Čiurlionis, painter and composer, in the context of European culture at the turn of the century

LTStraipsnis skiriamas Čiurlioniui kaip fin de siècle Europos kultūros atstovui. Čia aptariamos būdingos simbolių ypatybės, išryškėjusios ir dailės, ir muzikos kūriniuose. Atkreipiamas dėmesys į kūrybos sąsajas su okultizmu, spiritizmu ir teosofija. Teigiama, kad Čiurlionio dailės kūriniai yra pranašesni už jo muziką, bet ir tai, kad jo muzika būtų galėjusi išsirutulioti j atoninę ir serijinę muziką, jei kompozitorius būtų gyvenęs ilgiau. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis; Simbolizmas; Muzikos istorija; Meno istorija; Muzikos metafizika; Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis; Symbolism; Music history; Art history; Metaphysic of music.

ENArticle is devoted to the reception of Mikalojus K. Čiurlionis' works in Lithuanian art criticism in the first two decades of the 20th century. Attempts are made to bring to life the change in the attitude of Čiurlionis' contemporaries to his creation and the sociocultural context. The texts published in the Lithuanian, Russian and Polish language publications in Vilnius and the ones published in St. Petersburg have been researched. In the first exhibitions held by the Lithuanian Art Society the great number and modernity of Čiurlionis' paintings attracted the attention of the public and the press (in Lithuanian publications, critics were literary workers without any experience and education in art criticism who chose an essaylike style of writing). It is obvious that they either supported or rejected the orientation of emerging national art towards the context of early European modernism. The examination of the circumstances that determined the support or rejection of Čiurlionis revealed that the favourable evaluation of his works was influenced by the trust in the artists who appeared in the Lithuanian cultural life. Often the traditional paradigm of the art critics who supported Čiurlionis was closer to their artistic taste and they tried to explain his works inside its boundaries. The negative approach to Čiurlionis' works was often based on the theory that did not recognise nonmimetic portrayal and on the argument that the viewers did not understand his pictures. Although critics considered Čiurlionis a representative of symbolism that bore the sign of decadence, the public reaction to his creation became an incentive to theoretical considerations of symbolism as a new art trend. The attention demonstrated by Vilnius critics of other nationalities and Russian artists, insights into Čiurlionis' talent and a more competent art criticism analysis exerted an influence on Lithuanian art criticism.Change from traditional mimetic towards modern non-mimetic art perception where aesthetic experience was treated as intuitive and non-rationalised was taking place: considerations about how to "understand" Čiurlionis were replaced by calls to "feel, to live through". Summing up it is argued that the reception of Čiurlionis' art in the first two decades of the 20th century was a factor of the cultural process that helped Lithuanian art criticism to mature and promoted the proliferation of early modernism in art. [From the publication]

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