The Painter and His Model

After turning seventy, Leonardas Gutauskas turned his gaze to the topic of art and artists in his paintings.

The scene is not important

The painter's studio and his model is not a popular theme in the paintings of the early 21st century. This was, rather, a scene favored by the modernists. Gutauskas maintains, however, that he does not chase after trends or fashions. In one interview he has said: "It is completely irrelevant if your art is 'old' or if it isn't keeping up with the sewers of New York, or if it is lacking in ingenuity. Ingenuity is not an artistic category — it is a mobile telephone box pressed to one's ear…" In these works, the artist takes pleasure from color and composition and reveals in them his relationship with painting.

Creating art is a joy

Gutauskas recalls how he first studied graphic art at the Vilnius Art Academy, and fared quite well. But one day he caught the smell of oil paints... The draw of painting prevailed over graphic art and set design alike. These paintings attest to the artist's continued enjoyment of this medium.
The warm, vibrant colors and the harmonious composition seemingly made up of three layers in The Painter and His Model speak to the joy that comes from painting.
• In the foreground we see a painter at his easel;
• An abstract form serves as the model in the middle ground;
• In the background we see a window framing a peaceful landscape.
The painting process unites the entire environment. While working, the artist is sensitive to capturing everything around him, from which he creates his own, unique world. The theme of the joy and miracle of creative art is repeated in the painting Raudona paletė ir mėlynas teptukas (Red Palette and Blue Brush). The figure of the painter in the center is depicted as standing between a blue brush and a red painted canvas. In other words, the artist has changed the rules and has turned blue to red. Here again we can recall Pablo Picasso, whom Gutauskas revered, who described the fascination of the creative process thusly: "There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who ... transform a yellow spot into the sun."
The love for and attention to color in these paintings is in keeping with the tradition of the colorist school of 20th century European art, which had deep roots in Lithuania. Gutauskas continues the tradition of the joy and glow of colors demonstrated on the canvases of his teacher Augustinas Savickas and gives a sincere and modernist interpretation of the creative process as a daily miracle.