This man was released by the fate of incomplete 36 years of life. They passed, filled with almost unceasing creative work, and its legacy is voluminous.
Čiurlionis’s paintings and his musical works are so original that they hardly made their way to recognition even at home, but after decades, lifetime fame turned into world fame.
National roots
In 1875, in the south of Lithuania, in the town of Orana, there lived a family of a church organist named Čiurlionis. Mikaloyus Konstantinas - that was the name of his son born in the autumn of that year. Music entered the life of the future artist and composer very early. He loved to listen to his father playing the organ; he was fascinated by Lithuanian folk tunes performed by his mother. By the age of 10, he often replaced his father as an organist at holiday services and was accepted to study in an orchestra school.
At 18, he entered the Warsaw Conservatory - first at the piano department, and then into the composition class. This period of his life was filled to the brim with a variety of creative activities: he played and composed music, became interested in drawing and reading philosophical works.
Notes and paints
Ciurlionis continued his musical education in Leipzig, but gradually he comes to the visual arts as a more powerful way to express the artistic images that filled him . Ciurlionis-artist is born, he again becomes a student - attends the Warsaw School of Fine Arts, where he studies painting and graphics. There a little time was devoted to the study of linear perspective , etc., more importance was attached to fantasy and freedom of expression.
At that time in Europe there were few painters who were professionally engaged in music, and composers who participated in art vernissages. Čiurlionis’s paintings are full of music, and his symphonic compositions evoke bright and clear visual images of nature and the world around him. It is no coincidence that his symphonic poems and paintings are called the same: “Sea”, “In the Forest”, etc.
Homecoming
Throughout his short life he worked frantically, fearing not to be in time. Čiurlionis' work is the search for answers to eternal questions on the verge of earthly and heavenly. The master succeeded best of all when he lived and worked at home - in Vilnius and Druskininkai.
The native land of the artist is Dzukia, or Dainava - wooded areas of southern Lithuania. An original national culture was preserved there , where Christian Catholic introductions layered on the pagan traditions of a way of life and ideas about the world.
Here he paints landscapes in the open air and large-scale works on philosophical topics. Čiurlionis’s paintings are full of vague and unspoken, this is a clear deification of nature, the creation of new worlds of universal scale. “The Tale of the Kings”, “The Legend of the Black Sun”, “The Horseman over the City” - pagan symbols of folk legends and legends reign in these works. “Creation of the World”, “Eternity” - entire cycles of worldview paintings gave rise to the birth of the term “cosmism” in describing the work of Čiurlionis.
Recognition in the capital
Contemporaries describe the bright, positive nature of the artist, his light and friendly character. But in matters of creativity, Čiurlionis did not know compromises, he did not know how to adapt to generally accepted tastes. Therefore, the non-recognition of his painting at the first Lithuanian art exhibition could not force him to paint more familiar paintings. On the contrary, he reacts sharply to requests to clarify the meaning of his works, he is surprised at the unwillingness of the townsfolk to spend efforts for spiritual development, movement towards a new, interesting one.
In 1906, at the exhibition of graduates of the Warsaw School of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Čiurlionis paintings made a splash. Fantastic plots and an extraordinary pictorial manner find a strong response both from the artistic elite and from ordinary art lovers.
The legendary masters of Russia at the beginning of the century: Dobuzhinsky, Benoit, Somov, Bakst, Lansere - know the name of Čiurlionis, many get to know him personally, he is invited to participate in exhibitions. The obvious national features in his work and the inherent spirituality of a huge scale attract him.
Life is like a flash of lightning
He works without rest, takes on topics that are immense in depths, takes part in the public life of Lithuania and all of Russia. New musical compositions, graphic and pictorial cycles, fiction and journalistic texts appear. And not enough strength. By the spring of 1910, the mental state of Čiurlionis was very alarming to relatives and friends.
Disappointment and fear become dominant in creativity and communication with the world. It took the efforts of relatives and patrons to put Churlenis in the clinic, where doctors tried to defeat the growing depression. But when the recovery began to seem a reality, in April 1911, Čiurlionis gets a bad cold and dies of pneumonia.
iurlionis Summit
Immediately after the death of the master, a wave of interest arose in the wonderful world of the ingenious Lithuanian. And this wave does not subside - his creativity is too extraordinary. The synthesis of music and painting for connoisseurs and art lovers around the world bears the name Čiurlionis. Mikalojus Konstantinas - the sacred name for Lithuania - is considered the first Lithuanian professional composer, the history of national art exhibitions begins with him.
The master’s creativity does not lend itself to unambiguous formulations by art historians in many countries, it causes controversy among each new generation, and the Čiurlionis Museum in Kaunas is never empty.