The Brothers' Return

Leonas Vytautas Strioga’s (1930–2022) iconic works are sculpted from wood, a medium he has been working with since the 1960s. For Modernist sculptors at that time, wood was seen as a way to go beyond naturalistic representation, allowing them to convey forms of reality in a unique way. However, for Strioga, wood became more than just a material; it became the material of his life. The Brothers’ Return is a sculpture from his later period, characterised by typical stylistic features of the artist: the rounded depiction of figures, the unity of man and animal, and a rippling surface chiselled with an axe. The three small human figures, three brothers from Lithuanian folk tales, seem to form a single entity with the two-wheel carriage and the generalised silhouette of a horse pulling them. It appears that everything is one, person, animal and object ... The sculptor captures pieces of Lithuania as he perceives it, through a poetic imagination: an impoverished and melancholic but light and cherished existence. For someone who did not see himself as a country person, nature and the Lithuanian countryside were idealised sources of inspiration, evoking a profound aesthetic experience.

Text author Jurgita Ludavičienė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE ART OF MATERIALS. Compiler and text author Jurgita Ludavičienė
© LATGA, Vilnius 2025

Leonas Vytautas Strioga’s (1930–2022) iconic works are sculpted from wood, a medium he has been working with since the 1960s. For Modernist sculptors at that time, wood was seen as a way to go beyond naturalistic representation, allowing them to convey forms of reality in a unique way. However, for Strioga, wood became more than just a material; it became the material of his life. The Brothers’ Return is a sculpture from his later period, characterised by typical stylistic features of the artist: the rounded depiction of figures, the unity of man and animal, and a rippling surface chiselled with an axe. The three small human figures, three brothers from Lithuanian folk tales, seem to form a single entity with the two-wheel carriage and the generalised silhouette of a horse pulling them. It appears that everything is one, person, animal and object ... The sculptor captures pieces of Lithuania as he perceives it, through a poetic imagination: an impoverished and melancholic but light and cherished existence. For someone who did not see himself as a country person, nature and the Lithuanian countryside were idealised sources of inspiration, evoking a profound aesthetic experience.

Text author Jurgita Ludavičienė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE ART OF MATERIALS. Compiler and text author Jurgita Ludavičienė
© LATGA, Vilnius 2025