Relation between primitive and professional painting in Lithuanian church art of the 17th second half and the 19th centuries

The article discusses the general principles for understanding primitive painting in Lithuanian church art, their relation to the prevailing styles of professional art of the period. The article discusses about the creation of the painters of the 17th second half of the 19th centuries who had no systematic education in arts. They works have been preserved in Lithuanian churches and chapels. On discussing primitive painting distinguishing feature, there have been clarified several typical variants of changing the plastic expression means taken from professional art, a weakly rendered three-dimensional appearance of an illusory image. Themes of primitive painting were based on well-known examples of Christian art. The synthesis of a public, community view and an individualized view caused a great number of variations on typical composition themes. Primitive painting in Lithuanian church art maybe have undutiful connection with the pagan Lithuanian religion reflected in the iconographic and artistic forms. The results allow making this generalized conclusion: Lithuanian sacred primitive painting is in intermediate link between the folk and professional painting. The two trends are combined in their composition with the folk or professional element dominant alternatively