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The article is devoted to the creativity of a little–known Soviet artist of Latvian origin, Voldemar Petrovich Anderson (1891 – 1938), and his participation in the work of art teams at new construction sites in the Urals during the first five-year plan. Paintings and graphic works by this master are very rare in museum collections. One of the artist's paintings, “Portrait of the digger Sangatulla Seifudinov” (1932), is in the stock of the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. I examine the history of the creation and existence of this artwork by V. P. Anderson and present materials for attribution of the canvas. In addition, the painting is analyzed in the context of the portrait genre in Soviet art in the early 1930s and the general socio-cultural trends of the era.

The family was not popular as a motif in Latvian 19th century painting, as evidenced by Latvia’s public art collections. One has to concur with Klavi, nš, cited at the beginning of, this article, when he states that a distinct family portrait in the sense of a portrait depicting more than two members of a family, is rarely to be found. Examples of this kind are rare in Latvian art history. To claim that family relationships were not represented at all in Latvian art would, however, be false: they can be observed, for example, in the portraits of married couples, some of which also include one of several children beside the wife. Portraits of children characteristic of the Biedermeier era are also to be found, as are aquarelles and miniatures painted by local amateur artists which show mothers with one or more small children as well as individual children. The importance of family and descent, on the other hand, is emphasised by the ancestral portrait galleries which gained in popularity in the houses of the aristocracy during the 19th century. These galleries combined historical portraits of ancestors with newly painted ancestral portraits. Not a single professional artist in 19th century Latvia is known to have used the family as a central motif in his work. Individual artists did, however, carry out such work on commission. When evaluating the portraits of families and children which have survived to the present day, it would appear that these motifs were not attractive. Even in the creative heritage of female Latvian artists there are only few portraits of families or children. If it were possible to explain these omissions in the works of female painters by their unmarried status, the question arises as to why starting a family did not influence the creative output of male artists. It can thus be surmised that the family must have been of little interest as a motif, and that there was a lack of interest both on the part of the artists and their potential clients or a lack of demand on the art market. An analysis of the portraits of families and children in Latvia’s public art collections shows that almost all professional or comparatively professional artists who made use of the family motif had formal connections with German art schools. This is only logical as there were no high-standard art schools in Latvia in the 19th century (the nearest was the School of Drawing at Dorpat University which, however, was not itself a university level institution). Any prospective artist who wanted to seriously pursue the profession was obliged to continue his (initially privately based) studies either in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire, or in one of the art centres of Western Europe. The 19th century Baltic artists were predominantly from Baltic German families, and their common language and culture meant they associated most closely with the German art metropolises. Due to the weak national art market, portraits of children and families were therefore often completed by foreign artists. Artists who worked permanently on Latvian territory, on the other hand, focussed predominantly on different forms of art production (such as commissions for ancestral galleries, portraits of adults, and altarpieces, as well as giving instruction in drawing and painting). Nevertheless, a number of photographs of the interiors of Latvian manor houses at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century have survived to the present day which show that the nobility did in fact possess portraits of families and children. There may also have been such portraits in the houses of wealthy bourgeois families. It is also to be assumed that works of art went missing in the course of the losses incurred by the manor houses in the period following the Revolution of 1905, during the First World War and the ensuing War of Independence, and also as a result of the „resettlement“ of the Baltic Germans from Latvia in 1939. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The art of the socialist period is still an area where Latvian art historians do not linger too long. The reason for this could be partly due to traumatic experiences of this time for many who lived under its system and later the breakdown of the system, but also due to ambiguous perceptions of this period, and methodological and other difficulties dealing with it. Still, researches, explorations and interpretations of socialist art are essential to understanding the genesis of contemporary art, as well as the complexity of modernism and its transition to postmodernism in Eastern Europe. This complexity also derives from geopolitical circumstances, which had a strong impact both on art language and on its relationships with reality. My research is an attempt to contextualise the visionary dimension in modernist and neo-avant-garde art of this region in a broader perspective, including geopolitical relations between art and reality, as well as the role of their power structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the ideological underpinnings, accomplishments and assessments of art under the local authoritarian regime (1934–1940). Unity, nationalism, the cult of the leader and peasant life were promoted, denouncing modernist influences in favour of classical traditions and ethnographic heritage. The last six years of Latvia’s independence saw both major state-commissioned art projects and individual contributions matching the prescribed tenets to some extent, while most critics maintained that true Latvian national art was still in the making. This ideal, which could be termed nationalist realism, remained desirable, but not mandatory in comparison with some neighbouring totalitarian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the colonial and national condition of the musical life in Latvia following its first postwar years in 1944 to 1946. It chronicles how most of the Latvian communists hoped for the socialism intertwined with national and Humanism traditions as their means of national survival. It also mentions how the consolidation of such movements helped promote the value of national talents, musical forms and facilitation of ethnic celebration traditions.

