Klasikiniai eksperimentai vėlyvojo sovietmečio Lietuvos tapyboje
Classical experiments in the late Soviet Lithuanian painting

Summary/Abstract: In the article, the late Soviet Lithuanian painting is analysed not as a product of a historical epoch, but is interpreted in the anachronistic contexts of the modern Western painting and contemporary art history. In 1960s, when both the Soviet authorities and the artists sought to renew the official art, especially the so-called thematic painting, Lithuanian painters started to experiment with image subjects and structure. The most interesting among these “iconological” experiments probably are paintings about the painting itself, its origins and destiny. Artists of the Soviet period experimented with painting’s medial characteristics, conditions of visual world representation and optical perception, boundaries of mimetic painting, using means that were invented in the Western painting quite a long time ago. These tested experiments bring different results every time, because every important role is attributed to the concrete “historical” observer. Two directions of such classical experiments are discussed in the article: visualized explorations of space perception or the interaction between real and imaginary spaces and visual quotations. Lithuanian painters actualized the traditional window and mirror motifs by choosing a car (or a bus) as a model for exploring the structure and economy of imaginary picture space; it became a political metaphor as well: a crowded bus represented the state of society that was suffocating under the “Iron Curtain”. The curtain motif necessarily forced the spectators of that time to reflect on the lack of freedom and visual quotations – on the accessibility of information. Such painting raised active spectators, invoked their optical and political consciousness.

• Details
• Contents