The Northern Renaissance in Vilnius city. Ornamentation in wall paintings Cover Image

Šiaurės renesansas Vilniaus mieste. Sienų tapybos ornamentika
The Northern Renaissance in Vilnius city. Ornamentation in wall paintings

Author(s): Aleksandra Aleksandravičiūtė
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Architecture, Visual Arts
Published by: Lietuvos mokslų akademijos leidykla
Keywords: Vilnius art heritage; Renaissance; Mannerism; Northern Renaissance; 16th century art; Vilnius art of the 1st half of the 17th century; wall painting; ornament history

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to generalize wall painting in Vilnius city from the 16th century till the 3rd decade of the 17th century as a phenomenon interrelated by the same epoch, place, type of art, and artistic style. The Renaissance polychromic painting and sgraffito have hardly ever been researched and interpreted from such perspective because the remnants are scarce and patchy and because they had been uncovered on multiple occasions and completely perchance. This heritage has not been documented in written sources, nor has it been used; therefore, so far it can only be analyzed in terms of artistic style, ornamentation, and iconography. After comparing this object with the samples of ornamental graphics that at that time were spreading in other European cities, it is argued in this paper that pieces of art from Vilnius of the 16th century to the first half of the 17th century have typical features of the Northern Renaissance. It is still uncommon in Lithuania to attribute objects from this epoch to the Northern Renaissance. The Renaissance and Mannerist art heritage is still (mainly out of habit) being assessed according to the Italian artistic criteria. There have been long-lasting doubts about whether Renaissance art had ever been part of Vilnius citizens’ surroundings. However, having summed up all the known fragments of polychromic painting and sgraffito, it appears that this part of heritage was rather diverse and valuable. The fragments of Vilnius Renaissance ornamental wall painting represent the most characteristic inter-European peculiarities and development stages of the style. In Bernardin Church, the samples from Albrecht Dürer’s epoch, the transitional period from the late Gothic to Renaissance (first quarter of the 16th century), can be found. Paintings from the mid or late 16th century have remained at 13 Rūdininkai Street, and paintings of the transitional period from the Renaissance to Baroque (1600–1630) at Hozijus house. The ornamentation of the Mannerist style was used at the Holy Spirit’s Dominincan Monastery and in sgraffito of several buildings in Vilnius. The- refore, manifestations of the Renaissance epoch are imprinted in the wall paintings of Vilnius in a rather versatile fashion. Diversity and eclecticity are characteristic of the Northern Renaissance: it is an integral combination of elements from various different Renaissance periods, a junction of Renaissance elements and late Gothic or Mannerist motifs. From this perspective, one can argue that the Vilnius Renaissance heritage is a typical sample of the Northern Renaissance. It is so far uncertain in what ways the samples of Renaissance ornamentation would find themselves in Vilnius. However, if our Renaissance heritage is characteristic of Central European cities, one can predict that the samples had also been reaching our city in ordinary ways that have been researched scrupulously by foreign art critics. Illustrations from “Column Books” or other press, title pages, plates of ornamental carvings could have served as prototypes for the Renaissance wall paintings. A perspective for further research of this question is unfolding. The remaining wall painting ornamentation may help in correcting the dates of construction, reconstruction and renovation of some of Vilnius architectural objects. It would be careless to make further conclusions about the Renaissance ornamentation in Vilnius city, because the mentioned painting findings are absolutely random and do not entirely reveal how much and what kind of painting was present in Vilnius city in the 16th–17th century.

  • Issue Year: 19/2012
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 1-17
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Lithuanian