The article explores the relationship between discourses of folklore and visual arts during the formative years of Latvian fine art in 1890s. It provides analysis of the symbolic exchange between hierarchically different realms of cultural production and the late adaptation of national romanticism towards Neo-Romanticism, as well as modern aesthetics. It also mentions the development of several artists who adopted folksong-based Neopagan iconography and mythological motifs of Latvian folklore.

Authors' editions in the Latvian book publishing appear in the first half of the 19th century. Self-publishing flourished particularly during the Republic of Latvia (1918-1940). Unfortunately, in the years of the Soviet occupation (1940-1941; 1944-1990) it was forbidden. The tradition could continue only in exile, chosen by many Latvians at the end of World War II. Authors' self-publishing activity in Latvia began anew after regaining national independence in 1990. So far, the topics related to authors' editions have not been systematically studied in Latvia. This research is aimed to evaluate the strategies for self-publishing and distribution of works by Eduards Freimanis. He was the first exile writer who published his own works in Latvia after the renewal of independence. The paper describes not only the most important challenges, but also the attitude of contemporaries, colleagues and relatives towards the activities of the writer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about Latvian art and literature depicting the theme of war post 1915 due to the artists often personally having experienced fighting and the hardships of refugee life and discusses artists including Rihards Zariņš, Jānis Tillbergs and Janis Rozentāls.

The historical memory of a nation is largely influenced and shaped by its literary and visual art representative's achievements. The objectives of the study - to find out how Latvian artists (painters, graphic artists, stage designers) have portrayed historical events and people associated with the period before the 13th century, when the current territory of Latvia was inhabited by the Balts and the Livs, as well as the ancient wooden architecture and landscape, tales and characters, which have been organically incorporated into the mythical scene of ancient history. The works of artists have been influenced by the available written historical sources, archaeological studies, and folklore motifs. The artists creating messages on their land and ancestors - the Couronians, the Zemgalians, the Latgallians, the Selonians, the Livs - often describe them by a single Latvian word - ancient Latvians (senlatvieši), thus failing to distinguish the Balts from the Finno-Ugrian peoples. The artwork arrangements for research have been made in a chronological order - from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. The article mentions the works by the pioneers of Latvian national painting and graphics, Arturs Baumanis (1866 -1904), Ādams Alksnis (1864 -1897) and Rihards Zariņš (1869 -1939) as well as the works by one of the most prominent representatives of Latvian symbolism - Janis Rozentāls (1866 - 1916), the stage designer Jānis Kuga (1878 -1969) and Rūdolfs Pelše (1880 -1943), Ansis Cīrulis (1883 -1942), Voldemārs Vimba (1904 - 1985), Ludolfs Liberts (1895 - 1959), Aleksandrs Krūka (1898 - 1987), and Arvīds Gusārs (1906 - 1995). The artists, in different periods motivated by different motives, have strived to reflect the history of Latvian nations and lands in heroic light, showing ancient Balts (sometimes - also the Livonians) as heroic warriors who have lost their independence in fierce battles. More rarely, Latvian ancestors have been portrayed as farmers or fishermen, the participants of ancient rituals and festivals. The artists have followed the observations of Latvian nature in depicting the environment, however, emphasising and highlighting individual elements, trying to create an idealized landscape of the past. Given the variety of historical inaccuracies, it should be noted that presenting the techniques of ancestors' clothing, jewellery, weapons, and construction, they mostly followed their contemporary archaeological and ethnographic research, as well as traditions in the field of historical genre painting. Sometimes the artistic image created by the artists has left a much greater effect on modern viewers than scientifically correct historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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the Art Nouveau buildings of Liepāja have a significant place in the architectural heritage of Latvia. In most cases, there is no precise data regarding their construction history, i.e., the year of construction, architect, etc. The newly discovered design for the building at Peldu iela 33 led to a series of hypothetical conclusions about the contribution made by architect Pauls Kampe to the city of Liepāja in the early 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing terminology existing in the art theory today and considering eclectic expressions in Art Deco aesthetics in the 