Drawing “National Anthem” — sekunde.lt

What does the National Anthem look like when drawn? And what color is the popular Lithuanian folk song “Roadside Tavern”?

Can you recognize Lithuanian popular songs such as “Three Days and Three Nights” and “Green Peony” from the picture?

They search for songs in museums

Patriotism, memory, nationality, skin color, tradition. All this – at the exhibition of folk artists’ creations “Call, daina natapyta” at the Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė Public Library in Panevėžys County.

This year’s exhibition of the Panevězh City and District Association of Folk Artists “Pantautodailė” has become a summer tradition and is held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Lithuanian Song Festival.

The exhibition features works of more than 25 folk artists and painters from the cities and regions of Panevėžys and Rokiškis.

Dozens of paintings contain songs from 1924. The repertoire of the first Song Day (then called Song Festival) held in Kaunas.

“The Song Festival is so important for the Lithuanian nation that we had the idea to draw the songs that were performed in 1924. On the First Song Day. Finding the lyrics of these songs was not an easy task. We found them in the Kaunas City Museum, which gave us the opportunity to use a digital image of the preserved booklet “The First Day of Songs in 1924”. Visitors to the exhibition will also see a copy of the booklet. We managed to find 30 out of 35 songs that were sung at the First Song Festival,” says exhibition curator Jūra Butkevičiūtė.

Turn into image

Each creator presents the song of his choice in his own unique style and style. The song matures through the painters’ long thinking and sketches until it sounds in color on the canvas.

“Songs chosen by folk artists themselves will become paintings. Most of the time, we turn not the entire work into images, but a few verses from it (one song has even 28 verses!). However, some paintings contain entire songs. Only two works appear repeatedly in the exhibition – “Spring” and the Lithuanian National Anthem. I am particularly happy about the courage of the Rokiškė women, who gave meaning to the latter – it was a real challenge, which I think the women overcame,” says J. Butkevičiūtė.

Will recognize from text

In the pictures, the authors depicted the passages from the songs that most aroused their emotions.

Visitors to the exhibition can easily and simply find out which song and which verses are painted – the text is placed next to the picture so that viewers can compare their interpretation with what the painter has depicted.

The exhibition also features some of the paintings made by Panevěž folk artists at a small song festival held this summer on Birut Street in the old part of the capital, Aukštaitia.

The library’s folk art exhibition can be viewed until August 24.