Галина Стельмащук • Марія Гарасовська-Дачишин

135 and strong knowledge of Ukrainian history (especially of periods like Kievan Rus, Cossack states and regional costumes) inspired the artist to create large paintings dedicated to the outstanding historical figures of Ukraine. Particularly interesting are the oil paintings: Metropolitan Andriy (1964), Princess Olga (1989), St Volodymyr the Great (1986), and Hetman Ivan Mazepa. She painted portraits of the prominent musicians and artists, namely “Portrait of Miro Skala-Starytskiy”, “Portrait of the Singer Lyuba Hanushchak” (both 1959), “Mykhaylo Moroz at Plein Air” (1960), “Model EKO” (1983) etc. Her gallery of portraits includes images of saints/icons (“Brother Filatey”) and portraits of friends and members of her family. It should be noted, that as master of portrait painting, Maria Harasowska-Daczyszyn revealed her exquisite professional talent, skills of harmonic coordination of colours, constructive building of forms, based on the studies of human anatomy, skills to grasp the characteristic features and to convey the internal world of the model. Her portraits are painted in the Realism style. Mika is known as a painter of icons, mainly painted in tempera. Her icons are inspired by her deep faith and Ukrainian spirituality. She often painted in the Neo-Byzantine style. Notable works are ”Queen of Heaven, Pray for Us” (1980), “St. Michael the Archangel” (1979). Ukrainian motifs are present in most of her icons. The artist depicts her Ukrainian Madonna dressed in the Ukrainian national costume; this is a main common characteristic of the whole separate series of her icons. Halos above the heads of mother and child expressively point out that the depicted is not an ordinary woman. Each icon is professionally arranged and integrated by the whole range of colours. The manner of painting, applied by the artist in landscapes, distinct by expression, dynamic movements and wide brush stroke differs from this style which she applies in icons. In icon painting we see the calm serene manner characteristic for the Ukrainian soul. Deeply saturated, wide open eyes, which radiate love and kindness look at us from the icons. Such icons were very popular, blessed in church ceremonies and highly desirable to congregations. One of the popular themes of her paintings are flowers. She painted them often and in different ways – flowers in pots and vases, wild and cultivated, flowers sprouting in the grass. The artist’s love of nature and admiration at