Holy Evening

Святий вечір

A Ukrainian Christmas Eve interior, one of the artist's recurring holiday subjects rooted in her Romny childhood. Reproduced under this Ukrainian title in the Romny literary-historical almanac.

Image: reproduction sourced from romen-sula.org. This work is still in copyright — © the artist / rights holder. Shown for editorial and educational purposes; contact us for attribution or removal.

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About the Artist

Nadiia Poluian-Vnukova

1968

Nadiia Poluian-Vnukova is a Ukrainian painter born in Romny, Sumy Oblast, in 1968 and still living and working there, a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine since 2004. Trained first as a decorative painter and textile designer, she paints minutely detailed, sunlit interiors, still lifes of wild flowers in ceramic jugs, and scenes of Christmas and childhood in her native Romny district.

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Movements

Realism

Realism is an artistic movement that sought to depict reality as accurately and objectively as possible, holding that the purpose of art is to reflect all aspects of existence, rather than merely its idealized representation. The term was introduced by the French literary critic Jules Champfleury in the 1850s to denote art that opposed Romanticism and Academicism. In the visual arts, the significance of Realism as a style is quite controversial, and its boundaries are undefined. In a narrower sense, realism is understood as positivism, a movement in the visual arts of the second half of the 19th century. One of the first realists was the French artist Gustave Courbet (1819–1877), who opened his solo exhibition “The Pavilion of Realism” in Paris in 1855. Before him, artists of the Barbizon School—Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, and Jules Breton—worked in a realistic style. In the 1870s, realism split into two main movements: naturalism and impressionism. In contemporary painting, realism borders on the grotesque and anti-glamour.

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Also part of

Folk Decorative Art

Related Works

Nostalgia

A memory-driven composition typical of the artist's central theme, the sunlit village world of her childhood. Reproduced under this Ukrainian title in the Romny literary-historical almanac.

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Lilies of the Valley

A close still life of lilies of the valley, showing the minute botanical detail the artist is known for. Wild forest and field flowers in simple vessels are one of her signature genres.

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A Day in March. Obolonnia

An early-spring view of Obolonnia, one of the two Romny localities the artist returns to again and again. The place name in the title anchors her work firmly to the Sumy region.

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Flowers from Childhood

One of the artist's best-known titles, named in her Ukrainian Wikipedia entry among her signature works. It joins her two central preoccupations — wild flowers and remembered childhood.

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