Madonna

The vibrant colours of this composition, radiating a springlike freshness and vitality, evoke a sense of space and a dreamlike, fairy-tale reality. The echoes of sacred folk art, and the very title of the painting, invite us to interpret the female figure as a depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But she also evokes the Baltic Mother Goddess that is frequently seen in the work of Vytautas Ignas. His work was not seen primarily as religious by the Lithuanian diaspora in the United States, but as patriotic, as an expression of a deep-rooted, ancestral Lithuanian world-view. His work also found its admirers in Soviet-occupied Lithuania for similar reasons. An exhibition of Ignas’ paintings in Vilnius in 1971 made a profound impression on the public, and, alongside the lectures on Baltic prehistory by the Lithuanian American archaeologist Marija Gimbutienė, helped to inspire the emerging ethnocultural revival in Lithuania at the time (Nijolė Tumėnienė et al., Vytautas Ignas, Vilnius: Lithuanian Museum of Art, 2001, p. 18).

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album HEAVEN AND BEYOND (2016). Compiler Dalia Vasiliūnienė. Text authors Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: “Heaven and Beyond. Works of religious art from the collection of Rolandas Valiūnas and the law firm Valiunas Ellex“, 31 May–24 September 2016, Church Heritage Museum, Vilnius (curators Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė); "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė; "Solely Saints", 6 June 2024 – 1 May 2025, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Skaidrė Urbonienė and Emilija Vanagaitė.

The vibrant colours of this composition, radiating a springlike freshness and vitality, evoke a sense of space and a dreamlike, fairy-tale reality. The echoes of sacred folk art, and the very title of the painting, invite us to interpret the female figure as a depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But she also evokes the Baltic Mother Goddess that is frequently seen in the work of Vytautas Ignas. His work was not seen primarily as religious by the Lithuanian diaspora in the United States, but as patriotic, as an expression of a deep-rooted, ancestral Lithuanian world-view. His work also found its admirers in Soviet-occupied Lithuania for similar reasons. An exhibition of Ignas’ paintings in Vilnius in 1971 made a profound impression on the public, and, alongside the lectures on Baltic prehistory by the Lithuanian American archaeologist Marija Gimbutienė, helped to inspire the emerging ethnocultural revival in Lithuania at the time (Nijolė Tumėnienė et al., Vytautas Ignas, Vilnius: Lithuanian Museum of Art, 2001, p. 18).

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album HEAVEN AND BEYOND (2016). Compiler Dalia Vasiliūnienė. Text authors Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė, ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė
Expositions: “Heaven and Beyond. Works of religious art from the collection of Rolandas Valiūnas and the law firm Valiunas Ellex“, 31 May–24 September 2016, Church Heritage Museum, Vilnius (curators Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė); "Free and Unfree. Lithuanian Art between 1945 and 1990", 9 September 2021 – 30 April 2022, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Dovilė Barcytė and Ieva Burbaitė; "Solely Saints", 6 June 2024 – 1 May 2025, Lithuanian Art Centre TARTLE (Užupio St. 40, Vilnius). Curators Skaidrė Urbonienė and Emilija Vanagaitė.