Ketaus kryžiai Lietuvos kapinėse: stilius, ornamentas, simboliai

LTStraipsnyje ikonografijos ir stiliaus požiūriu analizuojama Lietuvos kapinėse esančių XIX a. antkapinių ketaus kryžių puošyba: ornamento motyvai, religiniai bei sepulkraliniai simboliai, stiliaus požymiai. Lietuvos kapinėse iš likusių ketaus kryžių dekorą pirmą kartą bandoma susieti su atitinkama ketaus liejybos tradicija: vokiečių (prūsų), prancūzų ir rusų. Šiame kontekste aptariami Vyšniavo ir Kauno „Minervos“ liejyklų gaminiai.

ENThe article discusses the decor of cast-iron tombstone crosses in Lithuanian cemeteries: motifs of ornaments, style characteristics and religious and sepulchral symbols. It mainly focuses on the decor elements of crosses that symbolically express the purpose of the tombstone: serving as a sign of memory and speaking of the tempo rariness of the earthly existence and the eternity beyond death. The motifs and the combinations and transformations of ornaments help to recognise the cultural zones of Europe from which the designs of crosses have been borrowed and, sometimes, to identify the origin of certain items that have been brought from abroad. Therefore, one of the main tasks of this article is to investigate the issue of migration of artistic influences in the 19th century Lithuania based on the decor characteristics of crosses. The chronological limits of the investigation are the 5th decade of the 19th century to the World War II while the spatial area is limited to the territory of modern Lithuania. The article identifies three cast iron "schools", to which the crosses or their designs that spread in Lithuania may be attributed, i.e. German (Prussian), French and Russian. Before the mid-19th century, the European leader in artistic cast iron production was Prussia and, therefore, most crosses built at the time were brought to Lithuania from East Prussia or were cast following models created in Prussia. In the earliest crosses, the dominant ornaments were classicistic and gothic motifs.The echoes of these two styles can also be traced in the crosses cast in the blast-furnace of Vishnyeva (currendy the territory of Belorussia) founded by Joachim Chreptowicz, Deputy Chancellor of the GDL. In addition to Christian signs, symbols of antiquity were also used in cast iron crosses, the popularity of which was largely influenced by the work "How the Ancients Represented Death" (Wie die Alten den Todgebildet) (1769) by German poet and philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. In the second half of the 19th century, flamboyant sculptural crosses started spreading in European cemeteries based on designs created in France. The crosses built in Lithuania were cast following the examples of Val d'Osne, the most famous and probably the longest-survived manufacturer of artistic cast iron in France. Crosses of French style were distinguished by lavish ornamentation and abundance of Christian subjects, symbols and allegories. In the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, a number of Russian crosses with dominating low-relief Byzantine ornaments were built in Lithuanian cemeteries. In the last decades of the 19th century, crosses with floral ornaments were particularly popular. It has been noticed that stylised floral ornament was popular everywhere in Europe while the naturalistic imitations of the shapes of nature, in particular a motif of a cross sprouring from a tree or stump, were only favoured in Catholic regions. [From the publication]