BB-ART Birch Borea Art "Book" - Limited Edition of 300 Artwork

I. BB-ART Guennadi Alexeyevich KALINITCHENKO gave the name BB-ART (the abbreviation of the English name for Birch Bark) to the artistic style newly developed by him. There are several historical and aesthetic reasons for this name. Since ancient times, birch has been of special importance as it was a cosmic symbol of order, fate and female strength of life-giving goddesses, the worshipping of which was forgotten a long time ago. In many European languages the words for birch tree, a sacred symbol for Northerners, are similar and, in the opinion of linguists, all these words have the same root of the proto-Indo European origin meaning ‘white’ or ‘light’. One of the characters in the old runic alphabet is the name of birch. The birch was a most important symbol in ancient cults and rites of European nations. Germans and Scandinavians worshipped the birch as the tree of God Tor, divine patron of nature, fertility and farming. Slavs worshipped the tree as the symbol of the goddess-mother Bereginya, the progenitress of all people and spirits, guardian of earthly riches. Evidence of the ancient birch worshipping can be found in folk witchcraft where birch branches are still considered a good remedy for many diseases, evil spirits, lightning and fire. For centuries the peoples of Europe and Northern India have been making baby cribs only out of birch believing that it can avert illnesses and miseries. People have known birch bark For time immemorial, and it was easy to find it in the woods and fields. Handcrafted birch bark objects were used as household utensils and decorations. It was the elasticity, light weight, impermeability to water, durability and beauty of birch bark that made people use it in housing construction, making of kitchenware and footwear, as well as jewelry-making. For many generations craftsmen expressed their ethnic originality and cultural traditions in birch bark art. Birch bark was used not only in applied art but also as a material for magic and sacred art. In ancient times the attitude about birch bark was very special as it was used in making ritual decorations and luxury objects, as well as for scrolls of sacred texts. An evidence of that is that birch bark was used for writing during many centuries by Europeans, Slavs and the peoples of Northern India. In the Celtic burial mound in Khokhdorf, archeologists found a chieftain’s crown made of birch bark trimmed with hammered gold dating back to the Halstadt era. This birch bark crown looking quite modest to us was displayed alongside a necklace made of a solid large gold nugget. Museum collections have sarcophagi of ancient rulers trimmed with skilful designs and paintings made on birch bark. There is evidence of using birch bark in the monumental art. Fragments of ancient seagoing vessels found in the Arctic had massive sculptural decorations made of specially treated birch bark. The task of highest priority for an artist is twofold: to identify and interpret the language of Divine symbols and archetypes, and the expression of eternal Platonic ideas that the artist’s intuition finds in the texture of the objective reality and nature. The conviction of medieval artists that even the smallest and least significant fragment of nature is an endless source of symbols was based on their surety of the hermetical philosophy that there exists a universal language of symbols for both in where the Alps are crested and where earthly life prevails, that is what is in the Gods and what is on the Earth. The words of John Damaskin, “Nature is the Icon of God,” have become a symbol of medieval artists’ attitude toward nature. Most astute artists of the Renaissance did not limit themselves to just accurate copying of nature. For example, in the words of Leonardo Da Vinci: It happens when you examine walls with all kinds of stains on them or various stones. If you need to invent a landscape, you can see on them such landscapes with mountains, rivers, cliffs, trees, vast plains, valleys and hills in a number of different combinations, and you can also see different battles, swiftly moving strange figures, all kinds of human expressions, clothes and an endless variety of such things that you can bring to integrity and a nice form; walls and miscellanies are similar to a bell chime as in the bell chime one can find any name or word that one’s imagination can conjure. Special new methods of composition sprang up in the course of development and dissemination of the symbolism ideology in the XIX century. In their works symbolists often set off conventional generalized symbolic figures against extremely naturalistic landscapes or interiors. As a result the impression was that characters in the picture’s space were incidental and transitory. The artist’s objective was to select such a subject and such a composition that could envelope a viewer into interpreting of the structure of basic symbols in one or another art work. In the turn of the XX century quest for Divine symbols, interpretation and embodiment of such symbols were described by many philosophers as the main objective of art: Freed and separated from religion, Art should enter into a new free bond with it. Artists and poets should again become its priests and prophets in a new, more significant and spiritual way: so that not only the idea of religion reigns over their minds but they can master and control embodiment of