Fotografija paveldo istorijoje: Vilniaus Aukštutinė pilis

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Fotografija; Paveldo apsauga; Kultūros paveldas; Photography; Heritage protection; Cultural heritage.

ENThe article reviews the photography documenting the cultural heritage studies and management works, and analyses the changing creative strategies for making such images. The text focuses on photographs of Vilnius Upper Castle with captured explorations, conservation and restoration works of this object of cultural heritage. The subject of the research is documentary photographs by Mironas and Leonas Butkowski (the album on Vilnius Upper Castle compiled in 1906), Jan Bułhak (1930), Kazimieras Vilkas (1933-34) and Władysław Paszkowski (1935-36). Those making research on the early practices of heritage protection in Lithuania often face the absence of documents, written, as well as visual sources, such as drawings and blueprints showing the scale of such management works, and photographs monumentalizing important architectural values. In 1906, for the first time in the history of conservation and restoration of Vilnius Upper Castle, an album of 10 images was compiled, in which the Butkowski brothers and photographers documented the heritage management works performed on this object in 1895 and 1905. Although quite a romanticized approach to the heritage object could be seen in these images, they supplement the data present in the written documentation enabling to estimate the importance and scale of the conservation works performed to protect the object against further decay. Usually, such information was presented quite in the abstract in the written documents of the time. With expanding awareness of the need for exploration and management of architectural heritage, more and more attention was drawn also to documentation of such works. The research made on the photographs has revealed that engaged in the search for aesthetical principles of image creation, the photographers were often apt to concealing the factual data.

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