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Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis

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Nationality
  
Lithuanian

Children
  
Danute Ciurlionyte

Role
  
Painter

Name
  
Mikalojus Ciurlionis

Movement
  
Symbolism Art nouveau


Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Mikalojus Konstantinas iurlionis Wikipedia the free
Full Name
  
Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis

Born
  
22 September 1875 (
1875-09-22
)
Stare Orany, Vilna Governorate

Education
  
Warsaw Conservatory Leipzig Conservatory Warsaw School of Fine Arts

Known for
  
Painting, musical composition

Notable work
  
Spring Sonata In the Forest

Died
  
April 10, 1911, Marki, Poland

Spouse
  
Sofija Kymantaite (m. 1909–1911)

Parents
  
Konstantinas Ciurlionis, Adele Ciurlionis

Artwork
  
Sonata of the Sea, Sonata of the Pyramids, Creation of the World

Similar People
  
Vytautas Landsbergis, Sofija Kymantaite, Rokas Zubovas, Danute Ciurlionyte, Ary Barroso

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis: A collection of 165 paintings (HD)


Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (Polish: Mikolaj Konstanty Czurlanis; 22 September [O.S. 10 September] 1875 –10 April [O.S. 28 March] 1911) was a Lithuanian painter, composer and writer.

Contents

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Art

Ciurlionis contributed to symbolism and art nouveau and was representative of the fin de siecle epoch. He has been considered one of the pioneers of abstract art in Europe. During his short life he composed about 400 pieces of music and created about 300 paintings, as well as many literary works and poems. The majority of his paintings are housed in the M. K. Ciurlionis National Art Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania. His works have had a profound influence on modern Lithuanian culture. The asteroid 2420 Ciurlionis is named after him.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Art

Biography

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis A Glimpse into the Creative work of a Great Lithuanian

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis was born in Senoji Varena, former Russian Empire, the oldest of nine children of his father, Lithuanian Konstantinas, and his mother, Adele nee Radmanaite (Radmann), descended from Evangelic Lutheran German Bavarian family. Like many educated Lithuanians of the time, Ciurlionis's family spoke Polish, and he began learning Lithuanian only after meeting his fiancee in 1907. In 1878 his family moved to Druskininkai, where his father went on to be the town organist.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis MKCiurlionis Painting

Ciurlionis was a musical prodigy: he could play by ear at age three and could sight-read music freely by age seven. Three years out of primary school, he went to study at the musical school of Polish Prince Michal Oginski in Plunge where he learned to play several orchestral instruments, in particular the flute, from 1889 to 1893. Supported by Prince Oginski's 'scholarship' Ciurlionis studied piano and composition at Warsaw Conservatory from 1894 to 1899. For his graduation, in 1899, he wrote a cantata for mixed chorus and symphonic orchestra titled De Profundis, with the guidance of the composer Zygmunt Noskowski. Later he attended composition lectures at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1901 to 1902.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis uploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthumbbb7

He returned to Warsaw in 1902 and studied drawing at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts from 1904 to 1906 and became a friend with a Polish composer and painter Eugeniusz Morawski-Dabrowa. After the 1905 Russian Revolution, which resulted in the loosening of cultural restrictions on the Empire's minorities, he began to identify himself as a Lithuanian.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Mikalojus Konstantinas iurlionis Wikipedia the free

He was one of the initiators of, and a participant in, the First Exhibition of Lithuanian Art that took place in 1907 in Vileisis Palace, Vilnius. Soon after this event the Lithuanian Union of Arts was founded, and Ciurlionis was one of its 19 founding members.

In 1907 he became acquainted with Sofija Kymantaite (1886–1958), an art critic. Through this association Ciurlionis learned to speak better Lithuanian. Early in 1909 he married Sofija. At the end of that year he traveled to St. Petersburg, where he exhibited some of his paintings. On Christmas Eve Ciurlionis fell into a profound depression and at the beginning of 1910 was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital "Czerwony Dwor" (Red Manor) in Marki, Poland (now incorporated into Pustelnik), northeast of Warsaw. While a patient there he died of pneumonia in 1911 at 35 years of age. He was buried at the Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius. He never saw his daughter Danute (1910–1995).

