Peculiar reception of paintings by M. K. Čiurlionis and the "Baltic text"

LTStraipsnyje pateikiama retrospektyvi individualios M.K. Čiurlionio tapybos suvokimo patirties analizė: Čiurlionis istoriniame Novosibirsko Akademgorodoko kontekste 1970-1980 m. Vaiko, jaučiančio ir matančio tapybą, vaizduotė ieškojo teksto, kuris padėtų apibrėžti estetinę regėjimo patirtį. Savo ruožtu tam tikras regėjimo laukas, kaip vaizdinių orientyrų sistema, darantis įtaką teksto suvokimo procesams, turėjo įtakos ir minimam literatūriniam tekstui. Jis susiliejo su vaizdiniais į kreolizuotą apibendrintą „baltišką“ tekstą. Jį sudariusių žodinių tekstų ir vaizdų pasirinkimas buvo grindžiamas jiems atstovaujamos kultūrinės „baltų“ tapatybės išsamumo ir apimties principu. Čiurlionio kamerinė ir erdvinė tapyba buvo suvokiama kaip epifaninių „pavasario“ vaizdų vizualizacija. Rezultatas buvo labai stipri emocinė patirtis, kurią galima apibūdinti kaip vietos pojūtį. [Iš leidinio]

ENThe evident prevalence of the text as the source of information and a general focus on the text in the 70s-80s culture leads to the text-centered approach to visuality. In the reader’s mind, the visual images may enter into various relationships, but it is the literary text that structures the hierarchy and story of relations. The reader who acts as a spectator enjoying and analyzing the painting seeks the text that may help to substantiate the aesthetic experience of the visuality. The visual field, as the system of visual clues, affecting the text reception mechanisms, influences the literary text so that it ceases to be an exclusively verbal phenomenon. The verbal notions merge with the visual ones in the creolized text. From my perspective, peculiar cases of creolization are unusual, so I tried to evaluate the formation of the specific creolized text in the reader’s mind. 1 identify the text as “Baltic” because, during creolization, the specific texts and images are selected based on the principle of completeness and extensionality of the “Baltic” cultural identity represented by them. It may appear rather general, but I presented it in the light of knowledge about the Baltic culture available in Siberia in the 80s when the more precise understanding of specifics of certain countries practically was not possible: the range of available publications and reproductions was too limited, and real travels were too random and also rare.This process is mainly based on visual impressions and refers to the search of the textual environment, which should be grouped. The images in Čiurlionis’s works, the graphics of children books by Baltic authors, so familiar from early childhood and further on compared with the experience of real trips, required to be substantiated by the literary text. Such detailing was needed to experience specific culture and locations in full extent. It should be the experience that significantly complemented the real trip or even replaced it. The search for the text ended after reading the Spring, a story by Oskar Luts. The chamberlike lyrics of Čiurlionis’s paintings was the basis for creolization, in which the epiphanic images of Spring merged with oneiric images of the graphics by Ulo Sooster, the illustrator. The creolized text was perfected by the presence of space in paintings by Čiurlionis. It resulted in a powerful emotional experience - a sense of extensive and complete cultural identity, a genuine sense of a place. [From the publication]