Personatge
Portrait

Elena (Helena) Skirmantaitė - Skirmantienė (Skirmuntt)

Kalodnaje (Belarus), 05-11-1827 — The foot of the Pyrenees, the South of France (in 1875 remains were moved to Pinsk and re-buried there), 02-01-1874  

Període d'activitat: 1850 — 1874

Classificació geogràfica: Europa > Bielorússia Europa > Lituània

Moviments socio-culturals

Edat contemporània > Romanticisme

Edat contemporània > Nacionalisme

Grups per àmbit de dedicació

Artistes plàstiques, visuals i escèniques > Escultores

Artistes plàstiques, visuals i escèniques > Pintores

Context de creació femenina

Helena Skirmuntt's creative path perfectly reflects an attempt of a noble woman to break free from the conservative cultural environment conditioned by the class system and political situation in Lithuania at the time. She attempted to fully realize herself as an independent creator and artist to approach the comfort of the universal Western culture. Skirmuntt was a very talented and prolific artist who created tens of busts and portrait medals (mainly of family members and acquaintances) as well as reliefs of historic personalities. The highlights of her creation of her were four crucifixes and a series of historic chess created in the Crimea period to commemorate the victory of the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth over the Turkish army near Vienna in 1683.

While Helena Skirmuntt was a trailblazer for Lithuanian female sculptors in her era, the field of female sculptors in Europe and North America at that time was already a prolific one. Contemporaries of Skirmont include Susan Durant (1827-1873), a British artist and sculptor, one of the first female sculptors to achieve critical and financial success in Victorian Britain; Mary Grant (1831-1908), one of the most eminent female sculptors of the 19th century Britain; Carolina Maria Benedicks-Bruce (1856–1935), a Swedish sculptor; Gisèle d'Estoc, pseudonym Marie-Paule Alice Courbe (1845-1894), a French writer, sculptor, and feminist; Amelia Robertson Hill (birth record Emmilia McDermaid Paton) (1821-1904), a prominent Scottish artist and sculptor throughout the 19th century; Anne Whitney (1821-1915), an American sculptor and poet; margaret e. Foley (1827-1877), an American sculptor; Emma Stebbins (1815-1882), an American sculptor, etc.

Ressenya

Elena Skirmantaitė-Skirmantianė (Helena Skirmuntt) (1827-1874) lived a short but interesting and sapid life. Her upbringing of her in a well-known and rich family made it possible for her to receive proper education in arts, which was mostly inaccessible for other women during that era (she studied in Vilnius, Vienna, Rome, etc.). Skirmuntt was knowledgeable in the trends and fashions of the European art of her period. Unfortunately, her artistic potential was restricted by several circumstances: weak health since childhood, family-related troubles after marrying a relative, [am1] Kazimieras Skirmantas, and a complicated social-political situation in the country. The anti-Russian uprising in 1863 had a fatal effect on her family de ella: her husband de ella was exiled to the depths of Russia and later she had to experience the fate of exile herself.

The creations of the artist may be grouped into two periods clearly divided by the 1863 uprising. The first pre-uprising period is marked by an intense search for her own artistic style. It may be subdivided into shorter periods: the period of amateur creations (1840-1850), the period of studies in Vienna and Rome (1852-1854), and independent work in the homeland (1855-1861). The second period embraced life in Crimea, where she led a relatively calm and well-provided life and was able to fully soak herself into creation, even though this period was short.  
Just added comma [am1]

Activitats

Justificacions

  • Helena Skirmuntt was the first Lithuanian female sculptor.
  • Skirmuntt was a rather famous artist at her time, yet today she is almost forgotten. This happened mainly because very few of her works have reached our days and only several of them are known in Lithuania. The artist’s works are immortalized in photographs, reproductions, and reports of her contemporaries. They were firstly used to reconstruct the path of the artist’s life and to register and discuss the majority of her well-known (extant and not) creations.

Biografia

Helena Skirmuntt was born on November 5, 1827, in Kalodnaje manor near Pinsk in the present-day Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire. Her family of ella were local nobles who traced their lineage to the 13th century. Ella's unusual artistic talents emerged from the age of eight – her favorite pastime was drawing. At thirteen her doctor forbade her to get overwhelmed by activities such as reading, but she was allowed to draw. At that time, Ella Skirmuntt lived in Vilnius (Lithuania) and started attending drawing lessons with the painter Vincentas Dmachauskas.

In 1844, she accompanied an acquaintance to Berlin, later visiting Dresden and Paris to study Western art. In 1850, an acquaintance of the painter Jadvyga Kenevičiūtė gave Skirmuntt a new impetus for artistic work: she got interested in religious painting. In 1851, she painted a portrait of the nun Maria Čapska. Later, Skirmuntt undertook the restoration of old works of art and liturgical (embroidery) supplies found in churches.

