VILNIUS CLASSICISM (10
March, 2000 - 15 September, 2000)
The Exhibition took place in Vilnius Picture Gallery (4 Didzioji Street, Vilnius)
Information - phone 370 (2) 22 08 41, 22 42 58; fax: 370 (2) 22 08
41.
E-mail: galerija@aiva.lt
The idea of the exhibition “Vilnius Classicism” was to take a look at the art phenomena of
Classicism epoch from the perspective of Vilnius, which at the turn
of
the 18th-19th centuries became the centre of the formation of a new
trend in Lithuanian and Polish art. The birth, dispersion and end of the
Classicist style coincided with a particularly difficult for the state
period the end of which witnessed its destruction and the distribution
of the lands between neighbouring empires. On the other hand, the spirit
of Enlightenment ideas alive among educated aristocracy and landlords
stimulated them to take care and support artistic creation and artists.
The flourishing of architecture, urbanistic, park planning, monumental
and easel painting, sculpture, graphic and applied arts in various
spheres of life served as a cultural and moral counterbalance to the
contradictions in the political life of the Lithuanian and Polish
Commonwealth.
At the turn of the 18th-19th centuries Vilnius was
also well-known as the centre of education in arts. After the failure to
realise the cherished idea by the King Stanislaw Augustus to found
an academy of arts in Warsaw, higher education in arts was successfully
realised in Vilnius - the Departments of Architecture (1793), Drawing
and Painting (1797), Sculpture (1803) and Carving (1805) were
established at the Principal School of Lithuania. All these departments
were referred to as the Vilnius School of Arts. The “golden age” of
the Vilnius culture and art is associated with the first decades of the
activities of the departments of arts.
The
exhibition “Vilnius Classicism” presented to the public the survived
in Lithuania and Poland collections of art works created in Classicism
epoch. The major part of this exposition was comprised of the collections
possessed by the Warsaw National Museum and the Lithuanian Art Museum
supplemented with paintings, graphic and sculptural works kept at other
museums, libraries and cultural institutions in Lithuania and Poland.
The exposition included canvasses painted on the themes of the Bible,
New Testament, mythology, the antique and native land’s history,
cycles of drawings, representative and chamber portraits, landscapes and
everyday genre works by the initiators of the Lithuanian professional
art - the founders and teachers of the Vilnius School of Arts -
Pranciskus Smuglevicius (Franciszek Smuglewicz, 1745-1807), Jonas
Rustemas (Jan Rustem, 1762-1835) and its pupils such as Juozapas
Oleskevicius (Józef Oleszkewicz, 1777-1830), Jonas Damelis (Johann
Damehl, 1780-1840), Jonas Joteika (Jan Jotejko, 1798-about 1840),
Polikarpas Joteika (Polikarp Jotejko, 1796-after 1850), Jonas Carnockis
(Jan Czarnocki, 1762-1835) and Juozapas Peska (Józef Peszka, 1767-1831)
who studied under P. Smuglevicius in Warsaw. The exposition also
includes the projects by the prominent architects of Lithuanian
Classicism Laurynas Gucevicius (1753-1798) and Martynas Knakfusas
(Marcin Knackfus, about 1740-1821) as well as silver, tin articles,
furniture, carpets and tapestries created by the masters of applied
arts.