20-30s in connection with nationally ethnographic style elements or their stylisation, it is offered to use the term Folkloristic Art Deco. To show essential contention and esthetical difference between national romanticism and folkloristic Art Deco, the examples of Latvian architecture and art of the beginning of the 20th century are given. The term Folkloristic Art Deco allows defining more accurately such phenomena, which till now have been interpreted as national romanticism or folk romanticism, promoting discussions among scientists rather than giving conception about the place of object in the history of Latvian art and architecture. Folkloristic Art Deco as the component of modernism art and architecture of 20-30s in special moments naturally insinuates just into aesthetics of pre-postmodernism. For this reason, the aim of this paper is to show not only the importance of term Folkloristic Art Deco in the theory of history of Latvian art, but also the future vision of creative thought of artists and architects in Latvia in the 20-30s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the turn of the twentieth century, when Latvian art began to emancipate itself from the general cultural scene of the Baltic provinces, its rising national self-awareness has permeated most art-historical writing about this period, giving rise to a strong ethnocentric tradition, which has managed to prevail in all phases of Latvia's history throughout the past century and still exists as a peculiar 'default setting' for the way Latvians envision their country's art on both popular and academic levels. The focus on phenomena identified as ethnic Latvian involved an art-historical uprooting of non-Latvian (basically German) aspects of the local art scene and distorted the general picture. This article examines the Latvian ethnocentric narrative in its various stages of development in order to determine what should be changed on the way to a possibly all-inclusive, many-layered and reliable representation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the most multicultural episode of Latvia's artistic past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political history of the twentieth century created several distorted gaps in the art history of the Baltic countries and in the collective memories of our nations. We are used to thinking in such categories as 'before' and 'after', i.e. in relation to the fifty-yearlong Soviet occupation, and 'here' and 'there', i.e. art development in local art centres and in the rest of Europe. One of the topics in recent European modernism studies has been the reintegration of Eastern European national art schools into overall twentieth century European art history. However, the inclusion of individual artists in a 'national art' context may bring up specific questions. The case of the Latvian-born artist Gustavs Klucis (1895-1938), whose worldwide recognition has been achieved in the framework of Russian avant-garde art, is among the most complex to be discussed within the context of Latvian art history, since his national and professional identities are hardly parallel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various examples of Latvian art reveal specific appearances of Neo-Pagan concepts. Early in the twentieth century, inspired by Neo-Roman-ticism, several Latvian intellectuals strove to revive the boundaries with nature. When trying to visualize these notions, artists often felt free to invent new deities, thus expressing their own subjective understanding and feelings instead of strictly following the ideas of ancient religion. The most prominent examples are works created by Janis Rozentals and Teodors Uders. A second wave of such interest came during the 1920s and 1930s when, next to the ambitions of synchronizing with the Western culture or interest about the East, artists focused upon the national religion and actualized its values in the language of art. As a result, rather exotic and peculiar traits of Latvian artistic heritage were incorporated, including renditions of rendering ancient gods (like Mara, Laima, Dievs, Martins, Using etc.). In an original way, accompanying the common people in their everyday works, they could appear in genre paintings (by Jekabs Bine, Hilda Vflca, and other). Or they can be displayed singly (for instance, in paintings by Ansis Qrulis)- and in these cases the most intriguing is the choice of the artistic methods by which the viewer is being firmly assured that those beings, dressed in the national costumes, indeed do represent gods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the ancient temple ornaments, which are considered as the most common type of metal ornament in Latvia. It notes the division of the Pre-Roman Iron Age temple ornaments into three groups: plain spiral temple ornaments, ornaments with spiral middle part and spoon-shaped ends, and ornaments made of thin bronze wire rings with pendants and beads. It points out that there is no characterization of the Pre-Roman and Earliest Iron Age in the academic works written on the earliest history of the country.

