The exhibition project was implemented with the support of the grant from the President of the Republic of Belarus in the fields of science, education, healthcare, culture, youth policy, and as part of events dedicated to the Year of Peace and Creation.
The displayed works of painting, graphics and sculpture are made by Belarusian artists in the 18th–21st centuries. They show the image of the native land as multifaceted both in time and themes, and in art movements.
The landscape genre occupies a special place in the exhibition project. The image of the Motherland is steadily associated with the glorification of Belarusian nature among most painters. The landscape genre has a long history in Belarusian painting and graphics. We see its elements in icon painting and book engraving in the early 18th century. So, the exhibition present icons, in the composition of which elements of the landscape are introduced.
The landscape painting of Belarus in the late 19th – early 20th century is represented by Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Apolinary Horawski, Stanislav Zhukovsky, Jan Chrucki and Vitold Byalynitsky-Birulya. The artists worked on the landscape, where they lyrically depicted the motif of native nature close to the authors. The landscape sketch or the landscape painted from life occupied an important place in their activities. These masters’ traditions were continued by Yuri Pen with his views of Vitebsk and its outskirts.
Many Belarusian artists turned to the theme of the Motherland in landscape painting in the 20th–21st centuries. Their works are characterized by a combination of lyrical beginning and epic scope of the world. It was important for artists to create a generalized epic image of their native land based on a particular area which became the object of reflection (Anatoly Tychina, Arkady Astapovich, Anatoly Volkov, Lev Leitman, Valentin Volkov, Vitaly Tsvirko, Viktor Gromyko, Pavel Maslenikov, Gavriil Vashchenko, Dmitry Aleinik and others).
