Michael Antonyuk

His artistic repertoire was influenced by Taras Shevchenko's Academic Art, the Impressionism of Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh, the Cubism of Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso, and the geometric abstractionism of Kazimir Malevich.

During World War II, he began to draw with vine charcoal, made from burned sticks due to the scarcity of pencils.

[11] Roman Selsky instilled comprehensive artistic knowledge in his students, teaching the technical disciplines of the great masters: Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.

[12] Selsky is known for teaching Color theory, revealing harmony in picturesque canvases of Diego Velázquez, Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, and Eugène Delacroix.

In addition, Khrushchev's Thaw created an allure for exploration and development of the vast wild Tselina steppes and virgin land.

The Virgin Lands Campaign led to the great migration of the early 1960s,[14] representing the 15 different republics of the Soviet Union, including diverse nationalities.

[citation needed] In 1961, in the town of Akmolinsk, Kazakhstan, young intellectuals from the institutes of Moscow, Leningrad, and Ukraine began to arrive by train.

Antonyuk began a series of paintings depicting the traditional and nomadic lifestyle, featuring "Holiday Yurt", "Aqsaqal", "Mother", "Festival at Lake Tengiz", and "Still Life With Fish".

Without love and deep understanding, one can not create works that his colleague Ivan Svitich said, "Antoniuk painted his masterpieces with a different colorful richness.

The joy of color, clarity of rhythm, the solemnity of the composition, woven from the Kazakh ornament, spikes, cars, rockets, yurts, national costumes."

[2] On the 40th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War, Michael Antonyuk painted "The Tragedy of Volyn Village Kortelisy" (Ukraine).

According to Natalya Kurpyakova, deputy editor-in-chief of Niva Magazine, "Michael's artistic work has appeared in the public service of social needs in construction, district towns, state and collective farms.

"Montmartre", from the series "Paris", 100x70, 1973, Mixed media, Lithography.
"Dastarkhān", 170x115, 1976, tempera on canvas.
"The Tragedy of Volyn Village Kortelisy in Ukraine", 200x100, 1985, tempera on canvas. Kortelisy is a village in Ukraine which was destroyed on September 23, 1942 by Germany during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. Almost the entire population of 2,892 people were killed. A total of 107 villages were burned, including Tulychiv, the native village of Michael Yakovlevich Antonyuk.