Māksla un sabiedrība. Vizuālās mākslas recepcija padomju varas gados Latvijā
Art and Society. Reception of Visual Art during the Soviet Years in Latvia

Summary/Abstract: The attitude of Latvian society to visual art during Soviet rule could be reasonably judged from sociological studies, but sociology in the Latvian SSR developed only from the 1960s and the reception of visual art was not an object of its study. In order to answer the research questions, it was necessary to analyse through case studies of statistical documents on exhibition attendances at the Latvian and Russian Art Museum of the LSSR (from 1963 the State Art Museum), exhibition visitors’ comments in the Latvian State Archives and the Latvian National Museum of Art Scientific Documents Centre, beginning with the reoccupation period from 1945. Documented visitor figures had to be accepted as a sufficiently representative factual basis despite gaps in the data. Analysis of the comments sheets (more than 2000) made it possible to identify typological groups and trends in opinions, despite the frequent lack of self-identification of the authors and the ever growing number of migrant and tourist comments in Russian, which had to be separated focusing on the local community. In assessing numbers and opinions, the object of reception and cognition had to be taken into account: under Soviet rule, wider society, “the people”, was offered controlled art (socialist realism), which, nevertheless, evolved to include elements of modernism and postmodernism. The active “art for the people” policy of the ruling powers had its results. The number of visitors to exhibitions at the museum gradually increased, far surpassing the statistics of independent Latvia in the 1920s and 1930s. The dynamics of the total number of visitors varied from year to year reaching a peak in 1979 (more than 300,000) but experienced a sharp decline at the end of the period, when cultural life intertwined with the struggle for political independence, which was a pressing issue for Latvian society. It can be assumed that the increase in museum visits was not only the result of an ideologically based cultural policy; the reception of art was a psychological relief from the hardships of life under occupation. The number of visitors to group exhibitions was generally higher than those for solo exhibitions. The highest attendance figures for ideologically labelled exhibitions ranged from 20 to 30 thousand. The numbers for ideologically unlabelled or thematically neutral group exhibitions, including applied arts, were more than twice as high. The typical attendance figures for the largest group exhibitions – more than 20,000 – were higher in percentage terms here (about 21% of exhibitions), and repeatedly exceeded 30,000 (almost 5% of exhibitions). In the field of solo exhibitions, the well-known classics of the 19th and early 20th centuries and the older generation of artists still active in Latvia during the Soviet years were generally consistently popular. The realists and stylisers who matured as artists in the 1920s and 1930s were also popular. The painters united by the Vilhelms Purvītis School were sufficiently popular among a narrower circle of interested people. Roughly the same was true of the former modernists of the early 1920s and the younger generation of artists who had come to the fore in the period of socialist modernism and socialist postmodernism, as well as some diaspora artists at the end of the period. The political factor is more evident in the comments sheets than in the visitor figures. In the first post-war years, the comments sheets were dominated by Russian-language entries, most of them written by migrants, visitors and excursionists from other republics of the USSR, and a large number by military personnel. Most of the entries at this time were affirmative: the museum and exhibitions most often left a “good impression”, the building and premises were praised, as were their furnishings, order and cleanliness. The most frequent criticism was insufficient presentation of the Russian School, the newer Latvian art was accused of lacking politically topical themes. In the years of upsurging totalitarian cultural policy and the rise of socialist realism, positive evaluations were even more prevalent, and references to shortcomings were rare. The overall character of the reviews is rather formalised and good-sounding, filled with statements and vocabulary of the official ideology; affirmations of “good impressions”, praise of the classics and examples of socialist realism was invariably repeated. The political “thaw” (1956–1964) is reflected in many comments, with the number of those in the Latvian language increasing. Typical is the dramatic contrast between the entries by defenders of the older and younger generations of modernisers and that of orthodox traditionalists. During the long period of political “stagnation” (1965–1985), ideologically labelled exhibitions were less and less appealing to the mass of recipients; in the case of solo exhibitions too, thematically apolitical exhibitions were the most popular. But in the mass of responses analysed, the like/dislike attitude was conditioned by the presence or absence of satisfactory mimetic imagery; the abstraction of imagery was unacceptable to many, the modernisers, so highly regarded among art professionals, were harshly criticised, and positive counterpoints were found both in the past and in postmodernistic figurativism. The sharp differences in evaluations in the same respect continued during the period of the collapse of Soviet power (1985–1991). At the same time, the impact of the “Third Awakening” began to affect evaluations. Looking at the general picture of the reception of visual art in the whole of the Soviet period, one had to conclude that the development of prevailing attitudes shows both an orientation towards a mimetically traditional, but distinctly apolitical and iconographically local, “native” art, and a dramatically contrasting expansion of cognitions, as well as art-induced hidden and, by the end of the period, already overt desires for national and political independence.

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