Symbolic landscape in Aldona Gustas’ poetry and painting

Aldona Gustas (b. 1932) is a German poetess and painter of Lithuanian descent. Her creative work, both poetry and painting, can be recognized from the imaginary landscape of Lithuania that she remembers from her childhood. In her poetry, this landscape is described by concrete names of Lithuanian rivers, locations, and towns (for example, Šyša, Šešupė, Nemunas, Karceviškiai, Šilutė, Vilnius). Meanwhile, although her paintings are generalized, the shapes and colours in them allow us to recognize the landscape of Gustas’ native land. Her paintings remind of her childhood: perhaps the most notable characteristic of her landscape paintings is the sense of fairy-tales, dreams, and beauty. We see the blue and the green of nature: seas, rivers, and forests. A little girl is in the centre of this world. In Gustas’ poems written in the first person singular, we can hear the sincere voice of the girl who is an interpreter of the Lithuanian world. The paintings also show the world of that fair-haired girl. Her fixed look into the distance – investigating, waiting, and searching – is especially important. Gustas’ poems and paintings express different aspects of her experience, but at the same time these two media are mutually complementary. Such is the world of her imagination: the poetess-cum-painter tries to convey her own memories and her own experience of Lithuanian landscape engraved in her poetic soul