Page 29 - Studio International - October1968

before sunset—there were enormous puddles in the street. A herd of me pay any more attention to that machine. Nor did his idea arouse
cows was going through them and I was standing as though turned in me the wish to invent or devise new machines. But I remember
to stone and watching shreds of clouds pass across the disc of the sun my father had to do a lot of calculating at one time, and he had ideas
which was forcing its rays through the gaps between the tattered of inventing something like an arithmometer.
clouds reflected in this undisturbed puddle; sometimes the water was Time was passing in this fashion and I began to feel the need to
stirred by the cows and it would ripple and at the same time the develop the negatives. I must say that even when very young (a child
cows themselves were reflected in it. of four to six) I did not draw at all, the way all children usually do.
I remember how one day in March my father and I went to the Somehow it never entered my head that a pencil, charcoal, paper
station. There was still snow in the fields, on the horizon hung an were the technical means by which one could develop those negatives,
enormous cloud, the lower part of which was a leaden-blue shade. I those impressions. And no one in my family told me.
remember a lake on a bright day; in its ripples the sun was reflected, I was evidently too stupid to think of it myself. I was more interested
perpetually moving like the stars. All this had a strong impact on me, in watching storks and hawks soaring into the sky; I had a great
but, I repeat, it was only an impact. I could only carry these passion for hawks and this passion cost the lives of some of our many
phenomena in my visual memory; to me they were strikingly 'wonder- chicks. I would either tether them or make them walk on the thatched
ful'. All these scenes were stored by the nervous system somewhere in cowsheds. Then I would wait for the moment the hawk would drop
a suitcase, like negatives which had to be developed, but there was like a ball out of the sky and land on the roof. But I also had ready a
no question of this happening either, this had not arisen in me yet, bow and an arrow, in which there was a needle and often I managed
nor did advice come from outside, for no one knew what was hap- to save the chick. This, of course, was a secret, I could not even boast
pening to me, what I was thinking and experiencing if indeed I was about it to anyone. But this was enough for me. I was only seven at
experiencing anything at all. And who would have thought of the time.
making an artist out of me, when it was quite clear to my father that Thus everything remained as it was. The need to develop the nega-
I must make sugar or choose some rather more easy profession— for tives grew stronger, I had no means of doing this and not one of my
he considered that being on permanent night duty, twelve hours each contemporaries in the whole of my native district knew about this.
time, was a hard job. Suddenly my father decided to take a trip to Kiev; he liked to have
I liked to walk and run away into the forest and high hills, from me with him, because I listened to his various tales, and this played
where I could see the horizon around me; this is something I still an important part in my life. He took me to Kiev. The first thing I
like doing. Thus one can conclude that the whole of human culture did was to go and look at the higher spots above the Dnieper. Then I
had no influence on me at all; only the creation of nature did this, had a good look at the shops and in a shop-window I saw a canvas
although my father would often tell me that by means of his culture with a fetching representation of a young girl sitting on a bench
man will build such machines that they will completely liberate him peeling potatoes; the potatoes and their peel were strikingly life-like;
from labour. He would then always recall the first sugar refinery this left an indelible image on my memory, as though it was real life
where the sugar-beet was rubbed by hand whereas now machines itself.
cut it up; but he would say that this would not happen soon. But This too, was essentially the representation of a human figure, as on
these considerations of his meant nothing to me, and did not make the icons, but for some reason the picture had a very powerful impact