Kitoks Jonas Šileika - ką byloja menininko užrašai

LTStraipsnyje aptariamas Kauno meno mokyklos mokytojo Jono Šileikos rankraštinis ir ikonografinis palikimas, saugomas Nacionalinio M. K. Čiurlionio dailės muziejaus (toliau - NČDM) archyve. Ši medžiaga leidžia pristatyti J. Šileiką ne tik kaip realistą, bet ir neoromantiką, dėmesingą ir profesionalų pedagogą, aistringą lietuvių kalbos ir nacionalinės kultūros puoselėtoją. Šie asmenybės ir kūrėjo bruožai įneša naujumo į lig šiol paplitusį J. Šileikos, kaip racionalaus, konservatyvaus, kartais net nuobodoko realistinio stiliaus atstovo, portretą. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Kauno meno mokykla; Jonas Šileika; Pedagogika; Tapyba; Portretai; Kaunas school of art; Jonas Šileika; Pedagogy; Painting; Portraits.

ENArticle discusses the manuscript and iconographie inheritance of the Kaunas School of Art teacher Jonas Šileika (1883-1960). This inheritance is kept in the archive of the National Art Museum of M. K. Čiurlionis. This material presents J. Šileika as not only a realist, but also a neo-romanticist, an attentive and professional pedagogue, a passionate lover of the Lithuanian language and upholder of national culture. These features that show him to be both a personality and a creator bring freshness to the prevailing portrait of J. Šileika as a rational, conservative, at times even boring representative of the realistic style. The personality of J. Šileika is closely related with the Kaunas School of Art and later the Institute of Applied Art (from 1940). The artist worked in this school for thirty years (1922-1952), from when he started his pedagogical activity together with its founders: Justinas Vienožinskis, Petras Kalpokas, Adomas Galdikas, Kajetonas Šklėrius and Vladas Didžiokas. The albums of photographs that belonged to J. Šileika are an illustration of practically the entire history of this school's activity. The events are precisely collected and recorded: the building of the school, the seulement, the art classes, the pedagogues and the students of different generations. While browsing the rich inheritance of the artist, the interesting, intellectual and inquinng personality of its creator unfolds. The notes themselves are not characteristic of artistic play or unexpected leaps of creative thought and do not include drawings that would add variety to the text. Their content, however, reveals J. Šileika as a person that contemplated philosophicalaesthetic questions and a concern for the protection of the cultural-artistic inheritance of Lithuanians; showing interest in the historical past of Lithuanians and the archaism of its language and a desire to protect it.Не is shown as a person who enthusiastically supported the ideas of Lithuanian national rebirth and gathered professional knowledge in the fields of drawing and painting, evaluating the artistic movements of the early 20th Century and the investigations of the great artists of modernism. He wrote memoirs about his art teachers, his studies abroad, and remembers his fellow artists from the Kaunas School of Art and his students. Those manuscripts and documents prompt us to take a wider look at the world of an artist who was famous for rationality. The principles of creation and the aesthetical attitudes of J. Šileika were formed in the contexts of the early 20th century art of Chicago and Munich. The experience he gained there was especially valuable; it strongly affected the scope of the artist and involved him in both the intellectual and creative life, allowing him to immediately sense the puise of the newest artistic ideas. The artist, by this point, clearly already understood the dilemma between the challenges of modernism and tradition, opting to choose the position taken by the supporters of realism who integrated innovation in moderation. Therefore, in his oeuvre he raised the importance of clear drawing, form, and feeling as the founding qualities of every work of art. He continually developed those ideas while he worked with his students or pondered upon the development of the aesthetics of art and history.The experience he gained in the foreign centres of art was enriched by the notes of a neo-romanticism experienced as a resuit of the period's upsurge in Lithuanian nationalism. His admiration for the roots of his own country, language and culture appeared during his studies in the Art Institute of Chicago, but were manifest more clearly only during the interwar period and later. Unfortunately, this neo-romantic sensuous nature did not gain a solid, original expression and monumentality that would have suited the expression of a historical subject. The artistic language of those scenes was much more inclined towards sentimentality. [From the publication]