A sunny winter day

The formative period in the career of the painter Augustinas Savickas (1919–2012) was extremely tumultuous. Just before the Second World War, he attended Kaunas School of Art. He studied sociology at Geneva University, and then painting at Vilnius Academy of Art. When the war broke out he left for Soviet Russia, worked on a collective farm and in a quarry, was an artist with the State Art Ensemble of the LSSR, and a soldier in the 16th Lithuanian division of the Red Army. He graduated from Vilnius Institute of Art in 1949, and began to paint pictures of nature, as opposed to thematic Socialist Realism pictures. Savickas attempted to express the spirit of the different times of day and the different seasons, and between 1950 and 1959 he painted many small landscapes around Vilnius. In order to retain the realistic point of view and the direct impression, he tried to complete a landscape in just a few sittings. A sunny winter day depicts a bend in the River Neris at Antakalnis. The melting furrows of snow, piles of snow glowing in the sun, distant forests, and the low horizon opening up the clear space of the spring sky are painted in broad brushstrokes. The Neris looks peaceful and quiet, but a few months later the river was to swell and cause the great flood of 1951, which even reached Cathedral Square. The subject was painted from the river bank near the Vileišis mansion, when blocks of flats had not yet been built along the river in Antakalnis. This is one of Savickas’ best landscapes of his early period, with harmoniously matching grey tones and touches of red. The resonant colouring, the plain colours, and in particular the blue brushstrokes on the white snow, indicate an attraction to decorativeness. The picture renders remarkably the impression of a wet Lithuanian winter and the playfulness of a sunny day.

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, VILNIUS. TOPOPHILIA I (2014). Compiler and author Laima Laučkaitė
Expositions: “Vilnius. Topophilia. Views of Vilnius from the collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Laima Laučkaitė);  “Lithuania in Litvak Arts”, 6 June – 16 November, Tolerance Centre of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum (Naugarduko St. 10/2, Vilnius). Curator Vilma Gradinskaitė
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024

The formative period in the career of the painter Augustinas Savickas (1919–2012) was extremely tumultuous. Just before the Second World War, he attended Kaunas School of Art. He studied sociology at Geneva University, and then painting at Vilnius Academy of Art. When the war broke out he left for Soviet Russia, worked on a collective farm and in a quarry, was an artist with the State Art Ensemble of the LSSR, and a soldier in the 16th Lithuanian division of the Red Army. He graduated from Vilnius Institute of Art in 1949, and began to paint pictures of nature, as opposed to thematic Socialist Realism pictures. Savickas attempted to express the spirit of the different times of day and the different seasons, and between 1950 and 1959 he painted many small landscapes around Vilnius. In order to retain the realistic point of view and the direct impression, he tried to complete a landscape in just a few sittings. A sunny winter day depicts a bend in the River Neris at Antakalnis. The melting furrows of snow, piles of snow glowing in the sun, distant forests, and the low horizon opening up the clear space of the spring sky are painted in broad brushstrokes. The Neris looks peaceful and quiet, but a few months later the river was to swell and cause the great flood of 1951, which even reached Cathedral Square. The subject was painted from the river bank near the Vileišis mansion, when blocks of flats had not yet been built along the river in Antakalnis. This is one of Savickas’ best landscapes of his early period, with harmoniously matching grey tones and touches of red. The resonant colouring, the plain colours, and in particular the blue brushstrokes on the white snow, indicate an attraction to decorativeness. The picture renders remarkably the impression of a wet Lithuanian winter and the playfulness of a sunny day.

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, VILNIUS. TOPOPHILIA I (2014). Compiler and author Laima Laučkaitė
Expositions: “Vilnius. Topophilia. Views of Vilnius from the collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Laima Laučkaitė);  “Lithuania in Litvak Arts”, 6 June – 16 November, Tolerance Centre of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum (Naugarduko St. 10/2, Vilnius). Curator Vilma Gradinskaitė
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024