Original creative artists’ unity of different generations presents paintings from the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art.  The collection offers particularly popular genres.

The flowering of landscape painting in Latvia is associated with the name of Vilhelms Purvītis. He graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. In 1900 his snow-covered northern landscapes got international success at the World Exhibition in Paris as well as at other exhibitions in France and Germany. Throughout his life Purvītis depicted reserved attractive transformations of the nature: early spring with melting snow, blooming gardens and golden autumn. In 1921 academician Vilhelms Purvītis began to teach at the Landscape Studio (it was newly established by Latvian Academy of Art), thereby creating a foundations for the national school of landscape painting. 

Still life painting became popular in Latvia rather late; during the World War I. Young modernists Romans Suta, Jānis Liepiņš and Niklāvs Strunke created a cult of the genre. Leo Svemps hailed with admiration the coming of still life in Lettish painting. The artist studied in Moscow under Ilya Mashkov, who was a member of the “Jack of Diamonds” group.

Stylistic changes are observed in elaboration of both genres that reflect the search of innovatory means of expression. In the early 20^th century features of jugendstyle and impressionism are evident in painting (Vilhelms Purvītis, Janis Rozentāls). In 1920s German expressionism (Jānis Valters) and innovative simplification of Cubism (Ludolfs Liberts, Romans Suta, Niklāvs Strunke) influenced the painting.     

Landscape painting became a leading genre in Latvian art in the 1920s–1930s. Konrāds Ubāns presented lyrical views of the peripheries of Rīga. Jānis Liepiņš discovered the uniqueness of marine theme, depicting fishermen’s life of Gulf of Riga and landscapes with the seaside settlements. Compositions of Jānis Tīdemanis, who graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, brought new trends of Belgian painting in the native environment.  

The 1950s were difficult years for landscape and still life painting. It was not enough for the Soviet art only to depict environment. Landscape and still life painting was short of obligatory for that time topicality. However Lettish art history shows that these two genres were least of all obeyed to ideological demands. The most talented artists tried to strike a balance between commissioned ideological paintings and those which could satisfy their own need for self-expression. Many artists produced small and colourful paintings because of this.

In the 1960s landscape and still life paintings were first liberated from oppressive dogmatism, they acquired original features. Ojārs Ābols was one of the first to present abstract forms. Rūdolfs Pinnis, who spent 10 years in Paris, has never forgotten the creative spirit of French culture. An outstanding contribution to still life painting was made by Līvija Endzelīna, who painted unusual objects in very original situations, thus creating unique and peculiar moods. Boriss Bērziņš often painted still-lives with fragments of things that were once alive – pig’s snouts alongside of a cutting board and a grater, for instance. All this creates associations of violence and pettiness of individual life against the backdrop of destiny itself.

In the 1970s the value of colour as a basis for painting predominated in Latvian art. The vast range of colour was expressed in tonal nuances and in vital emotions. This tendency is fatly based on the folk art heritage. Ethnographic memory has tremendous influence on Latvian art.

Over the course of the century, landscape and still life paintings were the work of very distinguished Latvian artists indeed. The development of style was dynamic, full of live and diverse. At the end of the 20^th century the innovative role of landscape and still life painting was adopted by syntheses of genre and tendencies to abstractionism, but a few artists are still marking their own original path.

Exhibition is organized by Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in the Republic of Belarus,  Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus, Latvian National Museum of Art and National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus with support of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia and AS “Aizkraukles Banka”.

Dr. art. Dace Lamberga,curator of exhibition,

Doctor of art history