„The Lost World“ is an exhibition in memory of the Jewish culture, once prosperous in Lithuania. Almost all of the Lithuanian Jewish community, its centuries-old cultural treasure, which has glorified the name of Lithuania in the world, and its artistic and architectural heritage, were brutally destroyed during the Nazi invasion. The exhibition presents saved and preserved objects of Lithuanian Jewish art – deep-rooted traditional Jewish art and 19^th century-born and ever-developing secular art of the Lithuanian Jews.

This art displays not only specific aesthetics, but distinctive world views and world outlook, concepts of religion and life, and various aspects of cultural expression. It shows the twists of the history of the Lithuanian Jewish community. Therefore every miraculously remaining authentic object of Jewish art is valuable both as an artwork and as a witness of a rich cultural and religious tradition which thrived in Lithuania for centuries, a memento of the destroyed Jewish world of Lithuania.

The Lithuanian Jews, the litvaks, stood out among the other Jews for strict preservation of the religious tradition, intellectual rationality, special education, and for certain features of their religious and everyday life. All this influenced a specific artistic expression. Due to its existential understanding of tradition and their exceptional conservativeness, the Jewish community of Lithuania has longer remained orthodox and closed to the novelties of the Age of Enlightenment and the Haskala movement, emancipation and tendencies of secularization than its Western European counterparts. Therefore, the Lithuanian Jewish art has also retained a traditional and exceptionally spiritual orientation for a longer time. It was until the second part of the 19^th century that only traditional art developed in the Jewish culture of Lithuania, limited by old traditions. It was mostly expressed in the synagogue architecture, interior design and decorations, creation of ritual objects such as Havdalah spice boxes, hanukkiyot, Torah crowns, or the illustrations and decorative motifs used in religious texts. The traditional Lithuanian Jewish art is notable for its synthesis of craft and spiritual doctrine. The artistic expression is defined by the religious contents. The religious texts, their studies, interpretation and discussion, defined the formation of artistic language and images, the nature of their entirety and symbolism. The creation of synagogue interior design and ritual objects was comprehended as a sacred labor in honor of the Almighty.

The mode of life of the Lithuanian Jews, determined by the religious regulations and rituals, is revealed through the exhibited items, which are associated with the interior decoration of synagogues, and ritual objects, which are designed for the rites performed at the synagogue and at home, and for the main holidays of the year and life cycle.

The following elements of the interior of the Vilnius Great synagogue are key to the exhibition: the twofold doors of the aron kodesh, the cartouche with the Tablets of the Law, which used to decorate the topmost level of the aron kodesh, and the candlestick from the omed (the cantor’s desk), which stood in front of it. These objects are all that is left of the Great synagogue of Vilnius, which had for centuries been the main spiritual axis of the Jewish community of Lithuania and the brightest symbol of the Lithuanian Jerusalem, attracted Judaic proficients and religious tradition authorities to Vilnius from the whole of Europe. The Great synagogue was also renowned for its ornate interior, which was considered one of the finest in the country. That interior with the gorgeous aron kodesh and the remaining objects, exhibited in our exposition, was immortalized in a watercolor by the world-famous artist Marc Chagall, who visited Vilnius in the early 20^th century. Having withstood numerous attacks, fires and the Second World War, the Great synagogue was demolished after the war.

Another utterly valuable object of the traditional Jewish art – a piece of the wooden aron kodesh from the synagogue in Židikai – testifies a particular Jewish woodcarving tradition extant in Lithuania. Carved wooden aroney kodesh were the notional and artistic focuses of the interiors of the Lithuanian synagogues, with their rich carvings and abundant symbolic motifs of the décor. Alas, these unique pieces of Lithuanian Jewish art have perished together with the synagogues. The aron kodesh fragment from the Židikai synagogue, stored in the “Aušros” museum in Šiauliai since 1931, is the only remnant authentic example of the tradition of carved wooden aroney kodesh.

The woodcarving tradition, inherited from generation to generation, acquires unexpected shapes in the piece by the early 20^th century Jewish folk artist Aaron Chait from Kelmė – “The Throne of King Solomon”. This masterpiece, created in the 3^rd decade of the 20^th century, is a multi-figural dimensional composition, a sculptural installation incorporating architectonic elements, carvings of different animals, and over two hundred dolls. In the context of Lithuanian Jewish art this composition is unique. The traditional Jewish art in Lithuania has never used neither sculptural human groups, nor similar sculptural dimensional compositions, because of the strict understanding of the Second Commandment. No such compositions are known in the whole history of traditional Jewish art, either. Aaron Chait created this unusual piece to illustrate the biblical story of King Solomon’s court and his magical throne, described in Jewish legends. Unfortunately, due to the vast number of lacking parts, the authentic dimensional view of the composition is impossible to restore, thus the remaining objects are exhibited on a wall. A rough view was reconstructed with the help of the memoir of the artist’s son, Jaakov Chait, who has meticulously described the piece and the quaint motives of its creation. As Jaakov reminisces, “it was a truly magnificent piece of art”, which his father gave so much prominence to that he sacrificed his whole life, willpower and money in the belief that with the creation of his splendid relic of the Jewish past, a bright light would illuminate the Jewish life, immersed in the darkness and misery of the long exile.

A significant part of the exhibition is intended to present the ever-developing secular tradition of Lithuanian Jewish art. The secular Jewish art has appeared relatively late – only in the second half of the 19^th century with the Jewish emancipation on the march. With the beginning of the emancipation, the introvert orthodox Jewish community became more open to exterior cultural influence, and increasing numbers of young Jews took up art studies in various art schools and became professional artists. Many of them gradually gained international fame.

