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\u00abOn the outside, I am calm and respectful. But inside there is a kind of madness…\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 What do you think of Vienna?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 There\u2019s a saying that goes, \u00abWhere you<\/em>\u2019<\/em>re born, that<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s where you live best\u00bb<\/em>. But I think that living in other countries and getting to know other traditions is a chance to broaden your horizons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Living in Vienna means being permanently involved in history and culture. You might not do anything, but the culture will influence you. When I wrote my essay on Vienna, \u00abMirror of the Ancient Capital\u00bb<\/em>, I had these images in mind: \u201c<\/em>Vienna is sublime, and if you don<\/em>\u2019<\/em>t resist, to submit to this city is to become a dome or at least a frieze, to reincarnate as a treble clef or at least a B minor<\/em>\u201d<\/em>. Austria is a place that I think comes close to the ideal. The architect of the world has left this country out, perhaps only the sea is missing. What the Austrian capital perhaps lacks is an energetic rhythm and passion. Even if some see that as another of the city\u2019s assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Have you ever lived abroad?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 As fate would have it, I lived in Prague for a long time before Vienna. I love this city and can\u2019t get enough of it; I always discover something new. My impressions of this place are summarised in the surrealist essay \u00abThe Bermuda Triangle of Watercolour Streets\u00bb<\/em>. For me, Prague\u2019s architecture is a boundless flow, as if it were dissolving in a drizzle without beginning or end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 What about Vienna, the Austrians?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Every change of residence, even a flat in a city, means a new phase of life. And when you move to another country, it\u2019s like turning everything upside down. A move is like a quick means of self-improvement. A new country favours inner changes, personal growth and new experiences. From my observations, most Austrians are intelligent and tactful \u2014 even in the simplest jobs. Children are not yelled at either. Parents have enough patience to deal with their children\u2019s moods and patiently explain to them how to behave. I learn from the Austrians all the time.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Why Vienna?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 It is human nature to love one\u2019s homeland, and I am no exception. I never made plans to leave Minsk, my hometown. Although once, when I was reading books about travelling, I dreamed of new countries, which I guess everyone dreams of when they are young. And at some point in my life, like in the movies, \u201c<\/em>something went wrong<\/em>\u201d<\/em>…. Or was it the other way around? \u2014 It went exactly according to plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How can I understand the logic of events? Why am I here? When I was 16, I was passing through Vienna. The spire of the Gothic cathedral, illuminated by the moon and the stars, gave me such a feeling at the time, as if I had seen a UFO. There is something surreal about the gothic vision of youth becoming reality and part of everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 What did you do in Minsk?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 I studied international law in Minsk and graduated from the law faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Are you also active in this field in Vienna? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Not at all. I have always loved to draw. When I came to Vienna, my path led me from jurisprudence to art history. I studied art history at the University of Vienna \u2014 the place where art is everywhere and present at every turn. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Was it difficult to learn a foreign language?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Maybe it wasn\u2019t easy, but the main thing is that it was insanely interesting. The Austrian education system is very different from the Belarusian one. The student controls the learning process himself and takes the initiative. Moreover, there is no \u201cindulgence trade\u201c here. If you don\u2019t study, no one will give you a grade \u201cfor beautiful eyes\u201d. The University of Vienna is also a school of self-organisation, discipline, willpower. I admired the teachers, I appreciate the lecture material and sometimes come back to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Do you travel a lot?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Austria is the perfect starting point for travelling through Europe, to countries that preserve the heritage of the Roman Empire. It\u2019s amazing: a few hours by car or a night on the train, and you\u2019re strolling through Venice, riding the vaporetto among the luxuries, where \u201c<\/em>one beautiful sight makes another even more beautiful<\/em>\u201d<\/em>, I quote Joseph Brodsky\u2019s \u00abQuay of the Incurables\u00bb<\/em>. Bavaria, Bohemia \u2014you could say around the corner. And Austria itself is a book you can read endlessly: breathtaking nature, rich culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 I know you describe your travel experiences. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 The feelings that overwhelm me are recorded in travel notes. I combine my own observations with historical and cultural information. Some of my stories are overloaded with images \u2014 especially in the essays about Vienna and Prague. But what can I do when these places are complex, multi-layered and even whimsical \u2014 it is even inappropriate to approach them with a simple vocabulary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 What kind of people do you like to communicate with the most?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Sometimes I find myself living in fantasies and figments of my imagination and distracting myself from real news and events. I like people who are not quite adults yet, who can joke and fool around. And it\u2019s great when a person has something to do with creativity \u2014 professionally or through a hobby. Or at least they love art. These are completely different personalities who have a different mental organisation. Although I have great respect for people who really do something, who start foundations, who are workaholics. Everyone needs \u201c<\/em>bread and games<\/em>\u201d<\/em> in one way or another. Although bread and entertainment can sometimes be combined. That\u2019s my attitude to food \u2014 I don\u2019t just want to make it tasty, I want to serve it beautifully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 You said you always liked to paint. And now in Vienna?