Stasys Ušinskas
Arrangement of colors, composition in Léger’s artworks is not very complicated, merely simplified, however he attains a clear decorative, monumental, expressive construction.
Ušinskas' final graduation work included a project of decorations and costumes for Sophocles' tragedy "Oedipus Rex" and Shakespeare's drama "Othello".Stasys Ušinskas, having absorbed the expressions of constructionism, cubism, neoclassicism and Art Deco into historical, allegorical, genre painting and portraiture, embodied the spirit of his time, modernised the shapes of his works and kept in step with the world art avant-garde.
In 1935, Ušinskas created a number of marionettes for the first Lithuanian puppet play Silvester Fife (Silvestras Dūdelė) directed by Antanas Gustaitis and in 1938 for the first Lithuanian sound animation The Fat-Man's Dream (Storulio sapnas).According to Audronė Girdzijauskaitė: Ušinskas seems to be looking for a universal space that would equally suit a dramatic or musical piece by interpreting, improvising and playing.
[7]A year later (1937), Ušinskas received gold and silver medals at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne for scenography design of Balys Dvarionas ballet Matchmaking (1933) and the marionettes for the animation film The Fat-Man's Dream (Storulio sapnas).
He also created decorations and costumes for the August Strindberg's play The Bridal Crown (in the Broadway Theater) and Euridipes' The Trojan Women.
He created two puppets and decorations for the Broadway Theatre play The Nightingale (based on the tale by Hans Christian Andersen), however the creative work was interrupted by World War II.
In 1938, Ušinskas returned to Lithuania and finalized the creation of puppets for the first Lithuanian short film with sound effects The Fat-Man's Dream based on the puppetoon technique.
[8] The novel technology of Ušinskas' puppets allowed to flexibly move various body parts, express certain emotions and traits of the characters from the story.
Žydrūnas Mirinavičius describes the formative influence of studies in Paris felt in Ušinskas artworks such as Saint (1931): This work in its character and spirit is close to stained-glass art of Romanesque period, though its stylisation evokes French modernists' constructivist thinking of the beginning of the 20th century.
[11]Stasys Ušinskas continues working with stained-glass and creates numerous pieces for public places in Lithuania and later in Russia, some of which: ''The stained-glass pieces evoke a variety of stylistic influences such as Art Deco, Cubism, Constructivism, with Gothic, Renaissance and Classicism details, under which Stasys Ušinskas developed traditional, historical and Lithuanian literature narratives.
''[11] ''In 1950, Ušinskas began scientific and technical experiments with stained-glass formed a low-temperature and was the first in Lithuania to produce mirror and block stained glass.
These pieces are notable for streamline silhouettes of vessels, majestic forms, contrast between glass material and décor as well stylistically varied painting which resulted from both the influences that impacted Ušinskas’ pre-war creative works and the realities of the Lithuanian fine arts in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
[13]''As an instructor at the Kaunas Institute for Applied and Decorative Arts, Ušinskas trained many talented artists whose later works would bring renown to Lithuanian stained glass artistry: Algimantas Stoškus, Kazimieras Morkūnas, Vladas Jankauskas, Vytautas Banys, Rita Gabrėnaitė, and Rachilė Krukaitė.
Owing to Léger, Ušinskas succeeded in escaping the ‘chamber’ style of painting that reigned in Lithuania, while treating many standard themes unconventionally.’[5] The formative influence of the Parisian teachers could be observed in a number of Ušinskas’ drawings and paintings of ‘multi-figured and monumental compositions’ depicting ‘sportive bodies, balanced proportions, movements, complex perspectives and sculptural dimensions’ such as Spring (plafond for the Kaunas Aviation House) 1937; Music (plafond for the Broadway Theatre) 1938, Circus Rehearsal ('Cirko Repeticija') 1938-1945, Aviator's Dream (Lakūno Sapnas) 1939.
‘Their maneuvering between official and private lives, between the public and the personal, brought new discoveries as well as new lows of conformism.’ One of the examples in Stasys Ušinskas work is A Midsummer Night's Dream (Vasaros Nakties Sapnas, 1938) in which appears his wife’s Vitalija Blažytė’s portrait like compositions.
