain, Portugal and Algeria.

He made more than 1000 sketches depicting various towns, cities and historical landscapes. He also depicted urban and rural architecture, churches and palaces of Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, as well as several regions of France, Germany, Portugal and Switzerland. His works are pencil sketches tinted with watercolour. Approximately 260 of his sketches were published in Warsaw in a series of 8 albums under the collective title “Album of Polish Historical Landscapes” between 1873 and 1883.

Most of his works are kept in the National Museum in Krakow and Warsaw besides their artistic value, they are a priceless source of information on the history and architecture of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine, whose historical heritage was largely destroyed by the Germans during World War II.

Napoleon Orda died April 26, 1883, in Warsaw. In 1997, a monument to Napoleon Orda was erected in the place of his burial by sculptor Ivan Golubev. In 2007 National Bank of Belarus issued silver and copper-nickel memory coins, devoted to the 20^th anniversary of Napoleon Orda.

Nikolay Seleshchuk’s work is a brilliant phenomenon in Belarusian art. Born on 4 August 1947 in Velikarita village, Brest Region he attended Minsk Art School and graduated from Belarusian State Art Institute in 1976. From 1966, he started to participate in art exhibitions where his works, unconventional in manner, attracted immediate attention of the public as well as experts. His drawing sheets are distinguished by their virtuosity and the artist’s original thinking. His life came tragically to an end in September 1999.

Nikolay Seleshchuk was a unique master of book illustration. Not only did he seek to precisely convey the literary image but he was really a co-author of each work he had opportunity to illustrate. It is not by chance that his work was awarded many times.

Due to his paintings the artist achieved success and recognition both in his native Belarus and abroad. His works belong to the National Museum of Art, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and to numerous art galleries based in Greece, Finland, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Canada, as well as to many private collections.

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