At the turn of the 20th century thinking about art in terms of analogies between visual and acoustic experience greatly permeated the new scene of art theory and criticism in Latvia. The local version in the story of this development can be traced back to the 1898 Spring Exhibition in St. Petersburg where the young Latvian-born painters Vilhelms Purvītis and Johann Walter (Walter-Kurau) followed the practice of James Abbott McNeill Whistler by naming their landscapes after musical terms. Subsequently, the new phenomenon diverged into a variety of individual solutions, including representations of the act of singing (Janis Rozentāls) and listening (Walter), evocatively sonorous landscapes in the realm between the Impressionistic sense of presence and the abstracting stylisation of art nouveau (Walter, Purvītis), fragile visualisations of nocturnal sounds and expressions of inner anxiety (Pēteris Krastiņš) as well as Čiurlionis-inspired fantasies (Rūdolfs Pērle). In the later course of the 20th century, the vague notion of sonority in painting gradually grew into one of the most highly esteemed though hardly definable qualities in the Latvian writing on art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research refers to the summarization of creative work of architect Daina Danneberga, which enables the preservation of versatile cultural heritage and facilitation of succession, as well as the acknowledgement of the importance of the Soviet-time architecture. The most important pieces of work of the architect Daina Danneberga refer to the building of the Association of Fishing Collective Farms of Latvian SSR in Riga, Jauniela 13, the Riga Polytechnic Institute campus in Ķıpsala, the Jugla Sanatorium Wood School complex in Stopini district, the Trade Union Training Centre in Riga, Augusta Deglava iela 41a and Bulduri Collective Farm Technical School in Jurmala, Viestura iela 6 (co-author architect Anda Ārgale). They manifest a significant element of cultural and historical heritage, which is important for the purposes of definition of the value and future development guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the main personalities, phases and achievements (such as major monographs and surveys) of art-historical research in Latvia, outlining the dominant ideas and institutional developments. While interest in art-related issues already emerged in Baltic German circles in the late nineteenth century, it was not until the late 1910s and early 1920s that the story of national art emerged as an important lacuna to be filled in the cultural consciousness of the newly founded nation-state. The construction of an uninterrupted line of artistic development from prehistoric times to the present came to the fore, inscribing the local heritage in the wider processes of the development of art. The Soviet period replaced the story of national art with the story of realist art produced on the territory of Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic; still the gradual entropy of imposed sociological method has largely encouraged a turn towards the autonomous artwork, examining it in a spectrum of aspects, such as regional routes of migration and influences, and genealogies of iconographic and stylistic traits. A loose empirical pluralistic and even eclectic approach seems to best describe the current situation in Latvian art history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of new media and cultural globalisation influenced media art in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The social themes shared by many authors worldwide and cyber culture questions emerge. This prompted authors to study local societies and changes in them and examine their own cultural environment. The media art of the Baltic countries became an important producer of public discourse and this role is naturally connected with the origins of media art, its communication qualities and connections with information industries. This article examines work by Mare Tralla, Mindaugas Gapševičius, Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas, Kęstutis Andrašiūnas, Ando Kęskküla, Kiwa, Rasa and Raitis Šmit, Jānis Garančs and Arvīds Alksnis, whose work stand out from the rest. The work by these artists strives to engage society in a dialogue and actively participate in the creation of critical discourse. There is also an observed shift from creating cultural, social subject to the forming of cultural, social context. In the work of these artists the dialogue becomes the main strategy and key element. The examined work reflects an interdisciplinary point of view, and strives to connect art, politics, social spheres and critical thinking. In the end of 20th c. - 21st c. mass media and interactive technologies became important originators of social relations and identity in the three Baltic states. Electronic existence of humans nearly erased the boundaries between public and private space and the real and invented identity. This and many other questions, like the change in Soviet group identity and the importance of gender identity are discussed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latvian Landscape has played a crucial, albeit changing, role in Latvian conceptions of identity. The nineteenth-century nationalist movement was articulated in terms of the relationship between land and people. During the independence period a uniquely local vision of the landscape was nurtured by art and literature, which encouraged a reverence for the landscape. Simultaneously, government policy encouraged agriculture, which flourished. Thus, the Soviets, following their occupation, entered a `historically saturated landscape' and adopted as their remit the destruction of that landscape. My paper traces the semantic history of Latvian landscape and examines its role in providing a still point in personal narratives of loss and displacement. I conclude that the Soviets only partially succeeded in their mission of destruction. Although they succeeded in changing the physical face of the landscape and farming they were unable to destroy the pastoral vision which is a component of so many Latvian narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]