Eduardas Jonušas

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Eduardas Jonušas (2006)

Eduardas Jonušas (born April 23, 1932 in Pikeliai in Mažeikiai County in Lithuania , † April 17, 2014 in Nida ) was a Lithuanian painter and sculptor . He did not receive any training at an art academy, but was self-taught. Like many people in the Baltic States, Eduardas Jonušas spoke German and Russian in addition to Lithuanian .

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Eduardas Jonušas (the "as" attached to the name Eduard is a requirement of the Lithuanian language) spent a difficult childhood - he describes it in his book Dog is Human - in a small village near the Latvian border. At the time, many in the Baltic States viewed the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 with skepticism. Likewise Eduard Jonušas' parents, who like others in the Baltic States also had German roots. In 1941 they set out for Germany with their four sons. After the school years near Berlin, the family wanted or should return after the war. On the way there Eduardas lost his father and his three brothers forever, including his mother temporarily. He was picked up in Grodno (now Belarus ), escaped being admitted to a children's home, made his way to his grandparents and found his mother there. He also reports on this under the heading Dreamed Childhood in his book. At the age of fourteen he went to Klaipėda (formerly Memel), where he lived with heavy physical labor, attended music school and, at times, middle school. When he was called up for the Soviet military service in Siberia in 1951, the KGB investigated his origins, discovered his stay in Germany and declared him a spy. He was sentenced to 25 years in a prison camp - called "the quarter measure" by the prisoners. The transports took him via camps in the Taiga and on the Amur to the notorious gulags of Angarsk and Irkutsk .

His knowledge of the “wonders of nature” on the Curonian Spit , which he had once discovered from Klaipėda, helped him persevere. Under Khrushchev , he and many other prisoners were released in 1956. He managed to make his way to Klaipėda and found work as a theater lighting technician for a while. The decisive factor for him was that in the sixties he came to Nida (formerly Nidden) on the Curonian Spit, the place that became his home. An older fisherman, Michel Engelin (1882–1972), told him about the years before 1945. In addition to the work he was assigned to, he began to collect and photograph the remaining testimonies of the former residents, from the shot-up steel helmet to the strange, half-rotten spa boards and old ones Crossing in the cemeteries of the spit, as well as the remains of boats, some of which were in the water.

A book shows him as a shipbuilder with his Kurenkahn Kursis, which was faithfully reproduced . To preserve the nature of the Curonian Spit and to hold onto its lost culture had become his personal tasks. It was just as important to him to tell his experiences during the camp years, which could only happen after the end of Soviet rule:

"..... her knives stabbed another body that lay curled up next to me like a snail. I don't know why or why they killed him. A person didn't count for anything here. They dragged the wriggling victim to the stairs, leaving a broad trail of red blood, and shouted: 'Natschalnik, Zabirai' ('Head, pick it up') ... They cut the bread with the bloody knives ... "

- Eduardas Jonušas, in : Dog is also human. I, the slave of my thoughts, p. 76.

plant

sculpture

The sculpture shows the poet Ludwig Rhesa
Sculpture of the poet Ludwig Rhesa

The abstract wooden sails he designed stand on the spit road. He carved large sculptures out of oak: "The material is like him, has a strong character and the peculiarity of an indomitable knotty". So z. For example, the often photographed monument to Ludwig Rhesa from 1976, which looms a little apart in the open landscape of the Curonian Spit. His self-portrait, also a wooden figure, shows a chained man, the brush with red paint in his hand: Eduardas Jonušas, the slave of his thoughts. Many of Eduardas Jonušas' designs were cast in metal, such as B. the Lithuanian fairy tale characters, the lovers Jūratė and Kastytis , at a fountain in Nida.

painting

Eduardas Jonušas commented on his choice of topics:

“… I paint what I see in my head… not like an architect… With good music I have visions… Every night I saw beautiful and tragic dreams. Dreams are higher than humans. "

His “beautiful” dream images are reminiscent of the Lithuanian painter and composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911). Jonušas painted these symbolistically , with pastel or oil colors . And the image always has a central axis that keeps the symmetry.