religion on Earth. (Vladimir Soloviev). At the turn of the XX century a lot of artists were seeking a concise vocabulary of secret magic terms for the archetypes of nature and created compact lexicons of abstract geometric and colour symbols accentuating two dimensional planes of images in the painting space. Thus, in the course of cultural development the role of nature in artistic creativity was gradually changing. At first nature was regarded as a set of models for accurate and virtuoso copying. After a while it became a source of inspiration and a stimulus for imagination of the artist. And finally, in the XX century attention was mainly focused on how to find universal abstract symbols and archetype images in nature. However, at all times nature was only a source and a set of prototypes and symbols that were interpreted and transferred to canvas by artists using traditional technical painting methods. Fragments of nature have never been included into painting in kind of dominate or govern structures of symbols. Use of genuine birch bark as a dominating material and space in which images in compositions and symbolic structures are formed by colour and relief was devised by Guennadi Kalinitchenko and has become a new specific property of the BB-ART. From time immemorial wood served as a symbol of the mystic Tree of the Universe, a hint at the World Axis. Therefore, wooden panels, and later carved wood of iconostases and gothic altars were organic canonical parts of church paintings. For a long time bark has been thought of as the face of a tree carrying its personality. The advantage of birch bark is that it provides unique structured space for BB-ART images and compositions. The birch bark texture is uniquely rich because it contains a complex hierarchy of geometric symbols and enables the artist to interpret and communicate natural symbolism of the material. Examination of birch bark patterns allows one to easily identify pre-images of magic symbol graphics used by different civilizations. That is why abstract and ornamental images in BB-ART compositions appear as ‘texts’ written in a language of symbols. The archetype language exists independently of national or ethnic traditions and ensures the universal meaning of a symbol text that effectively replaces the ‘literary-image’ narration of the figurative painting. For example, universal male and female symbols are differently directed triangles that form rhombuses, symbols of equilibration and integrity, known as such in many cultures, demonstrate quite well the principle of how the international language of geometrical symbols is formed. The use of birch bark and the symbol language in BB-ART revives ancient traditions of ‘pre-painting’ art of the time of the art’s origin when the magic of creativity quite persistently was learning to transform the inert matter. Basic techniques of birch bark treatment appeared in ancient times, and many graphic symbols of BB-ART abstract and ornamental motifs can be found in Paleolithic cave paintings. However, the continuity between ancient symbolism and methodology does not prevent BB-ART from using contemporary art ideas and concepts. This is similar to how traditional ancient alphabetic characters do not affect on the evaluation of the actuality of ideas described in the texts consisting of such characters. One of the valuable birch bark characteristics is the fractal geometry of its texture. Fractals are non-uniform fragmented objects of irregular shape possessing the property of self-similarity. Each of such objects can be mentally divided into progressively smaller fragments so that each fragment looks like a copy of the whole object on a smaller scale. Of course, natural fractals are self-similar only on average in a statistical sense. Examples of such natural fractals are branching trees, mountainous landscapes and clouds in the sky. The fractal texture of birch bark displays intricate patterns of natural multi-layer micro- and macro-reliefs that are endlessly repeating themselves on different scales. When devising his new artistic style, Guennadi Kalinitchenko tried to make it understandable on an international scope and uses materials and cultural images typical of ethnic groups with different histories and distant geographic locations. Especially, he focused on the following specifics of an archaic material culture: - ancient processes of direct recovery of iron ore produced inhomogeneous metal with unusual veining reminding of Damask steel or Wootz steel that was very similar to unique patterns on the surface of meteorites. This explains why many peoples called ancient steels with intricate veining ‘celestial’ or ‘divine’; - one more happy event at the time of ancient metallurgy development was discovery of coloured enamels that were applied long before glass, a much more difficult material in terms of manufacturing; - crypto glyphs, an ancient code of magic symbols, the graphic images of which served as the base for all archaic and contemporary alphabets; - zoomorphic images of mystic rulers of the universe that gave a start to the ‘animal-style’ pattern widely spread in ancient times and to the ‘snake’ and ‘band’ pattern popular among Celts, Norsemen and Northern Slavs in early medieval times; - the image of the powerful goddess of fire and souls of all living beings that used to decorate ancient sanctuaries all over the place between the Atlantic European coast and western boundary of