How the “father” of Lithuanian music and a talented artist ended up in the “yellow house”: Mikalojus Čiurlionis

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-10 02:10

Mikalojus Čiurlionis seemed to have lived several lives in a short thirty-six years. Composer, artist, thinker, teacher, hypnotist … and the unfortunate one, locked in the walls of a psychiatric clinic. Wounded, immersed in daydreaming, then in deep depression, he left a deep mark on Lithuanian culture.

He was born in 1875 into a German-Lithuanian family. His father was of peasant origin, his mother came from a family of evangelicals who fled religious persecution in Germany. My father was fond of playing the organ, and from the age of six Mikalojus sometimes began to replace him as an organist during church services. At first, his father taught him himself, but soon decided that the boy needed real teachers. For several years Čiurlionis studied at the orchestra school of M. Oginski, then went to the Warsaw Institute of Music and graduated with honors.

Čiurlionis's recordings of those years show that music was not his only passion. This young man, hiding a lively mind and a warm heart under the guise of calmness and modesty, during his studies was fond of simultaneously geology, chemistry, history, geometry, cultures of ancient civilizations, philosophy, languages (both dead and still existing), Eastern religions, geometry, physics, astronomy … An incredibly broad outlook later became the basis of his musical, artistic and philosophical creativity.

After Warsaw, Čiurlionis ended up at the Leipzig Conservatory - first as a student and then as a teacher. In Leipzig, Čiurlionis, at the age of twenty-seven, experiences the first documented mental crisis.

Part of Čiurlionis's creative legacy was his diaries - detailed ones containing the author's thoughts about life, about his sufferings and joys, about painful reflections and spiritual experience. They have survived only partially, as well as his correspondence with his brother and friends. Ciurlionis's texts are often full of gloomy, minor shades, reflecting the author's wary attitude towards reality and lack of confidence in his abilities.

Much contributed to the first depressive episode. Warsaw refused to play his best work, teaching was difficult, the future was seen as uncertain - despite the fact that he was twice offered the position of musical director, quite profitable and respected … Čiurlionis explained his refusals somewhat unusual - he said that a music teacher should have a pure a sublime soul, and his life is clouded by petty envy.

But his friends said differently - it seemed to them that in his presence they themselves became better and cleaner, with him gossip and empty conversations subsided, and everyone seemed to be imbued with bright feelings. Perhaps it was the hypnotic gift of Čiurlionis? They say he possessed mystical abilities, but did not seek to demonstrate them …

Čiurlionis gives private music lessons, but his craving for another means of expressing emotions - painting - is growing in him. In those years, he did not understand how to express his feelings in music, but at the same time he felt a painful need to express himself and be understood.

Čiurlionis began attending an art studio.

Since the 1900s, Čiurlionis participated in exhibitions, but, constantly speaking about his modesty, he charged incredibly high prices for his works … so that no one would buy them. At the same time, he gave his paintings to those who, as he believed, really liked them. This attitude towards money (Čiurlionis despised trade) led him to extreme poverty.

One day he received severe frostbite, which caused severe pain, because he did not have the money to buy gloves. Constant malnutrition lasting for years led to severe bowel problems.

Because of this poverty, Čiurlionis could not - and did not want - to arrange his personal life. From his letters it is known that the first long romantic relationship was destroyed not only and not so much by the desire of the girl's father to arrange a more profitable party for her, but also by the indecision of the artist himself. He feared that constant financial difficulties would destroy the sublime and the divine that is in love - and in art.

However, nine years later, he nevertheless married the writer Sofia Kimantaite, with whom he was incredibly happy. They agreed on the basis of the idea of "Lithuanian revival", which in general did not arouse much enthusiasm among the Lithuanians.

Soon after the wedding, they left for St. Petersburg, where they met Dobuzhinsky, Lanceray, Bakst, Somov and other outstanding artists who warmly supported Churlionis himself and his work.

True, Benoit wrote that Čiurlionis appeared in art at a wrong time - his pale, gloomy, amateurish painting was not understood by either spectators or critics.

Sofia returned to Lithuania. Čiurlionis's affection for his wife was manic, through he could not imagine himself without her, in moments of separation he fell into complete melancholy and helplessness. For a while he tried to work, began a huge symbolist canvas, but he did not even have money for paints. After a while, Sofia returned for him and took him home.

Čiurlionis has always been a person with an unstable psyche, and neither love, nor a short period of fame, nor social activities to revive Lithuanian culture (studying folklore, organizing creative communities) could save him from depression, and after depression came a serious mental disorder.

Čiurlionis ended up in a clinic for the mentally ill, he was forbidden to do the most important things for him - music and painting. Unable to bear it, one day he fled from the hospital into the forest - in what he was, barefoot - but got lost and had to return. After the escape, the artist developed pneumonia, followed by a cerebral hemorrhage, and on April 10, 1911, he died.

For ten years of creative activity, he created more than four hundred musical compositions and three hundred paintings, wrote poetry, and experimented with photography. Deeply symbolic, sophisticated, full of light and triumph, Čiurlionis's works became incredibly popular only after his death.