Petras Kalpokas

A Lithuanian landscape and portrait artist, a master of paintings and monumental paintings (frescoes), as well as a graphic master.

Born into the family of rich farmer Stasis Kalpokas. The childhood of the future master was bright and happy.

Kalpokas was one of the founders of the first Lithuanian artistic community (together with M. Čiurlionis, K. Sklereus, A. Zhmuidzinavičius) and was a member of it. He was actively engaged in teaching, worked as a professor at the Kaunas Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (Lithuania) and wrote a textbook on painting techniques.

Key ideas:

– Landscapes of Petras Kalpokas are lyric — both those who are close to Realism and those which have features of Impressionism (most of them). The mood in them is conveyed by color combinations, the rhythm of the overlay of colors and the overall thoughtful composition of the picture. The artist professed a method of analyzing nature, which all Lithuanian impressionists loved.

– As a romantic artist, though skillfully wielding both a line and a pattern,
subtly feeling the monumentality of the shape, he often uses increased sonorous intensity of color. Over the years, this trend was becoming more vivid; the color becomes a truly important means for expressing one’s world perception.

– The portraits by Kalpokas are psychological, accurately conveying the features of the model. To create an image of the inner state of mind and character of a person, the master searched for his own particular art forms. This is most clearly seen in his self-portraits, and especially in the Self-Portrait of 1906.

– The frescoes differ in their decorativeness, dynamic composition and the use of a festive palette, reminiscent of paintings by Monet. The monumental artist is characterized by an expressive strong pattern, a bright plastic form.