The portrait genre of Bohdan Brynsky in the context of the national identity of Ukrainian painting

Portrait painting remains an important genre in domestic painting to this day. The aim of the article is to describe attention not only to the compositional and figurative solution of works of the portrait genre in the work of B. Brynsky, but also to outline the problem of the lack of popularization of national elites in modern Ukrainian society. The article highlights the features of the national identity of the country’s visual art through the works of the portrait genre of the famous Ivano-Frankivsk artist Bohdan Brynsky. It was emphasized that portrait painting is one of the important ways to capture prominent figures of each state’s era, to creatively interpret the images of famous historical figures, and to highlight issues of cultural and national identification of our society. It is noted that the work of B. Brynsky successfully combines realistic works and works made on the principles of modernism and postmodernism, which the artist adopted from his mentors M. Zorii and O. Zalyvakha. Portrait works of B. Brynsky are mainly of a synergistic nature in presenting the visual image of the portrayed, contributing to the awareness of the national and cultural identity of Ukrainians through details in the compositions. Portraits from different years of B. Brynsky’s work were analyzed, among which a series of portrait works with images of T. Shevchenko, artist O. Zalyvakha, writer Yu. Andrukhovych, hero of the Heavenly Hundred R. Huryk and others were highlighted. The artist’s ability to feel the scale of the model’s worldview, as well as to convey deep respect for famous representatives of his people, which contributes to the awareness of the national and cultural identity of Ukrainians today, is noted.