Vilnius University

Bronisław Jamontt (1886–1957) learned the basics of painting at the Vilnius School of Drawing, and later studied law at St Petersburg University and attended art lessons. He returned to Vilnius in 1910, studied painting in the Art Department at Stephen Báthory University, and was a lecturer and professor there from 1931. During the interwar period, he was a distinguished member of the romantic trend of the Vilnius school, and liked to paint dynamic compositions with old architecture, stormy clouds and wind-blown trees. His pastel Vilnius University, picturing a yard of the university, is a good example. Under the influence of the Formalist trend in Polish art called Formiści, the shapes of the objects are geometrically stylised, and sharp, as if they were carved, and the clouds and trees give the picture a scenic quality and a rhythmic tension. The chiaroscuro effect, the yard darkened by shadows, and the sky gilded by the afternoon sun, all create a dramatic vision of the university reflecting the past. Jamontt left to live in Toruń in 1945, and became the founder and dean of the Art Department at Mikołaj Kopernik University.

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album 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)

Bronisław Jamontt (1886–1957) learned the basics of painting at the Vilnius School of Drawing, and later studied law at St Petersburg University and attended art lessons. He returned to Vilnius in 1910, studied painting in the Art Department at Stephen Báthory University, and was a lecturer and professor there from 1931. During the interwar period, he was a distinguished member of the romantic trend of the Vilnius school, and liked to paint dynamic compositions with old architecture, stormy clouds and wind-blown trees. His pastel Vilnius University, picturing a yard of the university, is a good example. Under the influence of the Formalist trend in Polish art called Formiści, the shapes of the objects are geometrically stylised, and sharp, as if they were carved, and the clouds and trees give the picture a scenic quality and a rhythmic tension. The chiaroscuro effect, the yard darkened by shadows, and the sky gilded by the afternoon sun, all create a dramatic vision of the university reflecting the past. Jamontt left to live in Toruń in 1945, and became the founder and dean of the Art Department at Mikołaj Kopernik University.

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album 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)