French Influence on Antanas Gudaitis's Painting

Looking ' South': French Influence on Antanas Gudaitis's Painting JOLITA MULEVIČIŪTĖ Institute for Culture, Philosophy and Art Vilnius "The years spent in Paris ivere the happiest of my life... I con Gudaitis's decision to leave for Paris was not excep sider myself a painter formed in Paris. .. "' tional at the time. At the end of the 1920s, many Lithuanian Antanas Gudaitis (1904-1989) artists related their professional careers to this European cultural center—in replacement of earlier priorities. Even THIS STATEMENT, by one of Lithuania's most famous 20th until 1914, Paris played a peripheral role; artistic intelli century painters, is rather paradoxical. Gudaitis, often called gentsia descending from Lithuania was attracted, first of all, the pioneer of the national school of painting—whose to Warsaw, Cracow, Munich and St. Petersburg.2 After works were considered to embody the principal features of World War I and the resulting territorial conflict with Lithuanian style—thought of himself as an artist formed by Poland and the complication of its relations with Bolshevik the culture which he had explored during his studies in Paris Russia, the young Republic had to adjust its orientations in 1929-1933. This ambiguity, lying in Gudaitis's biogra formed during the second half of the 19th century. The phy, prompts us to question the boundary between young state turned its attention to Germany which, antici foreign/local and general/specific perspective as it arises in pating the end of the war unfavorable to itself, supported discussions on regional history. Furthermore, the painter's Lithuanian independence even in the middle of armed bat heritage reflecting the main local trends of the 1930s is pre tles: it expected to create a puppet buffer state and weaken scient in examining the internal attitudes and international the position of Russia in the Baltic region. Although the relations of inter-war Lithuanian art. German initiative failed, during the immediate post-war years, the political, economic and cultural relations between the two countries remained close. The Choice of Paris Meanwhile, France, the former member of the Gudaitis arrived in Paris in the autumn of 1929, after less Entente, was ill-disposed towards Lithuania. Raymond than three years spent at Kaunas Art School and at the Poincare looked at Lithuania as a province of the powerful Faculty of Humanities of the Lithuanian University: there states that accidentally became independent. On the one he formed his leftist world-view, mastered the elements of hand, the President and later the Prime-Minister of France post-impressionist painting and acquired a strong determi hoped for the re-establishment of the Russian empire; on nation to find a personal way through the labyrinth of mod the other hand, he supported in every possible way the ernist trends. An extraordinary event—the student strike interests of Poland including the solution of the problem of that shook the Art School that year—induced him to leave Vilnius painful to Lithuanians.3 Hence, it is quite under his homeland. This act of youth protest directed against the standable that the image of France as a political and cultural conservative program of education and outdated views of authority was not popular at the beginning of the period of teachers has been regarded, in the Lithuanian historiogra independence in Lithuania. Too, the conservative environ phy, as a turn towards avant-garde principles. I should add, ment of the local spiritual life did not stimulate the dissem that it was a very late turn in relation to the chronology of ination of French culture. For instance, in 1921, the Latvian the Western art processes and the development of the painter Romans Suta visiting Kaunas did not notice any neighboring Baltic countries. As an active organizer of the influence of the newer Parisian art trends; therefore he strike, Gudaitis spent two months in jail and later was encouraged Lithuanians to free themselves from stagnation expelled from the only art school in Lithuania. Afterwards, and to look for inspiration in French modernism.'' Indeed, he decided not to return to his alma mater but to look for in the early 1920s, differently from Latvians, Lithuanian educational possibilities abroad. artists fixed on neo-roinantic ideals treated French art with 128 CENTROPA Л.2: MAY 20(16 reserve and sometimes even negatively accused it of cosmo often took the advice of Polish colleagues7 or of Jewish politan ambitions harmful to the artistic originality of a artists descending from Lithuania. For instance, Arbit Blatas nation. (Neemija Arbitblatas) who communicated closely with the However, in time the Lithuanian political and cultural newcomers from his native town helped Gudaitis solve his attitude of the