Jėzaus kulto raiška XX a. I pusės Lietuvos religinėje dailėje
Expression of the cult of Jesus in Lithuanian religious art of the first half of the 20th century

Summary/Abstract: Late in the 19th - first half of the 20th century all pictures representing the kindness and love of the Saviour to mankind became widely spread in the churches of all Catholic states and overshadowed the subjects pertaining to his Passion (except the images of the Crucified). The reason was a new social policy of the Church renewal program implemented by the Holy See. One of the ways to express this ideology and also the main form of devotion was the cult of the Holiest Heart of Jesus. Therefore the Holiest Heart of Jesus became the central theme of religious art in the 20th century. A special impetus for pictures and sculptures of this kind to appear in every church of Lithuania was given by the intronization acts of parishes, religious organizations and even of the country (1934), as well as the 1933-1935 jubilee of the church. A significant part of the images devoted to the Heart of Jesus or other related subjects (e. g.. the Good Pastor, Jesus' prayers on the Mount of Olives) that got into the churches were not the original artistic creations. Most often they were copies or paraphrases of oleographs widely spread in the Catholic worlds or reproductions of other kinds of religious pictures. It is this production that most strongly influenced the form of devotion visualization in the first half of the 20th century.Since 1925, when Pope Pius XI announced the encyclical "Quas primas" in which the rights of Christ's reign were theologically substantiated and the holy day of Christ the King was introduced as a holyday of all Catholic organizations, the images of Christ the King began spreading in the churches. This subject reflects the then urgent problems of the Church: fight against laicism on the one hand and the successful expansion of Catholic missions throughout the continents on the other.

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