Other events in Baltic States

Paintings of the West European artists dated 16th – 19th century have been exhibited in Radvilas Palace Museum since January 10, the Lithuanian Art Museum's representatives inform.

The exhibition will be open until February 10, 2012.

Aristocrats who appreciated the arts had amassed entire collections of West European paintings, which were then presented in Lithuania's museums. The Radvila family stored its large collection of valuable paintings in Birzai and Vilnius, the Tyzenhaus family had their collection in Rokiskis, Juozas Tiskevicius – in Astravas Manor. Unfortunately, during periods of war and political conflict these collections became dispersed and only fragments ended up in Lithuania's museums, informs LETA/ELTA.

The basis of the Lithuanian Art Museum's West European painting collection consists of paintings donated in the first decades of the 20th century by Lithuanian estate holders and collectors to collectors in Vilnius – the Vilnius Art Museum Society and the Association of the Friends of Science in Vilnius. Works that had been purchased and donated in the post-war and later years added to the collection. At present, the collections of the Lithuanian Art Museum contain over 300 16th – 19th century paintings by West European artists, reflecting the change in styles from Renaissance to Romanticism and Realism.

The Late Italian Renaissance is represented by the famous Cremona painter Antonio Campi (1523–1587) and his painting of subtle, elegant form, Holy Women at the Tomb of Christ. Characteristics typical of Mannerism are alive in Roman painter Marcello Venusti's (1512/15–1579) Pieta, painted after a drawing by Michelangelo, in the painting St Ursula with Female Martyrs by one of the most famous Mannerists from the Netherlands, Bartholomaus Spranger (1546–1611), and in the effective multi-figured composition Allegory of the Old and New Testament by Harlem's representative of Mannerism, Cornelis van Haarlem (1562–1638).

Anti-mannerist trends and the return to studies of nature, natural poses and classical art is evident in the canvas of one of the founders of the Academy of Bologna, Lodovico Carracci (1555–1619) titled The Entombed Christ, which draws the viewer for its emotionality, expressive light and dark contrasts and subtle coloring.

Painting from the Baroque period (17th – 18th century) constitutes the main part of the exhibits in the Lithuanian Art Museum's 16th – 19th century collections of West European paintings. The Italian Baroque is represented by the energetic, powerful grace of St Paul the Hermit which is attributed to the rebellious Salvator Rosa (1615–1673). Also worthy of attention is the romantic mood portrayed in Giovanni Ghisolfi's (1623–1683) landscape Company on a Beach, Domenico Brandi's (1683–1736) Landscape with a Cow Herd, the recently restored canvas by an anonymous 17th century painter The Temptation of St Benedict and The Sacrifice of Abraham.

In the Spanish painting collection the eye is drawn to the canvas by Zaragoza painter Francisco Ximenez de Maza (1598–1670) St Mary Magdalene and the Benedictine monk Juan Rizi’s (1600–1681) Priest with a Cross, where dramatic tension is enhanced by contrasting chiaroscuro, while the figures’ poses and mimicry convey the spiritual ecstasy of the saints, typical of mysticism-drenched Spanish religion.

An excellent example of the Austrian Baroque is Johann Michael Rottmayer's (1654–1730) monumental canvas Lot and His Daughters, painted using broad and daring brushstrokes, and enriched with the effective interplay between light and shadows.

Protestant Dutch art is presented in the landscape, still-life, animalistic, everyday and battle-scene compositions of Claes Jansz van der Willigen (1630–1676), Jan van Borcheloo and others. The landscape by one of the most famous 17th century Dutch landscape painters Meindert Hobbema's (1638–1709) Old Mill, is worthy of a separate mention, depicting the artist's beloved motif of sun-drenched forest glades and a dam and mill overgrown with trees, perfectly conveying the natural mood and lighting effects.

The disciplined, idealization-inclined 17th century French painting school is represented by Italian Landscape with Shepherds painted by the excellent anonymous follower of Claude Lorrain, two Italian landscapes by Gaspard Dughet (1615–1675), and Jacques Stella's (1596–1657) mythological composition.