Mikalojus Konstantinas

Ciurlionis was not a Russian artist, he was Lithuanian, but he has taken part in the exhibitions at the Salon of Makovsky (1909), at the Union of Russian Artists (1909 and 1910) and the World of Art (1910) in St.Petersburg with great success as a symbolist. His creation is very peculiar, combining fantastic visions, mysticism, fairy-tales, folk and religious beliefs with symbolic silvery spectrum. He worked basically in pastel or tempera. Almost all of his paintings are now in the Kaunas Memorial Museum of Ciurlionis, Lithuania. Mikaloius Konstantinas Ciurlionis was born in the family of a church cantor and organist. His childhood passed in Druskininkai, a little village in Lithuania. From his early years his life was connected with music and art. He studied at the Art School of J.Kausik (1902-1905) and at the Art College in Warszawa (1905). He was a member of the World of Art from 1909. Because Ciurlionis was a composer as well, he created his paintings by laws of the music. Many cycles and series of his pictures are titled “Prelude”, “Sonata” and usually consist of four parts: Allegro, Andante, Scherzo, Finale. The artist tried to create a synthesis of temporal and spatial arts, perhaps slightly naive, but in his lines, graphics and picture images a rhythm is always present, leading a melody, color tones and modulations just musical repetitions and symmetries. Endowed with super sensitivity, he has succumbed at the end of his short life to mental disease. Ciurlionis was admitted into a mental hospital in Warszawa and there he died. Studies of his creation and numerous publications began after the death of the artist.