After the successful defense of the parliament and the TV Tower in 1991 in Vilnius, where he had participated, he could "all dirty from the storage time" "to get rid of, as you have to vomit, if you have eaten something bad." Very (Just as Note 12) From then on, he also brought the terror of the 20th century to the screen. Here his paintings are more abstract than his reports. The viewer decides whether the Holocaust or the Gulag is concerned - because the perpetrators of violence in all camps are alike and their victims are also alike.

“… My camp pictures are not constructs… When the artist thinks, then there is a wall in front of him. You have to wait until the wall is gone. Then you can go from one time to another ... When I think 'What is art?' - this is nonsense …"

- Eduardas Jonušas, quoted by Dietmar Willoweit, Stations of a Journey into Hell, In Fantastic Pictures Eduardas Jonušas p. 11.

Each painting by Eduardas Jonušas is an independent work. Nevertheless, he put them together in cycles, such as For example, his 17-picture cycle Die Erde in the illustrated book Cymbala , the seven-picture cycle Der Weltherrherr , the three-picture cycle Life and Death of the Holy Family and the 21 paintings cycle The Eternal Cycle in the illustrated book Fantastische Bilder .

The attentive observer of such sequences of images perceives changes in people and our earth, the future of which is by no means looking rosy.

reception

Ewald Hein quotes a thought from Jonušas as follows:

"Man experiences true understanding when he begins to doubt whether birth is just a birth and death is just a death."

- Ewald Hein : Cymbala p. 18.

He characterized the artist's message with the words of Sören Kierkegaard :

“Everyone has the creeps, to learn to be afraid so that they are not lost, either by never being afraid or by sinking into fear; therefore whoever has learned to be afraid according to his due, has learned the ultimate. "

- Ewald Hein : Fantastic Pictures Edurdas Jonušas, p. 9.

Exhibitions

  • 1957: Klaipeda, Folklore Museum.
  • 1981: Vilnius, Palace of the Arts
  • 1982: Kaunas, Kulturpalast
  • 1991: Vilnius, Exhibition Palace
  • 2002, April 23rd to June 23rd, Burg on Fehmarn
  • 2003, May to July, Radebeul, Autohaus Gommlich: EDUARDAS JONUSAS Paintings and drawings from the Curonian Spit - Lithuania

Publications

  • Ewald Hein: Cymbala . Cycle in 17 paintings by the painter Eduardas Jonušas. Melina-Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-929255-14-6 (All texts and image descriptions in German and Lithuanian.)
  • Eduardas Jonušas: Dog is also human. I, the slave of my thoughts. Melina Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-929255-58-8 . (In 2000, Melina-Verlag published 21 pictures by the artist Eduardas Jonušas, "supplemented by the written record of his experiences".)
  • Eduardas Jonušas: Fantastic pictures. Edited by Ewald Heim. With contributions by Uwe B. Meyer, Ewald Hein and Dietmar Willoweit. Catalog for the exhibition in Burg auf Fehmarn 2002. Melina-Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-929255-65-0 . (The volume shows the exhibited 43 paintings by Eduardas Jonušas in a small format, including the three picture cycles The Life and Death of the Holy Family , The Ruler of the World and The Eternal Cycle .)
  • Eduardas Jonušas: vaizdai ir mintys (= images and thoughts ). Eglė Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-609-432-088-0 . (In this book of 175 pages in Lithuanian there are - in addition to many photos from the artist's life and illustrations of his works - also many contributions by Lithuanian and German artists and friends. At the end of the book there is a short summary in German and English. )

