SILVIJA GROSA JŪGENDSTILA PERIODA PLASTISKAIS UN ...

The graduation work of art historian Edgars Dubiņs - Art Nouveau in Riga
architecture (1971, Art Academy of Latvia) was the first attempt to perform its
objective analysis and was important as an announcement of the rehabilitation of
Art Nouveau in Latvia.
When it comes to research that has been devoted to architecture, one must
particularly speak of the architect Jānis Krastiņš, who published a dissertation,
“Development of Architecture in Rīga in the Latter Half of the 19 th and the Early
20 th Century” (1973, in Russian). Seven years later, he published the monograph
“Art Nouveau in Rīga’s Architecture” (1980, in Latvian), and this served as a
foundation for the author’s further publications on the subject of architecture in the
Latvian capital city. Krastiņš’ work is of seminal importance in that it offers
extensive facts and data about construction in Rīga. He has identified the
architects who designed the various buildings, and he developed stylistic
classifications for architecture. In the 1990s, several other researchers wrote about
the architecture of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and particularly about
Art Nouveau architecture. These included Jānis Lejnieks and Gunārs Priede. The
author of this dissertation has written previously on the subject of architectural
décor.
During the course of the 1980s, there was an increased amount of research
in the visually plastic arts of the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. Of importance
as providers of facts are monographs by Ināra Novadniece and Dzidra Blūma, who
wrote about certain aspects of the decorative arts. A team of authors put together
the book “Latvian Art: 1840-1940” (in Latvian), but the importance of that book
was diminished by the fact that the authors were forced to work in accordance with
Marxist methodologies and interpretations. The most authoritative émigré art
historian among Latvians was Jānis Siliņš, who produced a monograph, “Latvian
Art: 1800-1914” (1980) in which he offered his own thinking about Art Nouveau
architecture and décor. His ideas, however, preserved the inertia-based negative
thinking of the interwar period, and that affected both the volume and the content
of interpretation which Siliņš offered.
Against this background, the publications of the art historian Eduards
Kļaviņš have been very important in terms of the stylistic evaluation of materials
and of the establishment of a more pluralistic methodological interpretation of the
style. In 1983, he released a book called “The Iconography and Stylistic Nature of
the Fine Arts of Latvia in the Late 19 th and Early 20 th Century.” Another book was
“Latvian Portrait Painting: 1850-1916”, which was released in 1997. The latter
book is of critical importance in the context of the subject matter that is being
treated here, because it offers an exhaustive look at the world of art and the stylistic
trends which prevailed therein at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries.
Foreign researchers have also studied the relevant materials. This is
particularly true in the case of the British academic Jeremy Howard, whose 1996
monograph “Art Nouveau: International and National Styles in Europe” presented
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