China.. Many objects decorated with images of animals and birds have been found during archaeological excavations of Scythian, Sarmat and Sack burial mounds near the Black Sea and in Southern Siberia. The space between the figures of animals was filled with band-like ornamental designs that were wrapping up the figures in a snake-like way. Ancient Sack and Scythian craftsmen often included scenes of animal fighting in such dynamic compositions. Objects decorated with animal figures in combination with band and plant ornaments are also often found in the excavations of Celtic and Slavonic settlements. This style typical of ancient decorative art in Asia Minor, Volga region, Southern Siberia, India and China has become known as the “animal style”. There is a hypothesis that the animal style originated from tribal totems when craftsmen who constantly depicted images of one sacred animal, a totem worshipped by the tribe, gradually turned the image into a stylized ornamental motif. It is also likely that in ancient times the stylistics of the animal style was based on symbolism of three mystic lords of the three worlds: earth, heaven and underworld. Such fantasy creatures combined features of animals, birds and snakes, for example, dragons with wolf heads, snakes with lion heads, winged lions having snake-like tails, and warriors with eagle heads. In early centuries of our Era the animal style reached the peak of its popularity and became a symbol of the art in which cosmic motifs appeared in art castings, wood carvings, engravings and metal hammering. CRYPTO GLYPHS The structure of material symbols in BB-ART works can be presented as the triad: Birch Bark Metal and Metal with Enamel Damascus Steel In this triad, in order to observe the metaphysical principle of dualism, the central system-forming female symbol of the birch bark is balanced by traditional male symbols: enamels on metals and ‘celestial’, ‘divine’ patterned steel. Unlike most cult urological and philosophical terms, post-modernism does not have a commonly used definition and has different meanings. Sometimes this term denotes tendencies in the art of the second half of the XX century, when interest towards abstract painting, that was the peak of modernist style in fine arts, disappeared. Philosophers inclined to retrospective analysis of common tendencies in XX century art use the term “post-modernism” to denote the break-up of several influential creative groups and transformation of recognized artistic styles of the modernist-style epoch into individual art manners, methods and concepts. Such ‘radical pluralism’ is typical of ‘transitional’ periods in history. However, examination of representative art collections described as post-modernistic reveals a number of specific methodologies in fine arts of the second half of the XX century. This allows consideration of post-modernism to be, at least, a stable system of interconnected aesthetic priorities and concepts, if not a uniform organic ideology of contemporary art. At the same time it is possible to identify the following methodological specifics of post-modernism: use of manners, styles and techniques of various arts and crafts including those popular in the past historic epochs; intentional use of eclectic techniques that allow the bringing together of subjects, styles and fine art techniques from different countries and epochs in one artwork; application of modern science and engineering achievements for modification and expansion of the arsenal of fine arts resources. All these specifics of post-modernism can be easily found in each work of BB-ART designed in accordance with the new artistic style devised by Guennadi Kalinitchenko. And, most important of all, is that his art contain a mystery, a fairy-tale and history. II. PARA-REALISM It was not incidental that Guennadi Kalinitchenko discovered the artistic riches of birch bark. Having been a restorer of paintings for many years, he attentively studied the complex morphology of old masters’ paintings transformed over time. It was the fascinating evidence of time the surface of old frescoes, Byzantine and Russian icons that attracted him most. He began to look for natural materials that possessed the textures as rich and diverse as the romantic patina on medieval paintings. Guennadi Kalinitchenko regards BB-ART as a peculiar continuation, a ‘synthetic’ form of Para-Realism, which is the style that he and Prof. I.N. Taganov developed from 1978 to 1989. The stimulus for the project aimed at the creation of the Para-Realism style (originating from the Greek word ‘para’: near or outside of something) was Prof. Taganov’s meeting with icon painters from the Vygozersk community of old believers under whom he studied icon painting from 1968 until 1972 , and learned the basics of esoteric symbolism of church painting. In 1978 in Leningrad, I.N. Taganov, then a lecturer on the history of painting technology and principles of expert examination of paintings in the I.E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and Guennadi Kalinitchenko organized the experimental studio Reconstruction of Old Masters’ Painting. The studio focused on the esoteric symbolism of the technology of painting and its reconstruction, as well as the professional philosophy and creative ideology of old masters. In the course of the study the most important thing for them was not a search for old recipes and reconstruction of painting materials used by individual