SILVIJA GROSA JŪGENDSTILA PERIODA PLASTISKAIS UN ...

demand. Although there are clearly crafts-based designs in some interiors from the
early 20 th century, the fact is that the overall quality of interior paintings,
particularly in the homes of Rīga’s wealthier denizens, improved over the course of
time. Presumably this was partly because of an increasing number of examples of
how the work could be done. This could have encouraged artists and reduced the
ability of painters to express themselves in a subjective way. It must also be
assumed that the increased level of quality in the artworks was encouraged by
changes in fashion and trend – Art Nouveau tended to be a decorative style, one
which preferred stylisation and indirectness to realist forms. There were many
decorative painting workshops and companies in the day, although most of the
work that has survived cannot be attributed to any specific enterprise.
There were far more decorative painters than decorative sculptors in Rīga
at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries. Approximately half of them were master
craftsmen, but some of those who worked in the sector, including those who owned
the larger workshops, were professional artists. Among them was Aleksandr
Leopold Turchinovich (Александр Леопольд Турчинович), whose workshop was
established in 1875. Another workshop, which was established in 1878 by Franz
Weidlich, became particularly active in the early 20 th century, when it was taken
over by Nikolai Lyebedev (Николай Лебедев). The nationality of decorative
painters can be determined with specificity only in some cases, but it must be
assumed that at least some were Germans. The owners of the Kurau & Passill
decorative painting workshop, for instance, were Christian Passill, a graduate of
the School of Artistic Industry in Munich, and Leopold Eduard Kurau (1866-
1909), who received his artistic training in Munich and Dresden. Kursau & Passill
expanded swiftly. It was established in 1898, and three years later it already had
been 150 and 180 employees. Along with interior paintings and polychrome
reliefs in private homes and flats, Kurau & Passill provided décor for churches and
sets for various theatres in Rīga.
Also among the more important decorative painting workshops in Rīga in
the early 20 th century was the Baranovsky & Siecke workshop, which would later
become known as the Heinrich Siecke establishment. Heinrich Siecke’s work
evidences links to the German traditions of art. His name appeared in the 1907
compendium “Jahrbuch für Bildende Kunst in der Ostseeprovinzen” (“Yearbook
on the Pictorial Arts in the Eastern Provinces of the Baltic Sea”) because of several
sketches that he had designed for stained glass windows for a building in Audēju
Street in Rīga. Siecke also worked as an interior designer for establishments such
as the Reiner Café. Another artist who emerged from the school of German art
was Alexander Baranowsky (1874-1941). He was a graduate from the School of
Artistic Crafts in Dresden, after which, from 1904 until 1909, he studied at the
Dresden Academy of Art. He produced decorative paintings, interior designs, set
designs, and various types of graphic art. In 1913, he became an instructor in
Dresden, where he taught ornamentation and painting of natural motifs. After a
break, he returned to pedagogical work in Dresden in the early 1930s.
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