ABSTRACT
Expressionism occupies an exceptionally important position in the development of modernism in Lithuanian art and is considered a key feature of the national school of art that arose in Kaunas in the period between the two world wars. Standing in the National Gallery, in Vilnius, the expert eye notes that the bright thread of expressionism and the modernist narrative is woven throughout the twentieth century. Expressionism is likewise reflected in past efforts to summarize the development of Lithuanian art history. The Lithuanian introduction to German expressionism, an artistic import from Munich, was facilitated by Marianne Werefkin, who had strong family ties to Vilnius and Kaunas. Until the 1990s, Lithuanian art critics linked expressionism solely to the works of interwar Lithuanian artists. The nationalist discourse in art history, which dominated the history of Lithuanian art up until the late 1970s, never allowed for contextualizing the manifestations of expressionism in Lithuanian art and analyzing how expressionism was actually understood.
