Any work of art is a great mystery to reveal which takes many centuries and in vain. But a canvas itself reveals the concealed in handicraft human and creative essence of the Artist, it is peculiar annals of his earthly existence. Still experience proves: to make the formula of the creative essence of the Artist is difficult. It is both existing and incomprehensible quantity in the reality, which is incalculable by all possible mathematical operations.
A spectator, who is not an artist, might only approach to Artist’s inner world, only feel the fantastic echo of the mystery or to experience the seldom enlightenment that makes him to submerge into the depth of his own soul.
Another is Artist. He, initiated in the creation of new worlds, easily defines ingredients of the unknown and makes up the formula of overwhelming simplicity.
So the artist Olexander Sadovsky has defined the creative essence of an Artist, using the arithmetic action from the primary school, i.e. adding: analysis of his experience plus the constant labour... This “simple arithmetic” however is a result of search and discovery, a complicated unit of real and virtual worlds, concentration of life as the creative experience. This universal formula fascinates, amuses and the illusion appears to seize easily the essence of an Artist and his world. But it is only the illusion.
The world of any artist is the formula of the important discoveries, one of the fundamental laws which help to solve the equations with many unknown quantities.
These unknowns appear also in “the equation of the creative fate” of O. Sadovsky himself.
For example, it is not clear when begins his mysterious ability to the artistic transformation of the reality. Perhaps, in childhood when fantasy, light and fluent, as it is should to be in green years, was constantly transforming the reality into an amusing pictures with dynamic flashes and whimsical shapes.
About native places (southern parts of Vinnytsia region of Ukraine), on the geographic border between chilly forests and hot steppes — about this retells his diptych Landscape with the River (2003). You can not find here the very landscape and the nature of the Dniester areas of Ukraine, but the subtle impression of a space by a child. And all this is reached by artist’s manner of execution, aureole of semi-prescious stones like those of M. Vroubel, violation of the direct perspective and the usual proportions. In this picture, like in green years with the grown up trees and patternal vividness of the кaleidoscope.
Olexander Sadovsky belongs to the artists, whose roots are deep in the Culture, in the fine arts of the past. This phenomenon is certified by his skill, his handicraft, received in Odessa art school named after M. Hrekov and in Kharkiv art industry higher school. Still O. Sadovsky does not only imitate his “cultural weight”, the skill has not dominated over his personal originality, moreover, all this helps him to transform knowledge through his artistic reception and Talent, this is another of many the so called unknown quantities.
Anna Akhmatova says about the poetic skill: “Whether this is not the serious labour? Sooner it’s the careless one’s life to listen to the Music, and to treat thereafter its mysteries like one’s own”.
Certainly it’s risky to compare the subtle chamber poetry and the symphonic mighty monumental painting. Though it sounds like a paradox, still in the works of Sadovsky-monumentalist
O. Sadovsky is really and figuratively connected with Sumy. And the city itself becomes the part of artist’s life. Here, on the border of 1980 and 1990 the important metamorphosis took place, i.e. transforming a monumentalist into an easel-painter, another unknown quantity.
An easel-painting which preserves the feature of monumental one revealed still concealed quality of an artist — hazard of a player. Like a musician with an absolute pitch and virtuoso technique Sadovsky hazardously tried himself in different styleas and trends. One of his periods — the beginning of 1990 was the abstract one. entrance into heresy (after Boris Pasternak) of the simple geometrical structures, the rythm of vertical and horizontal lines. And the later works as Friends (2001), the triptych Landscape with Angels (2003), the result of a play with fine arts codes of modernism and symbolism.
Like a wise theatrical director on the stage Sadovsky has realized consequently on the canvas his own concept of the Universe, has created his own system of signs, a result of this is the monumental cycle of early 2000 — Life Like Theatre.
Like an actor, he enthusiastically changes masks and parts. Some time the artist was greatly influenced by the esthetics of theatre, which is traditionally called Absurd Theatre. His certain works of the period (e.g., Absurd Plot, 1994) reveals its essence, that of his worldoutlook and artistic is near to those of E. Ionesco and S. Becket.
But he does not prove like them the absurdity of an absurd world however, still he fixes up the paradoxes of our everyday life. By the way, “the fathers of Absurd” named their theatre Absurd Theatre.
An actor ability of the artist, his talent of reincarnation is seen in the series of works Dreams of the Collective Farmer Ivan Lyssy. The talent to create a virtual character, to give him a personal, autonomous life, to utilize “character’s talent”, ignoring his own nature — ability, peculiar to many brilliant actors. Moreover this is continuence of play traditions in Ukrainian fine arts, initiated by George Narbut who has created the original annals of Lupa Hrabusdov, a speciemen of the Ukrainian Kuzma Prutkov, (after Maxim Rylsky).
In art one could learn profession only by the real Master. Olexander Sadovsky is the very teacher who can teach profession, revealing the creative peculiarities of every pupil. This was peculiar to many ancient philosophers. They drew their pupils into a dialogue, into the subtle intellectual play, which equalized interlocuters, gave at the same time great artiatic entertainment.
Usually they treat artists as marginals who live on the border of two worlds — real and virtual. Whatsoever it is not true because the Artist creates himself this reality, enables its existence. The artistic reality by O. Sadovsky is the transformed experience of the past, the high degree of philosophic ideas concentration, world of complicated visual images, which tells a spectator about Routine and Eternal. And the Artist himself is open to the entire world and he who reveals worlds remains to be a mystery himself, i.e. the Equation with many unknown quantities.
Valery Panasiuk,
Candidate of art criticism, senior lecturer