Movie

  • Documentary: Eduardas Jonušas - Heaven and Hell are mine . Script and direction: Helmut Schulzeck, original version with German over voice, Germany, 2004 (65 min.).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eduardas Jonušas: Dog is also human. I am the slave of my thoughts. Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2000, ISBN 3-929255-58-8 , p. 32-41 .
  2. ↑ Ewald Hein: Fantastic Pictures Eduardas Jonušas . Ed .: Ewald Hein. Ratingen 2002, ISBN 3-929255-65-0 , p. 8 .
  3. ↑ Alexander Solzhenitsyn: The Gulag Archipelago . Scherz Verlag, Bern 1974, ISBN 3-502-16670-6 , p. 416 .
  4. ^ Aldona Žemaityte (in the anthology): Eduardas Jonušas vaizdai ir mintys . Ed .: Aldona Žemaityte-Petrauskienė. Eglės Leidykla, Klaipeda 2015, ISBN 978-6-09432088-0 , p. 10 (Lithuanian).
  5. ↑ Eduardas Jonušas: Dog is also human. I, the slave of my thoughts. Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2000, ISBN 3-929255-58-8 , p. 62 .
  6. ^ Eduardas Jonušas: Eduardas Jonušas vaizdai ir mintys . Ed .: Aldona Žemaityte-Petrauskienė. Eglė, Klaipeda 2015, ISBN 978-6-09432088-0 , p. 46 and 55 .
  7. ^ Anthology with many articles: Eduardas Jonušas. Vaizdai ir mintys . Ed .: Aldona Žemaityte-Petrauskienė. Eglė, Klaipeda 2015, ISBN 978-6-09432088-0 , p. inner cover pages .
  8. ↑ Images in the anthology: Eduardas Jonušas, vaizdai ir mintys . Ed .: Aldona Žemaityte-Petrauskienė. Eglės Leidykla, Klaipeda 2015, ISBN 978-6-09432088-0 , p. 64, 148 .
  9. ^ Ewald Hein: About the artist, in: Fantastic pictures - Eduardas Jonušas . Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2002, ISBN 3-929255-65-0 , p. 9 .
  10. ↑ Eduardas Jonušas: Dog is also human . Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-929255-58-8 , p. 76 .
  11. ^ Uwe B. Meyer: Bridge Fehmarn - Nidden. In: Fantastic Pictures Eduardas Jonušas . Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2002, ISBN 3-929255-65-0 , p. 7 .
  12. ^ Bernardas Aleknavicius in the anthology: Eduardas Jonušas vaizdai ir mintys . Ed .: Aldona Žemaityte-Petrauskienė. Eglė, Klaipeda 2015, ISBN 978-6-09432088-0 , p. 96 f. and photo p. 166 .
  13. ↑ a b Eduardas Jonušas: Dog is also human. I, the slave of my thoughts. Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2000, ISBN 3-929255-58-8 , p. Front page .
  14. ^ Aldona Žemaityte in the anthology: Eduardas Jonušas. Vaizdai ir mintys . Ed .: Aldona Žemaityte-Petrauskienė. Eglė, Klaipeda 2015, ISBN 978-6-09432088-0 , p. 12, 143 .
  15. ↑ Dietmar Willoweit: Stations of a journey into hell, in: Fantastic pictures Eduardas Jonušas . Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2002, ISBN 3-929255-65-0 , p. 11 .
  16. ^ Eduardas Jonušas, in: Cymbala . Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2000, ISBN 3-929255-14-6 , pp. 9 .
  17. ^ Ewald Hein: Cymbala. Cycle in 17 pictures by the painter Eduardas Jonušas . Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina-Verlag, Ratingen 1995, ISBN 3-929255-14-6 , pp. 18 .
  18. ^ Ewald Hein: About the artist. In: Fantastic Pictures Eduardas Jonušas . Ed .: Ewald Hein. Melina Verlag, Ratingen 2002, ISBN 3-929255-65-0 , p. 9 .
  19. ↑ portrait film
personal data
SURNAME Jonušas, Eduardas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lithuanian painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Pikeliai
DATE OF DEATH 17th April 2014
Place of death Nida (Lithuania)