The first artist to break the traditional principles, the first professional Jewish artist in the Russian empire, was Marc Antokolski (1843-1902), sculptor from Vilnius, who was nominated as academician at the St Petersbug Imperial Academy of Art in 1871. His authority made way into professional art for many other Jewish artists of the first generation: painters Moshe Maimon (1860-1924), from Vilkaviškis, Isaac Levitan (1860-1900), from Kybartai, Jehuda Pen (1854-1937), from Zarasai, and others.

As the professional Jewish fine arts evolved, the Vilnius drawing school, founded in 1866 by Ivan Trutnev (1827-1912) was very important. This school was celebrated for its high professional level, democracy and tolerance towards students of various nationalities. A significant part of its students in the end of the 19^th century were Jews. Famous Jewish artists studied here, such as Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), Moshe Maimon, Baruch Schatz, Lazar Segall (1891-1957), Michel Kikoine (1892-1968) and others. The exhibition features pieces by students of this school Moshe Leybovski (1876-1942/43), Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), Mane Katz (1894-1962), Ber Zalkind (1878-1944), and Isaya Kulvianski (1892-1970).

In the first half of the 20^th century Vilnius became the world centre of modern Yiddish literature and art. Private Jewish art schools were being established, courses in drawing and woodcarving were taught at the craft school Hilf durch arbet. Jewish artists gathered into the Jewish artists’ society, headed by Moshe Leybovski (1876-1942/43). The young writers’ and artists’ society Jung Vilne was established in Vilnius. Jewish artists participated in exhibitions organized by the Vilnius Jewish artists’ society, Kultur liga society, patron Abba Shapiro, collector Joseph Sandel, YIVO institute. The younger generation of artists of the inter-war Vilnius is represented in the exhibition by Rafael Chwoles (1913-2002), Jacob Charnotzki (1913-?), Sheyna Efron (1909-1983), Hadassa Gurevich-Grodska (1911-1943), Fanya Liov-Fridman (1912-1941), Rachel Maryampolska-Elkhanani (1911-?), Rachel Sutzkever (1904-1943), Bencion Michtom (1909-1941) and others.

One of the parts of the exposition is dedicated to the work of the Jewish artists of inter-war Kaunas. Exhibited here are pieces by the students of the Kaunas art school Zale Becker, Černė Percikovičiūtė (Cherne Pertzikovichute), Chaim Meyer Faynshteyn, and by the participants of the exhibitions organized in Kaunas, who had studied abroad, Neemiya Arbit Blat (1908-1999) and Max Band (1900-1974). There were many exhibitions in the inter-war Kaunas: over 20 exhibitions of Jewish artists were arranged in 1920-1940.

In the 20^th century, in pursuit of self-perfection, the Lithuanian Jewish artists pervaded the whole world. Some continued studies at the Imperial art academy in St Petersburg, others – at art schools in Paris, Berlin, Dresden and other European cities. Especially many young Jewish artists from art schools in Vilnius, Vitebsk and Minsk arrived to Paris on the brink of the 19^th-20^th centuries: J. Lipchitz in 1909, M. Chagall in 1910, M.Kikoine in 1911, Ch.Soutine in 1912, B.Cuckermann and Mane Katz in 1913, B. Zalkind in 1913-1914, and others. Most of them found refuge in the bohemian colony La Ruche (The Hive), where young avant-garde artists clustered then. After the First World War M.Band arrived to Paris (1923), and so did N.Arbit Blat, Jacques Shapiro (1925), and Raphael Chwoles (1925). Finally what is usually referred to as the Ecole de Paris formed. It consisted mostly of Middle and East European painters, and its core was comprised of Lithuanian Jews.

When the Nazis occupied Lithuania, on the very first days a spiritual genocide of the Jewish nation began alongside the physical one. The main centres of Jewish culture and science were being plundered and destroyed in 1941-1944, books and periodicals were being burned, cultural values were being stolen and taken to Germany. However, despite the inhuman conditions in the locked ghettos, the Jews continued their cultural activity.

The artists of the Vilnius ghetto joined the unique common cultural life of the ghetto. The ghetto theatre, the exhibition of the artists’ work, the concerts of the symphonic orchestra in the face of the physical destruction of the nation actualized the aesthetic function of art. On the other hand, the artworks became documents of the period, recording the ghetto reality. The exhibition features the work of Jacob Sher (1890-1944), Bencion Michtom (1909-1941), Rachel Sutzkever (1904-1943), A.Katzelenbogen (born in 1916) and others, who worked and exhibited in the ghetto. The drawings of Samuel Bak, who organized his first exhibition in the ghetto as a nine-year-old, and those of Esther Lurye (1913-1995), in which she depicts the Kaunas ghetto, are also on display.

From its very introduction the secular Lithuanian Jewish art was notable for its variety of schools and styles. This diversity is also typical for the post-war renewed artistic tradition of the Lithuanian Jews, which keeps developing in various shapes to this day. The exhibition presents pieces by Dina Portnovaitė (1924-1988), Michailas Percovas (1919-2001), Isabelė Bindler (1932-2003), Augustinas Savickas (born in 1919), Adomas Jacovskis (born in 1948), Aleksandra Jacovskytė, Adassa Skliutauskaitė, and Solomonas Teitelbaumas (born in 1972).

On the commemoration day of the 20th anniversary of the museum’s activities the exhibition "The Lost World" was enlarged with artworks from the Museum stocks newly-acquired and restored.

Dr. Aistė Niunkaitė Račiūnienė