As part of the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of Lithuania’s most famous artists, the painter and composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Kaunas’s prestigious M. K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art is hosting a major new exhibition. "From Amber to the Stars: Together with M. K. Čiurlionis: Now and Then" opened March 21 and runs until October 12. We sat down with one of the curators of the show Kathleen Soriano, who enjoyed considerable previous success with the Čiurlionis show she curated in London, “M. K. Čiurlionis: Between Worlds” at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. She spoke to us about the artist and his place amongst his contemporaries and shared her insights into what has made him so relevant to today’s audiences and artists.

We also had the opportunity to share some time with the director of the M. K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art, Daina Kamarauskienė. She gave us some backgroundon the contemporary artists who were chosen to interact with and respond to Čiurlionis’ works in this new exhibition.

What are your initial thoughts and impressions about Čiurlionis?

KS: Oh, God, he's just such a fascinating character, isn't he? You know, for someone who only made art for six years of his short life, there's a wonderful sense of achievement and a real dedication and passion that came through in those six years, and it makes you curious as to what he would have done if he'd been around longer. I mean, you've also got a fantastic biography, such a great story, but I know we're not supposed to be distracted by that. And really it has to be about the art. I'd say he's very much a product of his time, actually. He was an intellectual who went to Poland to study music, but then spent time in the salons, talking as they did then, about everything that was going on in the world, about literature, about philosophy, about religion.

What would you say were his influences?

KS: I think he's very much part of the big changes that were happening at the time. There was a real sensitivity to approaching modernism, and the loss of religion. Darwin had blown all the theories out of the water, and there was this real sense of searching for something new. In this sense he was very much like many of the other artists around him at the time. Especially when you view him in the light of all the symbolist painters like Hilma Af Klint. He was, like them, really searching for something else.

And although he wasn’t madly adventurous, he did venture out beyond his immediate environment. He went to Vienna and Munich to look at the galleries, and we know from his letters that he was clearly quite opinionated. In one letter he proclaimed that the French were the only artists really engaging with the changes in the world and new ideas in art.

So, he was clearly looking at a lot of art, but it doesn't feel as if he was imitative. It doesn't feel as if he was following a path for the sake of following a path like many artists would be. He feels very distinctive. It feels like he was a product of his time, but he was plowing a very individual furrow in the making of his work, I think, and that's what makes him stand out.

Of course, it’s also impossible to avoid discussion on the relationship between his art and his music. I definitely think in some of his works, you feel a very strong musical presence. That is clearly pronounced in a work like “The creation of the world.” It's almost as if you've got organ stops or horn stops in there, and there is a rhythm and pace to his works, especially, and unsurprisingly, in the paintings called the sonatas. However, I’m not convinced that it’s a like for like thing. This also, of course, further situates him within his milieu. This is around about the time when the American born painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler was delivering his celebrated Ten O’Clock lecture in London that explored the relationship between music and art. So, there was definitely something in the air. And, of course, there are the links between Čiurlionis and Kandinsky, which were disputed by Kandinsky’s widow. We do know, however, that Kandinsky definitely invited Čiurlionis to exhibit at a show in Vienna.

Do you think Lithuanian identity was central to his work?

KS: I definitely think Lithuania being the last country to convert to Christianity, and the accompanying importance of folklore and mythology impacts heavily on his work. And it’s this passion for his homeland that made him such a strong believer in Lithuanian independence, and it’s also this that compelled him to want to leave all of his work to the country.

It’s worth remembering that this was also a real time of nationhood around Europe. This is particularly true for Scandinavia and the regions around it. A lot of these countries had, after all, been dominated by other larger nations, as Sweden and Norway had been by Denmark, or Lithuania, by Poland, and then Russia. I think there was a real sense that, at this time, these countries were discovering or trying to identify who they were as separate entities. This is why landscape painting becomes such a popular genre, it’s the most direct way of visualizing nationhood.

How did the UK public respond to the show you curated in London?

KS: Interestingly enough, we didn't really know how it would land. But we were rewarded in spades. I mean, people really took to Čiurlionis. He was seen as a complete revelation. We had fabulous reviews from the critics, and the exhibition coincided with the release of a new Lord of the Rings series on Amazon Prime. And there were a lot of parallels drawn.

So as a consequence, if you went to the exhibition on a Saturday or a Sunday, you would find lots of young gamers there, just really, really lapping up the fantastical and mystical side of his art. So it was, it was hugely successful. The Catalog sold out really quickly. It's hard to get copies now.

What do you think is the impact of his legacy?

KS: When I was making the exhibition for Kaunas, a number of the contemporary British artists that I invited to take part had missed the show and didn't know about Čiurlionis. When I sent them a PDF of the Catalog, they were all like, “Oh, my God, this guy's incredible. You know, I can't believe it. He's thinking about the same things we're all thinking about now.” In my opinion, it’s the deep philosophical nature of his work, the way in which he is always searching and questioning, which keeps him so fresh. That, and the near abstraction that you find in some pieces.

The only issue that exists with Čiurlionis, is that his work, unlike that of, say Picasso, is not spread across galleries around the globe. There have been shows like ours, in France, the Netherlands and Japan, but most of the time all of his work is collected and displayed in one gallery. That’s in Kaunas. This makes it a treasure for Lithuania, and a unique location in many ways. It also means that to see Čiurlionis, you need to travel to Lithuania. Which, I suppose, is a great incentive.

Thanks Kathleen, Now I’d like to ask you, Daina, to tell us a little about how you chose the other artists in the exhibition.

DK: We started with a possibly frivolous question: who would Čiurlionis invite to his birthday? But more seriously, our decisions were based on two considerations - which artists were Čiurlionis' contemporaries and which artists shared his ideas and approaches. It was interesting to compare Čiurlionis' work with that of other artists of his time. In Lithuania, he was completely misunderstood by his contemporaries. His ideas, forms of expression were completely new, unusual, and strange. However, if we compare his works with artists from other countries who were working at the time, or foreign artists from today, we see clear paralells. For example, if we take the works of Keith Tyson, Wenzel Hablik, and Čiurlionis, we see the shared interest in the cosmos that clearly unites them.. Yet, Čiurlionis is most inclined towards metaphysical reflections, he is not interested in just depicting the grandeur of the universe.

How do you think the mix of artists from Čiurlionis' days and today's artists that have been chosen add to the way we see and talk about his art? And what does his work bring to how we look at their art?

DK: The entire exhibition is a conversation between very different artists, although the works are connected by themes and topics. As an example of what I’m talking about, we can take Čiurlionis’ “Sonata of the Sea”. It is a piece dedicated to capturing the greatness and power of the sea, and the secrets it hides in its depths. Meanwhile, the painting next to it, by contemporary Estonian artist Kristina Ōllek, speaks of the painful secrets of the sea today: pollution, sea transformation, and destruction. And then there’s Mariele Neudecker’s “Ship” (1998), which like the Čiurlionis’ work, is more attuned to the threats and stories hidden within the waves.

The ship in Čiurlionis’ “Night” (1904/5) is most likely traveling to the world of the dead, while Ferdinand Ruszciz’s symbolism reminds us of the unsinkable union of the two states. The exhibition is rife with such parallels, all of which the viewer is able to uncover and enjoy. For me, the real fun is imagining just what kind of conversations all these artists could have had if they had been able to meet in real life.

Interview by Malcolm Stewart

"From Amber to the Stars: Together with M. K. Čiurlionis: Now and Then" runs at M.K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art in Kaunas until October 12th.

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