ПЕРСОНІФІКАЦІЇ В УКРАЇНСЬКІЙ ПАНЕГІРИЧНІЙ ГРАВЮРІ КІНЦЯ ХVI — ХVII СТОЛІТТЯ: ІКОНОГРАФІЯ РАННІХ ЗРАЗКІВ АЛЕГОРІЙ НАУК

The image of the seven liberal arts, that is, the disciplines of the trivium – grammar, rhetoric, dialectics and quadrivium – arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, and a number of sciences, which do not belong to the list of artes liberales, were among the most widespread personifications in European art of the 16th – 18th centuries. The early examples of the liberal arts’ iconography emerged during the early Middle Ages, gradually not only additional variants of their image appear, but also completely new personifications, which reflect dynamic changes in different areas of natural and exact sciences of the early modern age. The first known allegorical depictions of sciences in Ukrainian art belong to this period of the encyclopedic systematization of allegories, which was also a period, marked by coexistence of numerous iconographic versions of each allegory. Despite being innumerous, these preserved artworks provide a basis for elucidating the role of Western European examples in the figurative system of Ukrainian engraving of the 17th century.

Objectives. The objective of this article is to analyze the features of the iconography of sciences’ personifications in Ukrainian panegyric engraving of the end of the 16th and 17th centuries on the basis of comparison with the main iconographic variants of the allegories of artes liberales and a number of other scientific disciplines in Western European graphic arts and theoretical treatises of that period.

Methods. The current research requires use of several methods of art historical analysis, among them context analysis, which aims at distinguishing the function and significance of the artistic work in the period it was created. The central methodological approach to the study of the personifications of sciences is the iconographic analysis, which allows to highlight the peculiar features of each figure, considering their attributes and taking into account their possible relations with other visual images and texts. We also rely on the comparative analysis to show similarities and distinct features of personifications in Ukrainian and Western European engravings.

Results. Personifications of sciences in Ukrainian engraving of the late 16th – 17th century can be seen on the title pages of scientific treatises, in illustrations of panegyric old-printed books and academic theses. The identification of these allegories on the title page engravings in treatises is a relatively simple task, despite the fact that the ways of their depiction vary from total absence of attributes to complex examples of combinative iconography, when the title of the publication is the only definite key to interpret the image correctly. The study of sciences’ allegories in panegyric illustration should imply the principle of correspondence between text and images. Since the panegyrical text is based on a clear scheme of rhetorical “places” (loci), the visual narrative is in certain way connected with this scheme – allegories of sciences correlate with loci victus (way of life) and studia (intellectual activity). In panegyric old-print illustration, which also may contain a portrait of the person praised, two approaches towards the selection of allegories can be noted. Artists usually depict a single figure (mainly Rhetoric or some of the exact sciences) or just their symbols, combining them with military trophies and insignia of secular power. Otherwise, they included personifications of those disciplines, which represented the intellectual activities of the portrayed person. Panegyric “Tentoria venienti” (1646) embodies the variation of the first approach, with the depiction of allegories holding the attributes of artes liberales.

In the academic thesis prints, even if the panegyrical aspect clearly dominates, the allegories of sciences are less connected with the person to whom the engraving is dedicated and in most cases visualize the topic of the dispute. However, one of the most common topics was “ex universa philosophia”, the title, that often comprised not only numerous philosophical disciplines but also politics, economics, physiology, psychology etc. Therefore, it is possible to determine which sciences were present on the engraving either due to accompanying signatures, which can be rather rarely spotted or on the basis of a thorough comparative analysis of different versions of allegories’ depiction and their attributes. Distinctive iconographic types of personifications can be specific to the works by certain artist – they appear repeatedly with little or no changes in general appearance and attributes – as it is seen in the works of A. and L. Tarasevych and during the next period – those of I. Mygura.

Conclusions. Early examples of personifications of sciences in Ukrainian visual tradition include both figures with a scarce number of attributes, as well as more complex variants, which demonstrate the influence of the iconography of virtues. In both cases, among visual examples for Ukrainian artists we can name the iconographic types of the allegories of various sciences, which originated in Netherlandish and German engraving of the 16th and 17th centuries. As a rule, allegorical images of sciences were not supposed to provide several levels of interpretation, so they become objects of mainly iconographic, rather than semiotic analysis. But in the 17th century Ukraine they were significant in verbal discourse as well – images of sciences (simply mentioned or presented through the rhetorical device of prosopopoeia) are associated with the idea of revival of schooling and academic education, repeated in panegyric and polemical literature by the authors of the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium circle.