Liublino pilies Švč. Trejybės koplyčia ir jos freskos
ENThe Lithuanian Art Museum (LAM) jointly with the Lublin Museum (Muzeum Lubelskie) presented an international education photography exhibition The Holy Trinity Chapel in Lublin Castle. Where the East Meets the West on 5thJuly 2005 - The State Day - at the Applied Art Museum (Arsenalo g. 3А) in Vilnius. It was open until 16th October 2005. The exposition was made up of 46 plastic stands. 86 photographs featured fresco subjects and 72 - history of fresco restoration. Commentaries on photographs were presented in Polish and Lithuanian. The exhibition was visited by 14 000 viewers. The goal of this exhibition was to actuate a cultural and artistic heritage reflecting an original phenomenon of a historical development related to the tradition of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - the interaction of the Eastern Byzantine and the Western Latin civilizations. The exhibition is also important due to a possibility to get to know the religious and artistic principles of Lithuanian rulers and their surroundings in the Gothic epoch. It has also unfolded the problems of the preserving and restoration of old artistic heritage. Restoration work on frescos that began in 1987 was finished in 1995. The Byzantine frescos of the Holy Trinity Chapel in Lublin Castle reveal the aesthetic state of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in the period from the late 14th - to the early 15th c.In the mentioned period, Byzantine art was dominant in Lithuania, the halls of the Trakai Island, Gardinas, most likely of Medininkai and Krėva castles were decorated with Byzantine frescos of secular subjects. Jogaila, therefore, when mounted the throne of Poland, graced his apartments in Wawel Castle with Byzantine frescos not by chance and ordered to decorate some churches with them. He created an aesthetic environment close to him. The chapel decor of Lublin Castle unfolds a very important aspect of Christianity in Lithuania - the images of biblical stories, God and saints were in the best perceptible way incarnated by the images formed by the Byzantine canon. They were of the kind that the then rulers saw and understood them. It was an evident influence of Eastern Christianity made by a long time collaboration with the Orthodoxy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Thus Christian images in Catholic Lithuania were adopted from Byzantium. In Lithuania no such monuments have survived. Therefore, the frescos of the Holy Chapel in Lublin Castle are the only source witnessing the blossoming of the Byzantine period in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
