Studies of art on the pages of the journal “Soter”

Straipsnyje pristatomos ir analizuojamos menotyros (architektūrologijos, dailėtyros, teatrologijos) publikacijos žurnale SOTER. Išskiriami tarpukario ir pastarojo dešimtmečio periodai. Aptariamas publikacijų pobūdis, jų reikšmė, temų įvairovė ir tikslingumasThis year, commemorating a decade of the restoration, the journal SOTER invites its readers into a retrospec-tive journey through its pages. Therefore, this article is devoted to the discussion about the articles on art studies (fine art studies, architecturology and theatrology) published in the SOTER. The aim of the paper is to explore and evaluate the situation how art and religious studies are presented in the journal SOTER. In the history of the journal, two periods can be distinguished: the interwar period (1924–1939, the pub-lisher – Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy) and that of the last decade (1999– 2009, the publisher – Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Catholic Theology). Thus the article is divided into two chapters. The first one analyses the texts related to art studies published during the interwar period. It has been noticed that at that time studies of art had been taking their first timid steps. The articles were of an encyclopaedic character; sometimes like the summaries of works of foreign art critics or just the presentation of statistical data. The scale of art trends and subjects was not quite extensive, confined to the discussion of the iconography of Christian fine arts and small forms architecture, i.e. Lithuanian folk crosses and miniature chapels. Although in the first half of the 20 th century the formation of the professional Lithuanian school of art studies took place and students at Vytautas Magnus University were taught by renowned European art histo-rian Jurgis Baltrušaitis, and the museologist and art critic well known in Lithuania, Paulius Galaunė, nonethe-less this situation of Lithuanian art studies was not reflected in the journal SOTER. The situation has changed after the restoration of the journal in 1999. Attention to art problems conside-rably increased. [...]Menotyros katedraMenų fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta