Vilnius I

Birutė Stančikaitė (b. 1952) belongs to the group of female graphic artists who enriched Lithuanian etching in the 1970s with their subtle and lyrical expression. She made the lithographVilnius Iwhen she was still a student at the State Institute of Art of the LSSR, from which she graduated in 1976. Having lived in the Old Town since her childhood, she loved it as a subject. In this lithograph, she depicted Cathedral Square from the Šventaragis valley, with Gediminas Hill and Tower, the sculptureThe Three Kingsby Vladas Vildžiūnas, the cathedral and the bell tower. The buildings here are only a background, for she focused on a city caught in a sudden burst of rain. People are running for cover, the wind is tearing their umbrellas and bending trees, and the cloudy sky is lit up by flashes of lightning. Stančikaitė mastered a specific technique, lithography drawn in pen and ink, and achieved a refined expression of lines, a gradation of tones and undertones, and a pulsating blue chiaroscuro, thus turning an everyday happening into an emotional and romantic event, a symphony of rain. Text author Laima Laučkaitė.