Engraving is a painstaking and demanding art form that once was widely practiced but today seldom attracts the attention of young artists. It requires a great deal of patience, planning and physical precision, in addition to artistry, but the results can be wonderful. Sometimes a skill like engraving can be passed down from one generation to the next.
Father and son Arkady and Gennady Pugachevsky are graphic artists and engravers from The Ukraine. Both have distinguished careers and have received recognition in several European countries. They have chosen to display their work on a joint website.
Arkady (image at left, top) creates small bronzes and color engravings. The engravings are often of animals like dogs, birds, bulls, fish or snakes, with the feeling of iconographic artwork that projects solidity and timelessness. He often chooses muted colors, which adds to the feeling of sculptural solidity and weight, but at times fills his engraved images with bright hues.
Gennady (at left, bottom) has more emphasis in his gallery on graphic design, but you will find the links for gallery art and prints toward the bottom. Where his father’s work seems steeped in timelessness, Gannady’s is often concerned with time; watches and timepieces figure prominently in several works.
While you can see the influence of the elder artist’s deep knowledge of engraving techniques, Gennady explores other territory, both in subject and approach. Some of his color engravings have a cubist feeling, others are more straightforward, all have a subtle sense of color and the wonderful qualities of those finely incised engraved lines.
Both Arkady and Gennady do wonderful bookplate illustrations, another area where attention is not often focused these days, but where you can often find small delights if you take the time to look.
Link via BibliOdyssey.
