Under the shield of history: on retrospectivism in Lithuanian art during World War II

The paper deals with the phenomenon of retrospectivism in Lithuanian art of the mid-20th century. At the beginning of the paper, while referring to artworks of various genres and forms meant for public use (an illustrated book, an exhibition, which has attracted public attention, a memorial construction, and several examples of church art), the author points at the extent to which this art trend was predominant in Lithuanian art scene throughout WWII. While making references to artworks by artists of the middle (printmakers Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas and Viktoras Petravičius) and younger (Vytautas Kasiulis) generations as examples, the article shows that along with Neo-Classicism as emerged in the 1950s, the years of Nazi occupation saw manifestations of more conservative Neo-Traditionalism aligned with models of Baroque and Romanticism. The analysis of particular examples shows what image-creating techniques, typical of historical styles, were adopted by artists. During the war the majority of artists associated with Neo-Traditionalism of the 1930s renounced generalisation and geometrisation, characteristic of modernist stylisation, which they have been applying in their previous works, and endeavoured to demonstrate their mastery by creating a suggestive illusion of reality - a strategy familiar to the public from works of historical art. In the second part of the paper the author aims to establish factors that encouraged the conservative retrospectivism to emerge in works of WWII artists. Among the most influential factors the phenomena of school and model are discussed, laying emphasis on the circulation of imported German art and its reproductions. The paper concludes by raising a question, to what extent retrospectivism is to be related to a suggestion to create a European identity after examples of classical art - a concept that gained popularity among Lithuanian intellectuals and artists in the 1930s. And, on the other hand, to what extent it might have been a part of the strategy of survival, which was employed by many artists and evolved into certain rules of inner censorship under Nazi occupation