… “Viktor Ivanovych Zaretskyi (February 8, 1925, Bilopillia, now Sumy region – August 23, 1990, Kyiv) was a Ukrainian painter, monumentalist, graphic artist, teacher, and public figure. Husband of Alla Horska.” (Wikipedia).

“Today, as a result of the artillery shelling of Bilopillia, civilians died – a father and a 4-year-old son.” (Sumy Regional Military Administration, June 18, 2023).

“A father and son were just passing by. A shell landed literally three meters away from them. They just ran for cover and literally did not make it 5 meters. The father died on the spot, the child did not have time to be taken to the hospital, he died in his arms.” (Yurii Zarko, Mayor of Bilopillia, June 18, 2023).

… “Good afternoon, dear, glorious Allochka! […] I wish you: a) to take care of yourself, to hit only one point, to worry only about the canvas; b) to love life (and me, of course). Painting is the life itself.” (Viktor Zaretskyi, letter to Alla Horska, Hornostaipil – Kyiv, 1961).

…“Great shifts towards purely formal searches are more often found in young artists who do not have extensive professional data. They have just graduated from the institutes, with their drill and discipline: young people do not know and therefore cannot analyze the art of the West of the first half of the twentieth century, but blindly imitate it. The protest and rebellion of the young leads to a rejection of school and tradition. These young people are very aggressive, they go ahead and offend everyone, but they cannot be touched. […] Viktor Zaretsky, his wife Alla Horska. He is one of the most talented young artists. His art itself contains a significant amount of formalism, and in recent years he has come under the influence of a group that pushes more than formalist views in Kyiv, does not have a great general culture, hesitates, searches, follows the line of least resistance, which is obvious formalism. The same can be said about his wife. A lot of young artists group around them. Horska tries to organize some kind of association of young artists outside the creative union. Meetings are held in the Youth Café and the Zhovtnevyi Palace, in artists’ studios.” (Mykola Hlushchenko, agent report to the KGB, March 1963)…

…“It would seem that the honorary stigma of ‘Ukrainian Klimt’ has firmly stuck to the creative figure of Viktor Ivanovych Zaretsky. The latest exhibition of his works – more than 30 paintings from the collection of his son Oleksii – brilliantly refutes this stereotype. Undoubtedly, we can now speak of “several” Zaretskyi’s, united by the commonality of their biography and the general imperative of self-improvement.” (Oleh Sydor-Hibelinda, ‘Prisoner of Beauty,’ August 1998)…

…“The eternal scales of life weighed Viktor Zaretskyi’s talent for ten, generously weighed out energy for him. But they did not give him destiny. But who knows what true happiness is – prosperity or the painful torment of realizing those incomprehensible, God-given opportunities called talent. Even through anxiety. The life and work of this artist once again confirmed the brilliantly expressed observation: “…a blissful sleep does not contribute to art.” (Olesia Avramenko, ‘Libra of Victor Zaretskyi’s Fate,’ December 2011)…

… “To persistently master the most difficult science of life – the science of loss. Believe in their futility. One should not indulge in various kinds of nastiness and regularly wash and adjust one’s own “optics”. Forgive and appreciate your own people, but never even think about forgiving non-humans. To sublimate the pain of loss into rage, rage into deeds, deeds into many deeds, many deeds into faith in tomorrow. Plan – under any circumstances and with dozens of backup options. After all, a desire has a hundred possibilities. Surround yourself with life of different meaning, scale, quality, and beauty – and thus resist the self-confident, belligerent, impudent, and sticky death that is getting bolder every day. To cherish and protect the life around us in all its manifestations and incomprehensibilities. To feel the power of the cycle of eternal and logically natural existence even more acutely, as well as to understand its fragility and fragility. To realize that it is impossible to save the whole world from pain and oblivion. But to keep striving. At least at the distance of a glance and an outstretched hand…” (Olena Mykhailovska, self-guidance, June 2023)…

… “The ideologues of the bourgeoisie are groping for the narrowest cracks through which they could penetrate the deepest reaches of socialist society and sow the seeds of a poisonous potion in human souls. Having lost any hope of success in direct attacks against the ideas of communism, which permeate the deeds and thoughts of every honest citizen of the Soviet Union, they are trying to impose on us the peaceful coexistence of ideologies in the field of artistic creativity – by adding poison in the form of formalism and abstractionism. And, strange as it may seem, we have found champions and patrons of formalism and abstractionism, a form of bourgeois ideology. Kowtowing to abstractionism and formalism is nothing more than a deviation from party principles and the nationality of Soviet literature and art, from Marxism-Leninism. The enemies of communism chose the sphere of artistic creativity for their ideological sabotage, because here it is easier to mislead people with cries of innovation.” (From a speech by Andrii Skaba, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine for Ideology, at a republican meeting of creative intellectuals and ideological workers in the hall of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, April 8, 1963)…