artists and medieval art schools. Instead, they focused on the study of creative ideology and the system of theoretical concepts, which determined the peculiarities of artistic styles of the past historical epochs. The painting manner developed in this studio and given the name ‘Para-Realism’ is characterized by two concepts: I. The principle of technological authenticity in accordance with which painting is done with respect to the doctrine of esoteric symbolism, and the manner and technological processes of old masters. In doing so, they use painting materials characteristic of a respective epoch and prepared on the basis of old recipes. II. The principle of morphological authenticity in accordance with which they artificially age a picture at the final stage of the picture’s painting without destroying the picture’s surface. It allows reproduction of all specific textural and optical effects that can be seen on old paintings in museum collections. Application of an artificial aging method to Para-realistic artworks is necessary in certain cases because the impression of what paintings by old masters look like formed on the basis of paintings exist for centuries. Perhaps a most unexpected result of museum painting examination is the understanding of the fact that perfection and attractiveness of old masters’ painting is not just a fruit of the artists’ talent and skills, but to a large extent is the result of the Time impact on the painting. As studies showed, many properties, texture and optical characteristics of a picture surface are continuously changing. Varnishes of the ‘drying oil - resin’ type that have been used in the painting process through the ages in the course of indurations form strong stereo-cellular polymers. However, formation of such polymers in natural conditions goes very slowly and sometimes takes up to 200 – 300 years. By this time, the density of the layer of paints increases several fold, micro- and macro-crackle patterns appear, and the optical characteristics of paint layers change significantly. Increase of the refraction factor of the binders results in increased transparency of many paints, and, in case of a multi-layer painting manner, appears the effect of semi-transparent painting. Interfusion of contacting paint layers in combination with changes in the binders optical characteristics enriches the colour palette of the artwork. On the whole, completion of binders polymerization refines the painting, thereby imparting additional lightness and artistry to it, thus creating the “gallery” effect that makes paintings of old masters so attractive. Many artists of the past would have been pleasantly surprised had they seen their own paintings in museums in their present state. Reconstruction and recovery of varnishes and solvents used by old masters in combination with development of special techniques for “artificial” aging of painting in Para-Realism has become a unique Time-control instrument in painting. Guennadi Kalinitchenko’s pictures made in the manner of Para-Realism in the style of the XVII century Flemish and Dutch art that he appreciated so much were exhibited from 1982 until 1989 at the first Para-Realism art exhibitions: - Leningrad. Leningrad M.Gorky House of Scientists of the USSR Academy of Science. Exhibition 22.11 – 5.12, 1982. Seminar on 28.05,1982. - Leningrad. Leningrad Cinema House of the USSR Cinematography Union. Exhibition and seminar on 5.01,1983. - Leningrad. Leningrad Branch of the RSFSR Artists’ Union. Exhibition 15.01 – 10.02, 1983. - Tallinn. ESSR Academy of Sciences. Exhibition 26.09 – 11.10, 1983. - Vilnus. Kaunas. Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR. Exhibitions-seminars on 6.07, 8.07, 1983. - Moscow. A.S. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Exhibition-seminar on 21.12,1983. - Leningrad. XIIIth Mendeleyev Congress. Exhibition 21.05 – 2.06, 1984. - Novosibirsk. Siberia Branch of the USSR Academy of Science. Exhibition 15.01 – 27.01, 1985. - Moscow. USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements. Exhibition on 25.04 – 25.05, 1985. The displayed collection was awarded with the silver and bronze medals of the Exhibition of Economic Achievements. - Leipzig. International Trade Fair. Exhibition in June, 1989. After 1989 exhibitions of Para-Realism art took place in Europe and in the USA, and museums and collectors purchased a significant number of paintings. Interest in Para-Realism still exists particularly because its techniques are used in fine arts studies and in restoration of paintings with large areas of destroyed surfaces. Currently, only in European countries there are more than 60 artists who use the Para-Realism manner. Para-Realism, as well as Pop-Art and Photo-Realism, was developing at the time of the establishment of post-modernistic concepts. Para-Realism demonstrates all basic features of main methodological features of post-modernism, and in addition, this style is characterized by a special appreciation of the painting’s object. In Pop-Art the object of painting are fragments of commercial printing products: comics, advertisings, labels, etc. In Photo-Realism, object of painting is photographs. In Para-Realism, the object of painting is the manner and esoteric symbolism of past historical epochs art. In spite of the seemingly radical nature of its aesthetics, painting in Pop-Art and Photo-Realism preserves traditional differences between a material object in the