In 1852, she traveled to Vienna to treat her progressive eye disease. Following her diagnosis, the doctor forbade her to paint but allowed to practice sculpture as less detrimental to vision. The artist had had a craving for this field of art before but she had never practiced it seriously, so she took advantage of the trip to study the basics in sculpture and medal art in the workshop of the then little-known sculptor Josef Caesar. Helena wrote: “My sculpture engages and harnesses me so deeply that I can't sleep or eat, what I do is work, sometimes until 2 am...”. The sculptor enjoyed creating portrait lowlands that did not require a large study or exceptional working conditions, only special care and a lot of time. She made dozens of medallions depicting her relatives, friends, and exiles. 

In 1854 Skirmuntt went to Rome, where her artistic and religious strivings peaked. She entered the studio of Pietro Galli, where she studied intensively for several months. She also tried her hand at round sculpture there, helped the sculptor L. Amici create his mother Hydrangea’s bust, and sculpted the Nobleman from Poles.

In 1856, Skirmuntt returned to Lithuania. She held democratic views in favor of the liberation of peasants. In 1857, she wrote a treatise on it.

After the abolition of serfdom, Skirmuntt took part in public activities and in the field of education. After the 1863 uprising, Skirmuntt was imprisoned for trying to pass on a letter from one of the rebel commanders and was handed over to the Russian army, and in October the same year she was deported to Tambov Governorate. In exile, she started creating her most important masterpiece, historical chess. This complex creation depicted the historic victory of King John Sobieski of the Republic of the Two Nations against the Turks near Vienna in 1683, and the chess figures depicted groups of Polish and Turkish soldiers. Indeed, all the sculptures in this historical allegory were small masterpieces exhibited in 1872 at the International Exhibition in Vienna. The historical chess was also displayed in exhibitions of the Art Society in Krakow, Lviv, and Warsaw. While in exile, Skirmuntt also created a gypsum Crucifix III (20 inches tall), with which she intended to decorate her own coffin.

After the amnesty for the rebels was announced in 1867, the Skirmuntt family returned to Lithuania for a short time. Soon the family had to leave their homeland, they went to live in Crimea, and Skirmuntt summarized her creative activity. In 1871, she created the last Crucifix IV (14 inches high) dedicated to the procedural cross of the Punsk Cathedral.

Unfortunately, this creative period was short as the lung disease that had plagued the sculptor for many years progressed. As the local doctors were of little help, Skirmuntt went to resorts in the south of France and died at the foot of the Pyrenees in 1874, shortly after reaching her destination. She was buried there, but a year later the remains of her were transported to her homeland and buried in a Catholic cemetery in Pinsk.

Obres


The Portrait of Kazimieras Skirmantas, drawing, 1850

Self-portrait, drawing, 1855

A View from the village of Radčisko, drawing, around 1850

The Portrait of Teklė Skirmantienė-Lubenska, 1855

Sisters Teofilė and Zenona Lubenskos, oil, canvas, 1855

Peasant Women from David-Gorodok Surroundings (Polesia), drawing from nature, 1855

Polesian Musician (Lirnik Poleski), drawing, 1859

The Cross to Commemorate Demostration in 1861 Near the Church of Pinsk, drawing, 1861

The Church of St. Charles in Pinsk, drawing, 1868

The Oak of Adomas Mickevičius in Partenica, in the Village of Tartars at the Foot of Ajudago and Crimea, drawing, 1870

The Candle of Easter, drawing, 1871

 

Crucifixion I, 1853

Crucifixion II, 1863

Crucifixion III, 1865

Crucifixion IV, 1871

 

Portrait medallions:

The Portrait of Kazimieras Skirmantas, medallion, 1852

Self-portrait, medallion, 1854

 

Sculpture:

The Bust of Hortenzia Ordaitė-Skirmantienė, marble, 1854 (co-author L. Amici).

Nobleman from Polesia, gypsum, 1854

The Portrait of Friend Jadvyga Kenevičūtė, bronze, 1858

The Portrait of Juzefina Ordienė, Daughter of Motiejus Butrimavičius, gypsum, 1859

The Portrait of Bronislovas Zaleskis, bronze, 1860

Gediminas, bronze, 1870

 

Historic Chess, engraving, 1864-1873

Historic Chess, the Polish group I, 1864-1873

Historic Chess, the Turkish Group I, 1872 – 1873

Bibliografia

Butkuvienė, A. (2007). Garsios Lietuvos moterys (in Lithuanian). Baltos lankos.

Jankauskas, V.  (2011). Elena Skirmantaitė-Skirmantienė – pirmoji lietuvių skulptorė. Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, 62, VDA leidykla.

Enfocament Didàctic

Art History, sculpture, small sculpture, portrait medallions.

Documents