In a garden

Just like Paul Gauguin, dozens of artists who were raised in the Western art tradition travelled to Pacific islands in search of their Eden. Jonas Rimša (1903–1978) also headed there in 1966, from Santa Monica in California, in pursuit of a Gauguinesque vision of earthly paradise. He stayed in Tahiti for seven months, but the impressions he gained and the material for his paintings lasted him for several years. Nijolė Tumėnienė, an expert in Rimša’s oeuvre, believes his composition In a garden is one of the earliest works he painted in Tahiti. The picture differs clearly from his other paintings of the time by the almost graphic ornamentality, the attention to detail, and the harmonious colouring, as if it were woven by the brush strokes, expressing the greenery of the vegetation and the blue of the sky, against a background in which the eye is caught by the red dress of a girl and a cabin roof of the same colour. According to Tumėnienė, Rimša was depicting the landscape that opened out in front of his eyes from the courtyard of Adrien Tuarau’s house in Pirae in Tahiti, where he was staying; and the girl, who could have been the host’s daughter Maeva, was his first model in Tahiti. (Jonas Rimša. Tropikų šauksmas, ed. by N. Tumėnienė, Vilnius, 2011, p. 69). Despite the real prototypes, the picture is perceived as a reflection of a dream about eternal summer and youth.

If we had to determine the genre of this composition by Jonas Rimša (1903– 1978), we would say that it is a still-life with a figure. But we get a surprise on closer inspection: there are so many small still-lifes in the picture! And all of them have the same subjects: fruit, fruit and fruit. It is lying under the ficus leaves beside the girl’s feet, near the wicker chair, and on it. Once we notice them, the fruit on the trees and the flowers on the bush by the fence also begin to look like still-lifes. On the other hand, the whole picture resembles a still-life, with the landscape and the figure congealed like a design on decorative fabric.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, OBJECTS ON SHOW (2017). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; “Jonas Rimša (1903–1978). The Magic of Fire and Jungle”, 12 February – 12 April 2015, Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum, Vilnius; "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.

Just like Paul Gauguin, dozens of artists who were raised in the Western art tradition travelled to Pacific islands in search of their Eden. Jonas Rimša (1903–1978) also headed there in 1966, from Santa Monica in California, in pursuit of a Gauguinesque vision of earthly paradise. He stayed in Tahiti for seven months, but the impressions he gained and the material for his paintings lasted him for several years. Nijolė Tumėnienė, an expert in Rimša’s oeuvre, believes his composition In a garden is one of the earliest works he painted in Tahiti. The picture differs clearly from his other paintings of the time by the almost graphic ornamentality, the attention to detail, and the harmonious colouring, as if it were woven by the brush strokes, expressing the greenery of the vegetation and the blue of the sky, against a background in which the eye is caught by the red dress of a girl and a cabin roof of the same colour. According to Tumėnienė, Rimša was depicting the landscape that opened out in front of his eyes from the courtyard of Adrien Tuarau’s house in Pirae in Tahiti, where he was staying; and the girl, who could have been the host’s daughter Maeva, was his first model in Tahiti. (Jonas Rimša. Tropikų šauksmas, ed. by N. Tumėnienė, Vilnius, 2011, p. 69). Despite the real prototypes, the picture is perceived as a reflection of a dream about eternal summer and youth.

If we had to determine the genre of this composition by Jonas Rimša (1903– 1978), we would say that it is a still-life with a figure. But we get a surprise on closer inspection: there are so many small still-lifes in the picture! And all of them have the same subjects: fruit, fruit and fruit. It is lying under the ficus leaves beside the girl’s feet, near the wicker chair, and on it. Once we notice them, the fruit on the trees and the flowers on the bush by the fence also begin to look like still-lifes. On the other hand, the whole picture resembles a still-life, with the landscape and the figure congealed like a design on decorative fabric.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, OBJECTS ON SHOW (2017). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; “Jonas Rimša (1903–1978). The Magic of Fire and Jungle”, 12 February – 12 April 2015, Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum, Vilnius; "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė.