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1

JAMES WHISTLER AND THE 'GLASGOW BOYS' IN LATVIAN ART (Dzeimss Vistlers un 'Glazgovas zeni' Latvijas maksla)

100%
Klavins E.
Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
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2000
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vol. 1
63-69
EN
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, during the first stages of its origination, Latvian art absorbed influences of various European schools and centers of art, as well as specific artists. A prominent (and, as yet, insufficiently evaluated) role in this process was played by the distinguished James Whistler and the Scottish painters from a group known as the Glasgow Boys. Whistler's influence is concretely seen in the portrait work of such artists as Janis Rozentals and Janis Roberts Tillbergs. The American master was clearly one of the sources for Latvian 'mood portraits', as well as for specific color and compositional elements in the paintings. But Whistler, and his Scottish colleagues, had a wider 'radiation field', one which included other genres and helped to set up the very concept of modem art in Latvia at this time - use of the medium as a resource for a more direct and at the same time a more generalized portrayal of 'free nature', rejection of story-telling in favor of emotional effect, painterly forms, the co-existence of tonal color with multi-hued polychromy and Post -Impressionist decorativism, sometimes deliberately rougher textures, etc. Latvian painters such as Janis Rozentals, Janis Valters and Vilhelms Purvitis could view the work of Whistler and the Scots at exhibitions in Riga, Petersburg and major German cities. They could also study German 'mood art', influenced by the Scots, with the help of German art literature (Richard Muther). The general ideas of this article are illustrated with concrete analogies - comparisons between the work of Robert Macauley Stevenson and Janis Valters, or between Edward Walton and Tillbergs, for example. The article contains results of the research work performed by the author as a guest researcher of the Caledonian Research Foundation and the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1997.
2

INTERPRETATIONS OF JAZEPS GROSVALDS' WORK AS A MIRROR OF THE LATVIAN ART CRITICISM AND ART HISTORY (Jazeps Grosvalds Latvijas makslas kritikas un makslas vestures spoguli)

100%
Klavins E.
Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
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2001
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vol. 2
130-141
EN
The work of artist Jazeps Grosvalds has been periodically interpreted throughout the 20th century in Latvian art criticism and art history. Evolution of conclusions about Grosvalds' work combined with texts dedicated to other themes allows to develop a very concentrated look at the way in which historiography of Latvian art developed. At the beginning of the century Grosvalds soon became known as an innovator in the context of the important polemic between Modernists and Traditionalists. After Grosvalds' premature death in 1920, his art began to be seen from a historical perspective. Initial interpretations contained more in the way of Modernist accents (Romans Suta, Olgerds Grosvalds, Edvards Virza), but as time went by, increasing emphasis was placed on the 'Latvianness' of Grosvalds' work, with observers (Janis Silins, Uga Skulme) seeking to link his art to ancient local traditions. In the 1930s Grosvalds was posited as the establisher of the 'national style' and the 'national epos' (Boris Vipper), fully in line with the official cultural policies of the day. During the first year of the Soviet occupation articles continued to appear on Grosvalds' anniversary - largely through inertia. During the first decade of the second Soviet occupation, Grosvalds' name all but disappeared from publications in Latvia, only to be brought back into consideration later. Grosvalds' work, however, continued to be interpreted in accordance with the Soviet era's insistence on dogma of sociologically motivated art history, though at the same time legitimizing the artist's undeniable significance by the broadened concept of Realism (Skaidrite Cielava). In Latvian literature that was published in the West, traditions that had been established during the inter-war period continued to be applied. A significant change in attitudes toward Grosvalds has appeared in the last decade, even though the scattered excursions into his art and his life can still be seen as analogies to the fragmentary nature of depoliticized and free art history of contemporary Latvia.
3

THE POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS OF TYPOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION IN ART HISTORY (Tipologiskas interpretacijas iespejas un robezas makslas vesture)

100%
Klavins E.
Makslas Vesture un Teorija
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2005
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vol. 4
21-25
EN
Typology, as a universal method of interpretation, is not used in art history to the same degree as in some other branches of science (biology, archaeology, psychology, linguistics et al.). It is hard to imagine the theory of art history encompassing a kind of taxonomy - general principles of classification which could also include typology. Nevertheless, typological inferences and issues are widely used, albeit not always theoretically defined. Typology is unavoidable when it is necessary to classify archaeological material that could be interpreted as artefacts. It is used to investigate and describe groups of artworks or other objects relevant to art history. The concept of a theoretical model with fixed or substantial traits (attributes) seems the most appropriate in this case. Attributes are important only from the aspect of the aim of a particular work of research. This does not mean that typological models are arbitrary mental constructs or an ideal generalisation of metaphysics. On the contrary, 'types' should be tied to the concrete phenomena of research. World art history, as well as Latvian art history, is full of generalisations that could be regarded as the products of typological research. Their verbal exposition can be supplemented by graphic schemes (more common in texts on architecture). We can recollect the typology of classical orders that have been described and shown in drawings in countless reference books, the typology of the kuroi and korai statues in the Ancient Greece, or the medieval type of the 'beautiful Madonna' and many others. Two different examples from Latvian art history can also be mentioned: Paul Kampe's 'central type of church building in Vidzeme' and Tatjana Kacalova's examination of the types of compositional structure in the landscapes of Vilhelms Purvitis.
4

THE ARTWORK AS THE GIVEN OF ART HISTORY

100%
Klavins E.
Makslas Vesture un Teorija
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2004
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vol. 3
40-46
EN
Regardless of the co-existence and interchange of several methodological approaches during the 20th century (formalism, 'art history as a spiritual history', sociological method, iconology, psychological methods, the dominant orientation right up to the last third of it was towards art history as a self-sufficient discipline focused on the artwork. It was conceived as a quite autonomous entity, especially when explained as a result of purely formal creation, but also when its messages were interpreted as depending on the context of cultural history. During approximately the last three decades a different methodology and subsequent research subjects have emerged, shifting our attention to the context of an artwork: the conditions in which it had been created and consumed. In addition, the very subject of general art history has been rendered problematical; doubts have been applied the universal term of 'art' to both ancient artefacts and most recent developments. All this is reasonable and welcome as factors promoting development with the proviso that they avoid turning into self-sufficient, speculative thinking, into new dogmas that research results have to comply with. One has to admit that interpretative enthusiasm according to the 'New Art History' principles could also generate dubious conclusions on this or that issue. It could give rise to methodological excesses that, of course, are not uncommon in the history of art history. In this respect 'New Art History' is not completely new. With respect to choices of subject for art-historical research, it depends on the philosophical idea of what art and, subsequently, an artwork is. An artwork acquires sense within an 'ideological-methodological' model, and this sense is not only found but also constructed. And this could happen in a case where some of the elements of an artwork have been endowed with a different meaning (according to methodological dogma) but also conceived as 'meaningful' where none was intended or it is accidental, insignificant or a result of artistic failure. A seemingly exhaustive, unified and sometimes impressive interpretation is created, which may fit the author's ideological bias but is insufficient for the artwork as the given of art history.
5

HENRI MATISSE AND LATVIAN ART (Anri Matiss un latviesu maksla)

100%
Klavins E.
Makslas Vesture un Teorija
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2006
|
vol. 6-7
33-43
EN
In autumn 2005 the Foreign Art Museum in Riga exhibited an excellent collection of works by Matisse from the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. Apart from the purely aesthetic pleasure it raised the question of his place in the history of Latvian art. Despite the fact that in Latvia there was no stable circle of followers, Latvian artists proved to have a surprisingly enduring interest in the ouevre of the French master. Some of his works were exhibited already in 1910 in Riga and the first promoter of Modernism in Latvia, Voldemars Matvejs, presented Matisse as one of its paradigms. The first Latvian painter whose early style was unmistakably dependent on Matisse's paintings seen in Moscow in 1916-1917 was Gederts Eliass. He not only constructed bright, colourful compositions with the same iconography (lazy figures of models, ornamental dresses, fragments of interior settings) but also used the bright colour ranges representing more random and ordinary motifs derived from his surroundings. In the course of the 1930s some young artists from the so-called Tukums Group tried to revive the concept of early Modernism related to the Fauves and Matisse. As a result, Karlis Neilis developed his individual intimate style uniting brilliant colour areas with some effects of plein-air light. Later, as an emigre in Austria, he took up more abstract style but preserved his commitment to the use of decorative colourfields. During the first decade of the Soviet occupation Matisse, as well as other French modernist artists, were seen by the guardians of the official ideology as formalists and products of bourgeois decadence. In the years of the so-called thaw and later, a second 'discovery' of Matisse was possible. A devotee of the Fauves was Leonids Arins, more ambitious, monumental and full of pathos was another Latvian 'Frenchman' - Rudolfs Pinnis who lived in Paris in the 1930s.
6

THE HISTORY OF LATVIAN ART ON THE INTERNET (Latvijas makslas vesture interneta)

100%
Klavins E.
Makslas Vesture un Teorija
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2006
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vol. 5
65
EN
The article introduces the joint project of Latvian art history on the Internet. Its motivation is derived from the fact that no comprehensive and properly illustrated information on Latvian art is available on the Internet, although it is the most effective means of transmitting information. Also information in English on the subject is very incomplete and narrow in printed sources as well. The concept of art history in this project is based on the art-historical canon. 'Canon' should not be conceived only in the axiological sense as a selection and presentation of the highest artistic values but also as the display of artefacts typical of a particular period. The issue of exposition is also important - balancing the information intended for specialists and that which is aimed at a wider public, as well as combining the textual part with a visually attractive presentation of images.
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