Kaunas School of Art and the three milestones in the genesis of the national school of painting in the 20th century

Straipsnis skirtas Kauno meno mokyklos fenomeno aptarimui, joje besiformuojančių tautinės dailės mokyklos pagrindinių programinių estetinių nuostatų, kūrybos principų ir stilistinių bruožų išryškinimui. Jame išskirtinis dėmesys sutelkiamas j trijų iškiliausių šios mokyklos tapytojų Justino Vienožinskio, Antano Samuolio ir Antano Gudaičio vaidmenį XX a. Lietuvos dailės istorijoje, atskleidžiamas jų meninės kūrybos principų, estetinių nuostatų, požiūrių j spalvą, formą, koloritą, kompoziciją ir kitus plastinius tapybos aspektus savitumas. Aptariami kai kurie svarbesni jų intelektualinės ir kūrybinės biografijos bruožai, lyginamuoju požiūriu analizuojami jų tapybinio stiliaus ypatumai, įvertinamas įnašas į tautinės meno mokyklos tapsmo procesą.The article considers the phenomenon of Kaunas School of Art and highlights the main aesthetic attitudes developed in the program of the national school of art, its principles of creation and stylistic features. Preferential attention is focused on three outstanding painters ofthat school: Justinas Vienožinskis, Antanas Samuolis and Antanas Gudaitis, and their role in the history of Lithuanian art of the 20th Century. The originality of their principles of artistic creation and aesthetic attitudes, their approach to color, form, composition and other plastic aspects of painting are revealed. Some of the more important features of their intellectual and creative biography are discussed; the peculiarities of their painterly style are analyzed comparatively and their contribution to the process of the foundation of the national art school is evaluated. The pleiad of the three outstanding artists discussed in the article (J. Vienožinskis, A. Samuolis and A. Gudaitis) created the main guidelines of the national school of painting in the 20th Century. In the formative period of its creation, an exceptional role fell upon its main founder and ideologist - J. Vienožinskis, who adopted the models used in the creation of Kaunas School of Art from Cracow Academy and, linking this to the innovative attitudes of other art schools, formed his own vision of a national school of art. Не outlined a few features that became of great importance to the entire later tradition of the national school of art in the 20th Century - such as a return to folk art. His orientation towards the achievements of post- Cezanne French art prompted a perception of the creation of forms as a sign of modernity and raised the importance of expressionistic emphasis on the most sensitive inner experiences. From here the prevailing role of the pro-Cezanne and expressionistic tendencies in the Lithuanian school of painting poured out, these tendencies were related to the elevation of constructive principles and an aim to express the artists' strongly individualistic attitude towards the world through the particular means of plastic expression. On the other hand, J. Vienožinskis made every effort so that the young professional art of Lithuanians would rid itself of the complexes of provincialism and turn its face toward the Western modern art of the French and the plastic investigations that were developed there. It was not by accident, that the latter, alongside the tradition of national art, became the most important element for stimulating creativity at the commencement of the long and complicated path toward an original national spirit (the seeds of which M. K. Čiurlionis had already sown) and the formation of style. Paris, with its unique world of museums and galleries and its majestic traditions of culture, was the basic cultural guide of the first two generations of this school. It was the city from which the creators of our national art school at the beginning of the 20th century took their ideas and searched for the principles of creation, plastic culture, examples of professional skill, relevant colouration and the solutions of problems of form and composition. Paris was their guide for the future, one that enabled them to fuse the tendencies expanded in the creation of the artists, compelling Lithuanian artists into the rebirth of a more or less solid national style, one that was rid of the complexes of provincialism that are so typical of small nations. A. Samuolis and A. Gudaitis were amongst the most eminent authorities of Lithuanian colourist painting, a style which was characterised by a peculiar expression and dramatism. Both of them made a great contribution to the interwar culture of Lithuania (and after). Namely, it was they who laid the foundations for Lithuanian painting, and using their own création as an example, undoubtedly represented and continued the painterly tradition of the Kaunas School of Art in the second half of the 20th Century