elite changed. With the strengthening of the initial problems in Paris. It is most probable that it was Arbit national-socialist movement, the appeal of Germany dimin Blatas that took the Lithuanian painter to Andre Lhote's ished, and Lithuanians started to look for. other interna studio. tional partners. "To reinforce Lithuanian cultural resilience, we should look for antidotes in Anglo-Celtic, French and even Italian cultures. Because of the similarity of our situa Schools and Teachers tions, we should study in detail Belgian, Czech and Swiss Apart from Lhote, during his first months in .Paris, Gudaitis, cultural experiences; with regard to national immunity the attended the Russian painter and scenographer Aleksandra studies of Japanese, Jewish, Irish, Canadian French and Exters lessons and classes at the Academic Julian chosen by some other nations that have fought wisely for their sur many Lithuanian students, presumably because of the glo vival are most necessary for us," argued the geographer rious past of this private educational institution—connected Kazys Pakštas, attempting to trace an alternative orienta to the French art celebrities who had studied there. 5 tion. In this process of the transformation of international However, the painter did not stay at these schools for long; allegiance, France came to play a distinguished role. he was unsatisfied with the routine of classes, the rigid By the end of the first decade of independence, France teaching principles of the famous pedagogues and the nar won over Germany and took the most significant place row unified stylistic requirements for student's works. Later among geo-cultural preferences of Lithuania. The attitude Gudaitis described his impression of Lhote's method in the of France also changed: its disregard for Lithuania was following way: "Already at that time I thought that it was replaced by the principles of cooperation and efforts to some kind of cubist academism; it was neither a nature study strengthen its influence in the region. Furthermore, this nor the formation of an artist's individuality. After working turning-point in inter-state relations corresponded to the a month or more, I became disappointed by Andre Lhote's changes in Lithuanian culture: it was at that time that a new system. Those who thought that it was possible to learn art generation of painters, writers, actors and musicians, deter could find out much about Rubens's dynamic of forms, mined to change the stagnant course of national art, rhythms and color contrasts here. The teacher helped. matured. "Such nice content but such bad poetry!" However, these are the rules, and you could not create art exclaimed Petras Juodelis, in 1929, criticizing Petras from them."8 Vaičiūnas's patriotic verse/' This young literary critic's dis Gudaitis did not admire a rational, normative arid the satisfaction was inspired by the same desire for renewal that oretically based manner, he was attracted by an impulsive had provoked the Kaunas Art School students' strike that and more personal mode of expression. Perhaps this incli radically changed Gudaitis's biography. • nation was related not only to his individual temperament Gudaitis was not the first one to study in Paris. Alumni but also to his Lithuanian cultural experience. The artist of the Kaunas Art School started to travel to Paris system arrived from a country that lacked the teaching traditions of atically from the end of 1926, usually supported by modest academic art. During the 1830s and 1860s, the government state stipends. At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, the sculp of tsarist Russia destroyed Lithuanian institutions of higher tors Juozas Mikėnas and Robertas Antinis, the painter education. Therefore, even until World War I, no art school Viktoras Vizgirda, the sccnographer Stasys Ušinskas, and of a higher level functioned in Lithuania. Moreover, after the graphic artists Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas and Jonas the 1863 rebellion, all local art teachers who had graduated Steponavičius, to mention only a few, honed their profes from the art academies in St. Petersburg and Western sional skills there for a longer or shorter time. These artists, Europe were expelled from primary and secondary schools. and Gudaitis who was one of the most active among them, They were replaced by newcomers of Russian origin, most later formed the main views of Lithuanian art of the 1930s. frequently graduates of the schools of so-called technical It is characteristic that the young students would travel pen drawing in Russia. These teachers oriented their students niless, with no knowledge of the French language and the towards a practical craft. Even the Kaunas Art School specificities of the French educational

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