Vilniaus vizija: 1860-1940 metų fotografijos / Vision of Vilnius: Photographs in 1860-1940

Description

To mark the 700th anniversary of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, the National Museum of Lithuania has prepared an album of images of the city Vision of Vilnius: Photographs from 1860-1940.

Over the course of seven centuries, the appearance of Vilnius has been changed by wars, occupations, and fires, but the city has always recovered and flourished. The vision of Vilnius is special – it includes bell towers shimmering in the blue mist and piercing the clouds with their spires of crosses, church towers floating in the blue-golden lagoon of fog like the masts of a large flotilla, a crumbling brick of a castle, an architectural detail, and the silhouette of a shrine suddenly glowing at the bend of a side street…
Vilnius is a city shrouded in legends. Many eras have left their marks on the planning of the city's streets and squares, the construction and decoration of buildings. Vilnius was constantly devastated, burned and demolished. But in brief moments of freedom it flourished again and delighted the eye with its greenery, surrounding hills and luxurious architecture.
In the album, we see the city's transformation, starting from the very first photographs by Abdonas Korzonas, created in 1860, to the sights of the regained Lithuanian capital in 1940.
Some photographers climbed up through Vilnius' courtyards and vertical walls or wandered through the "unfairytale" streets under the influence of the magical atmosphere, others presented the capital, which not only did not mature into a metropolis, but even retained the features of an urban-rural compound, others only repeated its contours from the most distant hills and surrounding thickets and expanded the vivid graphics of the foreground plants. At all times, photographers have found it difficult to resist the magic of Vilnius, so they have tried hundreds of times to feel it, capture it and show it to others.

Languages: Lithuanian and English