A Crossroads and Trees

A longing for his homeland inspired Viktoras Vizgirda to see and discover echoes of Lithuania in the unfamiliar landscapes of his new country. As the art historian Viktoras Liutkus observes, Vizgirda viewed America through the eyes of an artist from Višakio Rūda: ‘First come the trees, their trunks, green foliage and spontaneously spreading branches, and only then what lies behind them: the masonry of a building, a piece of pavement, a corner of architecture, the edge of the sky. The painter’s gaze has not lost its penetrating power or the same curious desire to dive into the dense space of the motif.’ Vizgirda’s Boston landscapes, Liutkus writes, ‘simply rustle with ruffled, quickly drawn impasto strokes; the energy rising from the trees climbs upwards through their branches to where, as always, lies the edge of the sky’ (Viktoras Liutkus, Viktoras Vizgirda, Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Art Publishers, 2000, p. 46).

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė

A longing for his homeland inspired Viktoras Vizgirda to see and discover echoes of Lithuania in the unfamiliar landscapes of his new country. As the art historian Viktoras Liutkus observes, Vizgirda viewed America through the eyes of an artist from Višakio Rūda: ‘First come the trees, their trunks, green foliage and spontaneously spreading branches, and only then what lies behind them: the masonry of a building, a piece of pavement, a corner of architecture, the edge of the sky. The painter’s gaze has not lost its penetrating power or the same curious desire to dive into the dense space of the motif.’ Vizgirda’s Boston landscapes, Liutkus writes, ‘simply rustle with ruffled, quickly drawn impasto strokes; the energy rising from the trees climbs upwards through their branches to where, as always, lies the edge of the sky’ (Viktoras Liutkus, Viktoras Vizgirda, Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Art Publishers, 2000, p. 46).

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album THE WORLD OF LANDSCAPES II (2013). Compiler and author Nijolė Tumėnienė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė