Art and State: Artistic Life in the Lithuanian Republic 1918-1940
Art and State: Artististic Life in the Lithuanian Republic 1918-1940

Summary/Abstract: The interwar years are a very distinctive period in the modern history of Lithuania. Once an idle province of the Russian Empire, Lithuania experienced particularly intensive and swift growth. In culture, as in other spheres, radical changes ocurred that transformed the state into a modern European country. When we talk about the artistic life of independent Lithuania it is impossible to dissociate it from its organisational and institutional aspects.The struggle of artistic views and ideas was inseparable from the discussions on the problems of the artist's social status, possible forms of artistic patronage and other similar questions. Despite noticing the weak powers of state patronage, artists did not reject their own artistic conception brought from the 19th century. On the other hand, very few of the older generation understood in which direction the attitude of society towards art and its function was moving. Only when the Lithuanian President himself announced, during a congress of the ruling Tautininkai (Nationalists) party, that "art and science had to have practical significance, they had to serve the nation", thereby stating clearly for what the state was ready to pay artists, the ideal of romanticism began to be reconsidered. With a few exceptions, artists could not earn a living from their art alone. The structure of state commissions and tenders, copyrights and the social status of artists - all these urgent problems could be resolved only by the united efforts and forces of the whole art community. But artists were in no rush to unite. The professional Union of Lithuanian Artists was founded only in 1935. There was an aspiration in interwar Lithuania, as in other new countries that appeared on the map of Europe after World War I, to form both a unified civil society and to make the name of the country famous and prestigeous in the international arena. The vision of a modern state was combined with the characteristics of the country's historical past particularly emphasising the grandeur of the Middle Ages and suffering brought by the long years of oppression that had ennobled and seasoned the nation. The propaganda significance of monumental art was demonstrated in Lithuania's first large-scale international self-presentation at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. In summarising the features of the Lithuanian art scene we must remember that at that time, the Lithuanian state began to understand the importance of art for the representation and propaganda of the image of the country. This is evidenced by the increasing number of state commissions for artworks in public spaces and the presentations of Lithuanian art abroad, the most important of which took place in Riga and Tallinn. On the other hand, the brevity of the national culture and insufficient possibilities for its patronage did not allow for different artistic trends to develop and for a critical discourse to appear.

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