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 \u201c<\/em>Painting is a need of the body<\/em>\u201d<\/em>, my art teacher used to say. Probably the same as musicality or dance. I attended a music school, but unlike painting, playing the piano was not a physical need. Sometimes I open the piano, but as soon as I pick up a pencil and a brush, everything around me ceases to exist. You become absorbed in one thing, your concentration when painting is enormous. It\u2019s important to sit down and start, not wait patiently for the muse. This lady comes whilst one is working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now I want to paint something quickly. Although once I could work on a painting for months. How many detailed and masterly landscapes there are, which unfortunately rarely touch the modern viewer. In museums they often hang in several rows, like in the Belvedere in Vienna on the upper floors. Most of the time, you can\u2019t see them up close. The viewer merely gazes at the painting on which the artist has worked for months, perhaps even years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was as if a time shift had taken place, and the modernist masters responded to it. They went through different stages of painting, from careful detail work to large brushstrokes. Consider, for example, the works of Gustav Klimt or Pablo Picasso from the early and late phases. Time-consuming, realistic, meticulously painted pictures were replaced by fast, imaginative and almost etude-like works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was as if the hands of the clock were moving faster. The artists who were aware of this were probably in a hurry to express their talent. And then photography came along, so that it was no longer necessary to reproduce reality accurately in colours. There was a tendency for the artist to go beyond the meticulous craftsman. Some people like that, others don\u2019t. If Malevich marked the beginning of a new epoch with the black square in 1915, then I think this symbol has already become old. What we need is a new symbol \u2014 speed. My imagination draws a white spiral leading to black infinity. The general tendency \u2014 and I don\u2019t just mean painting \u2014 is that working on a \u201cproject\u201c for a long time is no longer for modern people. The world continues to accelerate. In about five to ten years, we may be in for something amazing and, today, still incomprehensible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014<\/strong> What do you paint? Copies of great paintings?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 In the past, it was part of the compulsory programme of art lessons to copy the high works, especially of the Renaissance. Nowadays this method still exists, but there has also been a big change. The most important thing about a painting is not even the craftsmanship, but the energy that comes from the canvas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I could never copy, I find it boring. You don\u2019t get inspiration and an inner lift when you paint that way. That is, you don\u2019t get the emotions for which there is creativity in reality. And if you repeat something, you have to do it at least as well as the original. Or you shouldn\u2019t do it in order not to disappoint yourself and not to disappoint others. I feel the same way about musical remixes \u2014 there is very rarely anything worth doing. I was once in the Albrecht D\u00fcrer Museum in Nuremberg. One room there is dedicated to copies of D\u00fcrer’s self-portrait. If you don\u2019t see the original, these works have a right to exist. But in comparison to the master\u2019s self-portrait…. I simply don\u2019t want to offend anyone…<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was extremely impressed by Wan Gogh\u2019s works in the museum dedicated to him in Amsterdam. There was something very powerful about the originals…. And the paintings themselves are so much stronger than the photographs. I write a film blog, and while I was reviewing a film about Van Gogh \u00abOn the Threshold of Eternity\u00bb<\/em> (which, by the way, was also my coursework in film studies), I remembered an episode from my life: I happened to paint a copy of a Van Gogh sunflower on the white wall of ahouse. Despite the simplicity of the painting, it turned out to be a very difficult task. Not technically, but emotionally. I was in a bad mood, waking up in the night and desperate to finish my work, which had become a real pain, soon. It seems that Van Gogh\u2019s rebellious spirit has in a way passed on to me. For this reason, too, one has to be careful when copying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Icon painting is another matter. In this fast-paced, escapist world, I have my personal corner of peace. I am beginning to contradict myself. Here I have written about speed, and now about slow motion. I claimed I couldn\u2019t copy \u2014 and I do. Icon painting is a quiet work, akin to meditation. You know what you want the end result to look like, so you don\u2019t have to worry about composition, colour and so on. And copying a sacred image is touching the light that the icon brings. Of course, one has to know about the technique of the process and much more. But when you learn the secrets of icon painting, the work becomes a real pleasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Viktoria, you amaze me with your versatility!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 There are so many interesting things and so many possibilities that sometimes I don\u2019t know what to do. I have to scatter: I want to paint watercolours, icons and oil paintings, write stories and travel … (I keep quiet about everyday life and family commitments). <\/p>\n\n\n\n I am a big fan of cinema. I started making small films myself \u2014 mainly about Austria. I would even risk becoming a film director…. Do you think I\u2019m joking? Maybe that\u2019s the effect Vienna has on me. I am a bit like it. On the outside, I\u2019m calm and respectful. But inside there is a kind of madness…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Interviewed by Irina Muchkina<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00abOn the outside, I am calm and respectful. But inside there is a kind of madness…\u00bb \u2014 What do you think of Vienna? \u2014 There\u2019s a saying that goes, \u00abWhere you\u2019re born, that\u2019s where you live best\u00bb. But I think that living in other countries and getting to know other traditions is a chance to broaden […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-23","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":982,"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions\/982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viktoriamalyshava.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}