Samogitian museum "Alka" has an exceptional collection or art medals, which tells us about medallic art traditions of independent Lithuania. By exploring this collection of almost 700 medals, we are able to get well acquainted with Lithuania's medal art tradition and it's creators.
SYMPOSIUM OF MEDAL ART
International Symposium of Medal Art in Telsiai is a unique event in Europe since 1984. Every year medal artists from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Israel, etc.. are taking part in this symposium. Medals created during the symposium are enriching the medallic colletion of the museum "Alka".
Telšiai - the capital of medals (2015) by Petras RepšysŽemaičių muziejus „Alka“
CAPITAL OF MEDAL ART
During the last 40 years, the International Symposium of Medal Art has turned Telsiai into a real capital of medal art.
MEDAL ART: THE ORIGINS
The origins of medal art are associated with ancient Greece, where forged portrait coins with images of rulers and gods resembled small medals.
Medal Artists Symposium in Telšiai (2004) by Vytautas MockaitisŽemaičių muziejus „Alka“
RENAISSANCE: THE BEGINNING OF MEDAL ART
Renaissance ideas born in Italy led to a returning of antique's culture. Today, as the first Europe's medal is considered the medal created by Antonio Pisanello in 1438, which commemorates the arrival of Pope Eugene IV and Byzantine Emperor John VIII Paleologus in Ferrara.
Renaissance ideas in the 16th c. also reached the Lithuanian-Polish royal court. Zygimantas the Elder in 1520 ordered the first medal to commemorate the birth of his son Zygimantas Augustus. Soon, medal art in Lithuania, as in all of Europe, became a sign of the representation of the authority of rulers, important state figures and nobles.
The obverse of the medal featured the portrait of the person to whom the medal was dedicated, and the reverse featured signs related to this person. The two sides of the medal formed an unique genre of memory: the obverse depicted the person or event, while the reverse offered a direction how to think about it and remember it.
ONE-SIDED MEDALS
The canon of renaissance medal still lives in the contemporary medal art.
However, the limited possibilities of exhibiting two-sided objects lead to the fact that today often are created one-sided medals.
For a long time, medal art existed exclusively only among the nobles, under the influence of the ideas of Romanticism, it turned to cultural, artistic and scientific figures, historical events and societies. So in the 19th c. medals began to be dedicated to artists, historians, scientists, battles and other phenomena representing the nation's history and culture.
Battle of Grunwald (1997) by Danius DrulysŽemaičių muziejus „Alka“
ROMANTICISM
Even today, historical figures, events, and national stories are the most common themes of contemporary medals. The history of the nation is commemorated in both classical and conceptual artistic styles.
SAMOGITIA (2001) by Vaidas JankauskasŽemaičių muziejus „Alka“
SHAPE
According to the shape, medals are traditionally divided into medals and plaques. The round shape of the medal, which existed for several hundred years, today is increasingly being replaced by plaquettes (medals of different shapes) and works of small sculpture.
Lithuania. Durbe. Grunwald (2010) by Gvidas LatakasŽemaičių muziejus „Alka“
MATERIALS
Not only the shape of the medal changes, but also the materials. Medals today are made of wood, glass, plastic and other non-traditional materials.
MEDAL AND LONGEVITY
For a long time, the durability and value of the metal was directly related to the traditional purpose of the medal - to commemorate important, unforgettable events and persons.
MEDAL AND TEMPORALITY
Today, when medals are created from wood, glass and other fragile materials, when medals commemorate shadows and creatures that only live on this Earth for a few days, medal art invites us to reflect on the phenomena of time and temporality.
THE DIALOGUE
It is common to think that medals perform only the function of historical commemoration and honoring, but medals can also provoke, question, and initiate a cultural-historical dialogue.
REFERENCES
By using cultural texts and intertexts, artists create a kind of unique puzzle-medals.
Family (1987) by Saulius BertulisŽemaičių muziejus „Alka“
HISTORY OF EVERYDAY
The medal, which has been a genre of canonical great history for a long time, today is getting closer to everyday's life and it's heroes.
Not only grand dukes, bishops, mayors, poets and scientists deserve to be commemorated in medals. The grandmother is no less worthy of a medal.
Conversation with a Shadow (2000) by Martynas GintalasŽemaičių muziejus „Alka“
THE COLLECTION OF MEDALS
Historical events, personalities, philosophical questions, reflections on existence, fragments of everyday life, aesthetic impressions - all this and more can be found today in contemporary medals and in the medal collection of Samogitian museum "Alka".
MEDAL ART
We might ask, what is today's medal? And where the medal limits end? What is worth to remembering in medals, and what perhaps is not? Neither the material, nor the shape, nor the theme are sufficient criteria to define the art of a medal. The medal art is the art of memory.
Samogitian museum "Alka" has an exceptional collection or art medals, which tells us about medallic art traditions of independent Lithuania. By exploring this collection of almost 700 medals, we are able to get well acquainted with Lithuania's medal art tradition and it's creators.
The international camp of medal artists in almost 40 years has turned Telsiai into a real capital of medal art. During the last 40 years, the International Symposium of Medal Art has turned Telsiai into a real capital of medal art.
The story was created by Samogitian museum "Alka" museologist, curator of the numismatics collection – Monika Sudintaite.