Ciurlionis felt that he was a synesthete; that is, he perceived colors and music simultaneously. Many of his paintings bear the names of musical pieces: sonatas, fugues, and preludes.

Posthumous recognition

In 1911 the first posthumous exhibition of Ciurlionis's art was held in Vilnius and Kaunas. During the same year an exhibition of his art was held in Moscow, and in 1912 his works were exhibited in St. Petersburg. In 1957 the Lithuanian community in Chicago opened the Ciurlionis Art Gallery, hosting collections of his works. In 1963 the Ciurlionis Memorial Museum was opened in Druskininkai, in the house where Ciurlionis and his family lived. This museum holds biographical documents as well as photographs and reproductions of the artist's works. The National M. K. Ciurlionis School of Art in Vilnius was named after him in 1965.

Ciurlionis inspired the Lithuanian composer Osvaldas Balakauskas' work Sonata of the Mountains (1975), and every four years junior musical performers from Lithuania and neighbouring countries take part in the Ciurlionis Competition. Ciurlionis's name has been given to cliffs in Franz Josef Land, a peak in the Pamir Mountains, and to asteroid #2420, discovered by the Crimean astrophysicist Nikolaj Cernych.

Ciurlionis's works have been displayed at international exhibitions in Japan, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere. His paintings were featured at "Visual Music" fest, an homage to synesthesia that included the works of Wassily Kandinsky, James McNeill Whistler, and Paul Klee, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2005.

A commemorative plaque has been placed on the building of the former hospital in Marki, Poland where Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis died in 1911.

Ciurlionis's life was depicted in the biographical feature film 'Letters to Sofija' directed by Robert Mullan in 2012. .

Musical works

The precise number of Ciurlionis musical compositions is not known – substantial part of his manuscripts did not survive, while others, assumingly, perished in the fire during the war, or were lost. The ones available for us today include sketches, rough drafts, and fragments of his musical ideas. The nature of the archive determined the fact that Ciurlionis’ works were finally published only hundred years after the composer’s death. Today, the archive amounts to almost 400 music compositions major part of which are works for piano, but also significant opuses for symphony orchestra (symphonic poems In the Forest and The Sea, overture, cantata for choir and orchestra), string quartet, works for various choirs (original compositions and Lithuanian folk song arrangements), as well as works for organ.

Some of his most-performed musical works include:

  • Nocturne in C sharp minor
  • Prelude in F sharp major
  • Nocturne in F minor
  • Impromptu in F sharp minor
  • String Quartet in C minor
  • Prelude in A major
  • Prelude in D flat major
  • Fugue in B minor
  • Prelude in H minor
  • Prelude in D minor
  • Karalaites kelione: Pasaka (The Princess's Journey: A Fairy Tale)
  • Seven fugues for organ (Fugue in G minor)
  • Folk songs for choir
  • De Profundis, for choir and orchestra
  • Miske (In the Forest), symphonic poem for orchestra (posthumous)
  • Jura (The Sea), symphonic poem for orchestra (posthumous)
  • Paintings

    The most famous Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis paintings include:

  • The Gift of Friendship (1906)
  • Cycle Winter (1906–1907)
  • Cycle The Zodiac (1907)
  • Sonatas (1907–1908)
  • Cycle Fairy-Tale (1909)
  • Creation of the World
  • Sonata of the Spring (1907)
  • Sonata of the Summer (1908)
  • Sonata of the Sun (1907)
  • Sonata of the Sea (1908)
  • Sonata of the Pyramids (1908)
  • Sonata of the Stars (1908)
  • Sonata of the Serpent (1908)
  • Diptych "Prelude and Fugue" (1908)
  • Triptych "Fantasy" (1908)
  • Other Preludes and Fugues
  • Winter - Cycle of Eight Pictures (1906-7)
  • Spring - Four Pictures (1907-8)
  • Summer - Cycle of Three Pictures (1907-8)
  • References

    Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis Wikipedia