outer world and its non-material pictorial image in a painting. Para-Realism eliminates such differences ensuring ‘material’ coincidence of the object and the image of the object in art works. If, for example, an object is the manner of the Gothic alters painting, its image in Para-Realism will be seen by a viewer as an ‘almost authentic’ Gothic altar. Work in the Para-Realism manner on more than forty pictures in 1978 through 1983 gave Guennadi Kalinitchenko a unique skill in relaying art ideology and aesthetics to another historical epoch. He productively uses this experience in BB-ART. III. PHANTOM OF HYPERBOREA The intriguing similarity, and sometimes coincidence of the styles of art, sacred images, myths and magic rites of different nations separated by long distances has always attracted attention. It is quite possible that the answer to this riddle lies in legends about Hyperborea. Antique literature offers us two romantic legends: a story about Atlantis that was flooded by the Ocean, and the story of Hyperborea, the far northern motherland of the Gods. Comparative studies of different versions of ancient myths make us put forth a supposition that legends about Atlantis and Hyperborea are two parts of the same ancient legend. One of the ancient mythological cycles that can be found in Phoenician mythology, for example, tells us about a quarrel between two powerful brothers, gods Cronos and Atlas. The end of the gods’ duel was that Cronos, following Hermes’ advice, “buried into Earth” Atlas, who had been supporting the Sky, which resulted in endless natural calamities when a part of the Sky collapsed and seas flooded the land. Cultural legacy of the perished Hyperborea, which possibly gave a start to the flourishing of many civilizations known to historians, has attracted the attention of scholars since the XVIII century. Searches for Hyperborea started in the first half of the XIX century by Russian admiral F.P. Vrangel, and were continued in 1900 by the arctic expedition of Baron E.V. Toll on the yacht “Zarya”. From 1993 until 2005, expeditions of the Russian Geographic Society headed by Prof. I.N. Taganov were searching for the common source of ancient cultures of peoples of Central Asia in Eastern Siberia, India and Tibet. Northern lands of the mysterious Hyperborea were mentioned by almost all famous writers of the ancient world. However, it was only in the second half of the XX century that historical geography, oceanology and geology collected enough data for scientific analysis of the existence of the ancient civilization on the Arctic archipelago flooded by the ocean. Recently in the depth of the Arctic proof has been found that a significant part of the Arctic Ocean used to be a land surface. The recorded continuous uplift of northern Scandinavia and Spitsbergen islands gives grounds for belief that huge masses of the Hyperborea Archipelago flooded by the ocean keep sinking down into the Earth’s mantle. Wide terraces, flat mountain peaks and flooded volcanic islands have been found near many peaks of the Lomonosov and Mendeleyev underwater ridges. Ocean dredges have reclaimed typical land sediments: shingles, gravel, boulders, crushed stone and sand from the seabed. In the opinion of some marine geologists, vast parts of the Lomonosov and Mendeleyev ridges were above the water about 16,000-18,000 years ago, and the last islands of the flooded polar archipelago have disappeared recently, about two or three thousand years ago. During the time of the thawing of latest gigantic glaciations, the delicate balance of the land and ocean crust was broken and resulted in a sequence of disastrous earthquakes and underwater eruptions in the Arctic. During the short historical period of not more than 2-3 millennia, the ice cap that had formed during 100,000 years has thawed. This rapid thawing of the multi-kilometer thick glaciers turned out to be a global-scale catastrophe. The world-ocean level rapidly raised 100 to 120 meters, and flooded over 10 million square kilometers of the continental shelf, marine archipelagoes and major islands. Territories exceeding the USA territory have sunk forever. The hilly plain that used to connect England and Scandinavia has become the North Sea bed on which marine experts can still identify the old creases of the Rein and other European rivers. Gigantic landslides that accompanied glacial thawing formed huge lakes that did not exist for a long time and disappeared forever after a short while, having flooded the nearby lands. An endless sequence of unpredicted floods caused extinction of a tremendous amount of animals, birds and forests in the northern hemisphere. A gigantic tsunami that extended inland for hundreds of kilometers left a “death belt” extending for thousands kilometers from Yukon in Alaska into the depth of Eastern Siberia. The “death belt” permafrost still contains a terrifying mixture of twisted tree trunks and debris with numerous fragments of mammoth, rhinoceros, bison and horse remains. Geological lenses of permanent ice and peat alternate with layers of volcanic ashes. Imminent disasters caught animals unexpectedly, because in the mouths and stomachs of excavated animal bodies there have been found non-chewed and non-digested plants. The Arctic expedition under command of Admiral F.P. Vrangel discovered polar islands, the ground of which consisted exclusively of sand, ice and mammoth bones. The Eastern Siberian tundra abounds in territories