Žalčio kaip iššūkio ir transformacijos semantika Čiurlionio kūryboje ir jos kultūriniai kontekstai

LTŽalčio vaizdinys Čiurlionio dailėje įvairuoja: vienur jis iškyla kaip akivaizdus biologinis įvaizdis, kitur – kaip sunkiau atpažįstamas plastinis kompozicinis paveikslų elementas. Tačiau esminė dailininko kūrybos ypatybė ta, kad žalčio vaizdinys nėra tiesmukai realistinis, o vaizduojamas dekoratyviai arba suabstraktintai ir yra kupinas metaforiškumo ir simbolikos. Reikia pripažinti, kad žalčio semantika Čiurlionio dailėje iki šiol nėra išsamiau nagrinėta. Kadangi Čiurlionis savo kūryboje ne tik rėmėsi vietine lietuviškąja žalčio mitopoetikos tradicija, bet ir atsižvelgė į platesnę gyvatės ikonografijos semantiką Vakarų bei Rytų civilizacijose, todėl aktualu įdėmiau pažvelgti į čiurlionišką žalčio simboliką ne tik vietiniame, bet ir kitų kultūrų kontekste. Juo labiau, kad skirtingai nuo kitų Vakarų kultūros dailininkų, Čiurlionio ryšys su visuotinai žinoma krikščioniška, taip pat senovės graikų ir romėnų, egiptiečių, žydų, indų ir kinų bei teosofijos simbolika nėra išsamiau nagrinėtas. [Iš straipsnio, p. 216]

ENThe multimodal image of the grass snake in Čiurlionis’ art works is revealed not just as a biological motif, but also as a more challengingly recognisable visual compositional element in his paintings. The grass snake image is not directly realistic, more often it is expressed in a decorative or abstract forms and is filled with metaphor and symbolism. In this research, in order to reveal the semantics behind the idea of crises and transformation in Čiurlionis’ grass snake image, I use the iconographic, iconological and comparative methods and the semiotic approaches developed by V. Ivanov and V. Toporov, J. Lotman, A. J. Greimas and J. Kristeva. This helps reveal the meanings of the semantic figures in the visual elements in Čiurlionis’ art language as messages and their intertextual connection to codes of culture and tradition (especially the mytho-poetic aspect). The comparative analysis allows tracing the origins of the artist’s images as cultural borrowings, associations or citations, exposing the more universal character of Čiurlionis’ visual symbols and facilitates to read the artist’s work not just in the context of Lithuanian (Baltic) symbolism, but in that of other cultures as well. The research brings to light the artist’s aim to convey and interpret symbols as an open code, which we can creatively read into further, thereby developing our own personal semiosis. Its important to stress that Čiurlionis’ interpretations of cultural symbols, amid the present-day globalisation of their conceptual context and panorama, do not arouse contradictions in understanding, rather, they relatively harmoniously connect to the artist’s envisaged conception. The grass snake in Čiurlionis’ art is important semantic-visual figure, being expressed in four aspects: a) as a mythological-religious symbol, sign and image; b) as a mytho-poetic image; c) as associative imagery or metaphor.and d) as an artistic language form, or compositional structure, expressing a certain metaphor. The Čiurlion-esque grass snake image is typified by ecological, landscape- based and metaphysical integrity. The grass snake here is also the structural basis of primordial nature and its forms (flora, water, clouds), while also being an inhabitant of the underwater and semi-aquatic worlds that appears above the water, amid grasslands, in the mountains and in the sky, in the cosmos, and ultimately – in internal, spiritual, fantasy landscapes. We also recognise the grass snake as am element of traditional Lithuanian ornament of small memorial architecture in painter’s landscapes. Čiurlionis was guided not only by the local Lithuanian grass snake mytho-poetical tradition, he also took into account the broader semantics of snake iconography, interpreting the biblical Brazen Serpent (Nehushtan) symbolism along with its archaic code relating to the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian tradition, later uniquely transformed in ancient Greek and Roman mythological iconography. The sematic cosmogonic, totemic, ancestral cult and hierophany of the deities aspects of the grass snake are distinctly evident in his paintings. The artist did not impart his grass snakes with any erotic or phallic semantics, which are characteristic in both the Lithuanian tradition (as in the folktale Eglė, queen of the grass snakes) and the biblical Adam and Eve myth. Čiurlionis was influenced by theosophists’ ideas about the divine snake symbolism developed by the early civilisations: a historically and religiously integrated, interculturally universal symbolism associated with overcoming crises, spiritual growth and transformation.I trace the typological Čiurlion-esque grass snake semantic interpretation’s connection to the pair of intertwined snakes code of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture from Chalcolithic Old European civilisation (Romania, Ukraine,) and the Chinese Taoist Tai Chi sign. Čiurlionis may have come across the latter Chinese cultural sign through theosophy or Orientalism, whereas information about the Old European ornament was not yet widespread in his times. However, the similar codes hidden in his work, along with the philosophical subtext they carry about the cosmogonic duality of the world, are testimony of the artistic language he developed and its ornamental sign motifs as signifiers of the interculturality, historic integrality and continuity of semantic figures. This is evidence also of the strong artistic intuition factor in the painter’s work, which is characteristic of the esoteric worldview. The research revealed the expression of the grass snake as a visualised code of the Lithuanian mytho-poetic tradition in Čiurlionis’ artwork, and the local cultural integrity and broad intercultural contextuality of his grass snake imagery, by which the artist conveyed his unique vision of the consummate integrality of being and the harmonious coexistence of nature and civilisation. The artist’s acknowledgement of the grandeur of nature via the grass snake image was not so much emotionally romantic as philosophical, existential, cosmological and ontological. It is these particular aesthetic provisions of his that are as relevant as ever in light of present-day crises and amid those that have emerged in the context of post-anthropocene sciences and arts paradigms, when by rejecting anthropocentrism, the aim becomes ensuring a sustainable, ecological civilisational coexistence and synergy with nature and the whole environment. [From the publication]

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