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LITHUANIAN FOLK MEMORIAL MONUMENTS MADE OF STONE
Alfredas Sirmulis: Summary (Lietuviu liaudies akmeniniai memorialiniai paminklai. V: Publishing House by Vilnius Academy of Art. 1993. 214 p.)

A. Sirmulis. THE LITHUANIAN FOLK MEMORIAL MONUMENTS >>>

VIRTUAL EXHIBITION. THE LITHUANIAN FOLK MEMORIAL MONUMENTS. (Photos from A. Sirmulis book THE LITHUANIAN FOLK MEMORIAL MONUMENTS) I-XI parts >>>

The Lithuanian folk memorial monuments and theis sculptures were very important and original small-scale folk monuments and exclusively the spiritual needs of the farmers. Pillar-type nosses, roofed pillar-type crosses and miniature chapels with small statuettes (sculptures) in them put on the
ground or fixed in the trees at firstwere madAlfredas Sirmulis: Summary (Lietuviu liaudies akmeniniai memorialiniai paminklai. V: Publishing House by Vilnius Academy of Art. 1993. 214 p.)e of special kind of wood became it was connected with the idolatory Lithuanian traditions when there was worship ritual (ceremony) between the trees and forfathers. Latter on the
monuments made ofwoodwere erected by individual families over the graves of thesis relatives, at the places of accidents, on the occasion of great blessings or misfortunes. Monuments, which were made exclusively of stone, weren't rather rare: eleborate iron crosses used to be fixed in natural field boulders specially selected for the purpose ofrougheron stems of stone. The Lithuanian folk memorial monuments made of stone apeared in the 19th century with the building of broken stone (granite) and the romantism influenced the building of broken stone to apear neoromanic and neogotic architecture development evoliution in Lithuania. All is connected with the Lithuanian national liberation movement, which took part in the seo ).nd half of the 19th
century. Types, form and sculptural stone monuments decoration folk masters appropriated from the monuments made of wood. The professional art influenced too.
The Lithuanian folk masters created from the stone (granite) mostly only memorial pillar (as pillar-type crosses) small chapels put on the stone base and crosses with the relief decor and cementery gates. The spread of monuments made of stone types in the Lithuanian ethnic regions are analogical to the spread of wooden monuments (ar they occured in very ethnicregion of Lithuania). The main characteristic features of the Lithuanian
folk monuments of stone in the 19th century are large height, the stone (granite) pillars or separate monumental integrity, sculptural mounting and finishing whifh white insatiable iron decorative accent-cross (the Lithuanian small sun).
The historical situation of the 1st half of the 20th century wasn't tevourable to the Lithuanian folk memorial monuments development.
The cross made of stone was the main form of monuments spread in the ;econd dacade of the 20th century in tye Lithuanian contury side. They were constructed in different compositional and decorative patterns, which included sculpture and various interpratations of chapel and altar motifs, or there were several veriations of decorative elements used on crosses: carvings on the stem and the crosspiece, openwork ornaments fixed on the stem. The stem and the cross-piece were very freequently adorned with open-work cuttings (in Highlands) and crosses were less numerous and decorative elements were used on them rather sparingly (in the Lonlands).
In the 20th and 30th years of the 20th century the toms stone monuments made ofstonewerewith anoakstemwith broken branches orrockwith the cross idea. Only a miserable fraction of 1 his priceless wealth of memorial sculptures has survived to the present day - the works of folk masters as A.
Raudonis and J. Liaudanskis only.
The analysis of folk masters - stone-cutters works nowdays shows a strong influence of the professional art for theis neation and the changing sculptural subject.
The Lithuanian folk masters-stone-cutters in the 19th and 20th centuries started the old creative traditions of folk art of the memorial monuments (architecture). Theirs creationwasn't connected only with earmings and theirs neat ion wasn't profession. The stone - cutters were landless peasants, who
seached for work and pay. In the soviet years folk masters-stone-cutters achined some professional results-but this problem needs a special disscussion.
Folk memorial monuments served the purposes of visual information about the local people's spiritual culture the high standards of folk artistic traditions and the talent of the individual masters. The professional masters, artists influenced on folk masters-stone-cutters, but the folk memorial works influenced on the professional art too. The process is still continuenig now. The serentific generalization of memorial monuments made of stone is broadening our outlook about the folk plastic art made of stone.

Old lithuanian sculpture, crosses and shrine