Marija Račkauskaitė-Cvirkienė: ieškant savo kambario

LTTapytoja Marija Račkauskaitė-Cvirkienė (1921–2004) – mažai tyrinėta dailininkė ir sovietmečiu, ir vėliau. Nors kamerinė šios autorės tapyba ekspertų ir kolegų vertinta gerai, ją galima įvardyti net sėkminga, ji visais laikais liko kiek nuošaliau nuo pagrindinės meno scenos. Santuoka su garsiu rašytoju Petru Cvirka perspektyvios dailininkės įvaizdį pritemdė garsenybės žmonos pareigomis. Išskirtinė socialinė padėtis autorei suteikė patogias buitines sąlygas, tačiau taip pat ir veikė jos individualias profesines galimybes. Vadovėliuose, albumuose gausiai reprodukuojama jos kūryba atstovavo kamerinės dailės dalį. Peizažai, natiurmortai, kolegų portretai lengvai atpažįstami ir mėgiami. Nemažiau gerai žinomi ir jos autoportretai, tačiau jie verti atskiro dėmesio, nes sovietmečiu dėl laiko specifikos beveik neanalizuoti. Cvirkienės autoportretai pasakoja apie individualybės savistabą, troškimą teigti save kaip dailininkę, pačiai formuoti savo įvaizdį.

ENThe painter Marija Račkauskaitė-Cvirkienė (1921–2004) is not explored well yet. From the very beginning of her career, in the soviet time and at a time of independence the artist was valued by experts and her colleagues, but despite that she had to stay in the shadows. Her image of personality was interrupted by influential family men. First – her father Merkelis Račkys – a famous professor of classical languages, later – her husband Petras Cvirka – one of the major figures of soviet literature in Lithuania and also a husband of her sister Eliza – Antanas Venclova – a poet writer and critic, politician. Especially her husband Petras Cvirka, together with the second name brought changes to Marija’s life. He was a public hero, and it had to stay like this despite bad relations in family, unexpected and mysterious early death. Marija Cvirkienė is exceptional in three ways. First, she did created series of self-portraits in the beginning of soviet era – a time when self-portrait as a genre seemed to vanish because individual had to give a way to collective. The fact that the author had a great living conditions comparing to the statistic citizen, leads to the idea that she had „A Room of One’s Own“ (formulated by Virginia Woolf). Second, her self-portraits talks about professional emancipation and connects local situation to European. Cvirkienės images of herself represents the old as genre itself problem: how to represent self as a woman and a professional at the same time, in one image, when these two goals demands opposite choices in depiction. Frances Borzello in her book Seeing Ourselfs: Women’s Self-Portraits suggest that therefore women self-portraits should be considered as separated genre, because men doesn’t have to deal with any similar.And the last thing why I believe Cvirkienė’s self-portraiture is exceptional is the narrative that comes out when we look at her portraits like a sequence. It reveals personal self-reflection, emancipation and presents private, which is quite unique considering her living time complications.