filled with mammoth tusks and not with Arctic vegetation. At that time, calamities were mainly caused by floods and tsunamis. That is why floods remained in popular memory as a symbol of divine punishment. There is an opinion that the natural calamities stopped only by the VIII – V millennia BC, and only after that the Earth’s climate stabilized. In the opinion of geographers, some medieval maps with detailed multi-thousand kilometer coastal relief of Antarctica were based on ancient maps dating back to the X – V millennia BC. Besides, these mysterious maps are remarkable as they extremely accurately indicate latitudes and longitudes. Even their inferior copies dating back to the XV – XVI centuries contain relative coordinates of longitudes and long distances that are not worse than modern navigational directions. It seems that a developed ancient civilization must have left us some other evidence of its existence, in addition to the lost legendary prototype maps. However, until recently archeologists have asserted that no unidentified ruins exist, nor have existed on our planet. It seems that a solution to this problem has been discovered recently in the necropolis of Giza near Cairo. In the course of examination of the Sphinx’s surface, the Valley temple and Hephren’s pyramid platform, they have discovered typical signs of deep water erosion. In the dry climate of modern Sahara, no water erosion could have appeared. However, Sahara is a young desert, and it was a green savannah 10,000 – 12,000 years ago, with much rainfall in the XIV – X and VII – III millennia BC. Therefore, water erosion of the limestone megalithic structures in Giza could form during several thousand years only at the remote time of rainfall periods in the Sahara’s history. It puts the beginning of the Giza megalithic structures back to several millennia before the Pharaohs of the Forth dynasty, at least to VII – V millennia BC when, in the opinion of most historians, tribes on the territory of Egypt lived in the Stone Age. If to assume that Egyptian megalithic structures date back to X – V millennia BC, the time of heavy rainfalls in Sahara that could cause significant water erosion of limestone blocks, this period coincides quite well with the supposed period of development of ancient prototype-maps which were later used by cartographers in the XV and XVI centuries. It allows the assumption that all megalithic structures made of carefully polished and, in our opinion, unreasonably huge stone blocks can be regarded as possible ruins of architectural structures of an ancient civilization unknown to historians. It turns out that archeologists have collected a lot of data about such strange ruins in North Africa, Mediterranean, South America and Japan. On the territory of Russia, there were finds allowing a supposition about existence of a prosperous, very ancient civilization that later perished. Communities of old believers who were persecuted after the XVII century church schism retired to thick forests in Northern Russia, on the Volga and to Siberia. In the course of survey of remote areas in the north of Russia, they found entire underground cities near the Arctic coast where legendary Hyperboreans escaping from the perishing Arctic archipelago probably found refuge. In words of hermits, the length of some caves exceeded thirty kilometers. The walls of underground grottoes were covered with strange snake-like ornamental patterns, and secluded niches hidden behind plaster leakages contained unusual stone cones and disks covered with unknown letters, as if they were waiting for somebody to come. Without any regret old believers spent much time making sketches of these ornamental designs and stone curios. In the late 1960’s, semi-decayed books containing drawings of the coastal cave cities and copies of separate sheets of the map of the Road of Moon Kings were found in the ruins of the Vygosersky monastery. The map sheets got to Moscow in the middle of the XVI century as a gift from English seamen to Tsar Ivan the Terrible. These ancient maps showed the trade route along the Lena river from the Arctic Hyperborea to the mysterious southern “kingdom Shambara”, and undoubtedly considerably accelerated the settling of Russians in Eastern Siberia. It does not matter if future studies and explorations confirm the existence of Hyperborea in the past or not, there is no doubt that deep organic similarity of ancient peoples’ cultures became an effective stimulus for the formation of images in BB-ART. PHOTOGRAPH (COPY OF SELF-PORTRAIT) Guennadi Alekseyevich KALINITCHENKO was born in Odessa on June 3, 1949. He began to study art in the Crimean N.S. Samokish Art School (1967 – 1971). In 1977 he graduated from the Leningrad I.E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture having majored in painting restoration. In 1978 – 1983 Guennadi KALINITCHENKO and Prof. I.N. Taganov invented Para-Realism, created a collection of over 40 paintings in the Para-Realistic manner and in the style of XVII century Flemish and Dutch artists that were exhibited in 1982 – 1989 at the first exhibitions of Para-Realism. In 1999 Guennadi KALINITCHENKO developed the concept of BB-ART style, and later created a representative collection of BB-ART paintings and sculptures, some of them being on display at exhibitions in Sweden: ”Art Fair” ( 2002, 2003) and ”Stockholm Art Fair” (2004). END OF TEXT. Объем всего текста примерно 30295/36154 знаков.