Žemaičių Kalvarijos koplytėlių architektūra ir meniniai stiliaus bruožai

ENThe town of Žemaičių Kalvarija which lies in the Plungė District is a distinctive urban monument of Lithuanian architecture. It continues the traditions of Calvary erecting which was characteristic of the 16th-17th-century Europe, i.e., in the period of the Counter-Reformation. The history of the foundation of Žemaičių Kalvarija is also closely connected with the spread of Catholicism in Lithuania. Its founder was Bishop Jurgis Tiškevičius. With the help of the Dominican Order there were built nineteen chapels as the stop places on the Cross Way. They were finally completed in 1642. Nature components dominate in the countryside of Žemaičių Kalvarija, the architecture of which reminds of cosy Samogitian farmsteads. The buildings do not distort the natural landscape but supplement each other. And though the scattered chapels do not meet the requirements of the religious ceremony to the full, such* a distribution is very close to the local tradition. The artistic style of the architecture is reserved, the forms are mainly of Neo-Gothic or Baroque style. The moderate ornamentation of the brick chapels survived only in those that had been built earlier, although the authenticity of the 17th-century forms is hardly probable. The unification is more characteristic of wooden buildings. They differ in their plan structure and in some diversity of the iron peaks. The significance of the ensemble lies not as much in its antiquity or the value of separate chapels, but more over in the symbiosis of folk architecture and nature, the visual perception of the surroundings and the authenticity of forms.