Lithuania: Loving Art Is Art

'The Hairy Nger Touch' (2017) 
by Andrius Zakarauskas

His pictures earned him the reputation of being one of the most visionary talents of his time, author of landscapes at the confines of reality and cities so futuristic as to precede films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis by over twenty years. Today, the works of Ciurlionis – whose creative joy, amid music and painting, he described thus: “I paint a sonata... If you knew the pleasure when, with stubbornness, madness, forgetting everything, without the slightest awareness, without taking a breath, I begin to paint” – can be admired at the Kaunas National Museum of Fine Arts, which houses almost the entire legacy (letters, poems, aphorisms, photos, musical and pictorial compositions) of this inquisitive, symbolistic, scientific, philosophical and esoteric artist.

'Dreambone' (2017) 
by Auris Radzevičius

Kaunas is also home to the Devil’s Museum created in 1966 and one of only two museums in the world devoted to “diabolical things”. Its origins lie in a private collection by the painter Antanas Zmuidzinavicius, a protagonist of the pioneering exhibitions of Lithuanian art during the first decade of the twentieth century, together with Ciurlionis and Rimša. Zmuidzinavicius attributed his longevity to his obsession with these collections of representations of the devil, and during the course of his lifetime accumulated hundreds of portraits and demonic objects. In local pagan folklore, moreover, the devil was not simply the devil but the guardian of death, fertility and animals; only with the introduction of Christianity did it become a wicked spirit.

'Untitled' (2017) 
by Egidijus Rudinskas

At the National Museum of Fine Arts there are also a number of works by Jurgis Mačiūnas, creator of the Fluxus artistic current, conceived in the 1960s as an attempt to blend examples of cultural, social and political renewal in a united front of action, inspiring post modernism and changing attitudes to modern art. Then again, much in Lithuania, the small Baltic republic with 3 million inhabitants, testifies to its historic vocation of artistic expression. The capital Vilnius, which takes its name from the Vilnia River, has a long tradition of cultural relations with Western Europe. When in 1518 Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, married Bona Sforza, the daughter of the Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Sforza, the Grand Duchess invited a large number of Italians engaged in culture and the arts to the city and consequently it grew to be one of the most beautiful capitals of the European Renaissance.

'Place for Ocurrence of Several Gures' (2017) 
by Eglė Gineitytė

Vilnius boasts examples of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical architecture. Among the most beautiful religious buildings are the Gothic church of St. Anne and the Baroque church of St. Casimir, patron saint of the city. Much has changed, in fact, since the Soviet era when very few places of worship were operative in Vilnius and many families secretly stole away to the countryside to baptise their children. The Neoclassical cathedral dedicated to the Saints Stanislaus and Ladislaus is today the most important Catholic building in Lithuania: several Lithuanian and Polish sovereigns were crowned here. The cathedral is also a symbol of the recent history of Vilnius. From here, in 1989, a human chain of two million people linked the Lithuanian capital to Riga and Tallinn in a matter of hours, in an act of protest against Soviet occupation.

'Greenhouse' (2017) 
by Giedrė Bankauskaitė-Dapkuvienė

But Vilnius is also an extravagant and unconventional city, the only one to have dedicated a statue to the American rock icon Frank Zappa. It is a city patronized by a large student community, full of art galleries and concert halls offering good music, shows and ballets. On the right bank of the Vilnia is the picturesque district of Uzupis (in Lithuanian the other side of the river), linked to the old city by seven bridges and historically inhabited by a Jewish community, most of whom were killed during the Holocaust. Since the nineties it has become a destination for artists and intellectuals, attracted by the low prices of the homes and the bohemian character of the suburb, which today, thanks to its art galleries, workshops, cafes, relaxed and nonconformist atmosphere, is considered a Lithuanian Montmartre.

'Arrival' (2017) 
by Ieva Juknytė

This radical transformation is in large part thanks to the bizarre and goliardic idea of the poet, musician and film director Romas Lileikis, who on 1st April 1997, together with the residents of the area, declared the foundation of the independent Republic of Uzupis, endowed with its own constitution, a president, a small army and a flag in four different colours, one for each season. Small and enterprising, the real Republic of Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004, and at the beginning of 2015 adopted the euro as its national currency. Inevitable, maybe, considering the fact that a spot just 26 kilometres north of Vilnius is the exact geographical centre of Europe and, since 1989, the destination of many curious tourists anxious to take a snapshot of the precise heart of the old continent.

'Identity Card' (2017) 
by Jūratė Kluonė

Since gaining independence in 1991, the Lithuanian economy has experienced a rapid and decisive transition from a planned and centralized system to one typically market-oriented, dominated by the private sector and focused on exports. And, despite some significant issues such as the scarcity of raw materials and the consequent need to import oil and gas, Lithuania is still among the richest countries of the former Soviet Bloc. Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors thanks to the beauty of its historic towns, unspoilt nature (from forests to immense plains) and the population’s enduring connection with local traditions that have survived, almost unchanged, the upheavals of history.

'Deception' (2017) 
by Leonas Strioga

The road from the capital to the Baltic cuts through the Lithuanian countryside; a flat landscape covered with wheat fields, lakes and streams, occasional red brick farms and meadows where cows graze freely. Near the Curonian Spit, a strip of sand between the Curonian Lagoon and the sea, dotted with dunes reminiscent of a desert landscape, lies Palanga, with its large, windswept beaches and the amber museum, which provides the visitor with a detailed history of this national product that dates back fifty million years. The museum occupies a nineteenth century summer villa on the estate of the family of Count Tiškevičiai, surrounded by beautiful botanical gardens.

'The Last Drink' (2017) 
by Linas Liandzbergis

Unique examples of local art can also be admired at the Hill of Witches (Raganų Kalnas), home to a collection of sculptures and representations of witches, demons and other supernatural creatures. Nida, a small town of colourful wooden houses, is popular mainly with German tourists as historically this area was part of eastern Prussia. The writer Thomas Mann had a home here, which now hosts a museum that once again bears witness to the way in which art and the spirit of nature are intrinsically linked in Lithuania.

'Love Song' (2017) 
by Migle Kosinskaite

In her introduction to this catalogue, Rasa Andriušytė- Žukienė defines contemporary Lithuanian art as versatile: “modernist and postmodern, expressive and conceptual, realist and abstract. Overall, a variety of formal experiments is typical of post-Soviet art – the most accurate term to describe Lithuanian art after fifty years of Soviet occupation.” The 145 works in the Imago Mundi collection testify to this versatility and to the expressive richness that appears to burst forth from the 10x12 centimetre format.

'Some Like it Hot' (2017) 
by Monika Furmanavičiūtė

Portraits, landscapes, more mental than physical, expressionisms, abstractions, plasticity. But also folklore, mythology, ancient legends, occult beliefs and futurisms. A centrifugal creative force that places no limits on fantasy, constructing imaginary universes with surprising chromatic and narrative efficacy. To be viewed and re-viewed, perhaps whispering the illuminating verses of the Lithuanian poet Eduardas Mieželaitis taken from the poem Hyperbole:

I draw Your ephemeral face out of nothing, Out of space, out of time, out of birds’ sparkling ways, Out of sounds, out of lightning, rain, wind and snowflakes And the most abstract dots in the galaxies’ maze.