DOI issue:
Nr. 1
DOI article:Kreslins, Janis: Reading, seeing, conceiving in the Baltic, or Don't judge a modernist book by its cover
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51715#0032
ŠTÚDIE / ARTICLES
ARS 45, 2012, 1
Reading, Seeing, Conceiving in the Baltic,
or Don’t Judge a Modernist Book by Its Cover*
Janis KRESLINS
By delving into the complex and contradictory
expansés of the Baltic during the first decade of the
20th Century, I shall be opening the dooř to a world in
which rugged land meets the sea, vast woods stretch
to the horizon, summet fields are bathed in resplen-
dent light, the winter sun hides behind a můrky haze,
and where any tale about Creative thought and the
power of visual image and language is unequivocally
characterized not by cohésion and convergence, but
by disjunction and displacement [Fig. 1].
To deliver an insight into the culture of commu-
nication in the Baltic during the early years of the
20th Century and to reveal how artistic expression
reflected some of the Basic tensions in the region, it
is necessary to suggest — by means however indirect
— a grammar of the space in which artistic exchange,
intellectual debate and the unintended patterns of
social life, which frequently defy ideological réduc-
tion, could have taken place.* 1 As any grammar, even
this grammar should reveal both morphological and
syntactical properties, it should describe not only
I owe an immense debt of gratitude for permission to use
the images of the private collections of Valdis Vilerušs
(Ikškile) and Jänis Krěslinš (New York), as well as those of
the Academie Library of the University of Latvia in Riga
and the Kungliga biblioteket (National Library of Sweden)
in Stockholm. I have benefited from the learnedness and
intellectual generosity of the collectors.
1 This view of grammar présupposés that lexicon, morphology,
and syntax form a continuum of symbolic units. “Grammatical
structures do not constitute an autonomous formal systém or level of
représentation; they are claimed instead to be inherently symbolic, pro-
vidingfor the structuring and conventional symbolisation of contextual
the constituent éléments of a particular culture of
communication — which we would refer to as word
formation in a standard grammar — but also provide
a conspectus into how these éléments were arranged
in units — sentences. As any grammar it is defined
by its limitations. Grammars aspire to capture the
dynamic aspect of communication, but do it by
employing static models.
The Baltic world during the first decade of the
20th Century was extremely dynamic — in such motion
that one must question the feasibility of applying
certain Enguistic categories to the subject matter at
hand.2 Can we, for instance, even embed the notion
of a perfective aspect in our depiction of this world,
if it appears to revel in constant change? How are
we to conjure iterativeness and mark repetitiveness
if the goal of the artists themselves was to create
a new world, which turned its back on traditions and
conventions? How are we to apprehend participial
constructions — expressions compressed for the sake
of brevity and to allow for new forms of contextu-
contentP — LANGACKER, R. W.: Introduction to Concept,
Image and Symbol. In: Cognitive Einguistic Research 34. Eds. D.
GEERAERTS - R. DIRVEN - J. R. TAYLOR. Berlin - New
York 2006, p. 31.
2 A sense of the dynamic nature of the region is conveyed by
G. von PISTOHLKORS in his survey Das „Baltische Gebiet“
des Russischen Reiches (1860 - 1914). In: Deutsche Geschichte
im Osten Europas — Baltische Händen Berlin 1994, pp. 363-435.
See also PLAKANS, A.: A Concise History of the Baltic States.
Cambridge 2011, pp. 254-285; and NORTH, M.: Geschichte
der Ostsee. Handel und Kulturen. München 2011, pp. 234-237
and 250-254.
26
ARS 45, 2012, 1
Reading, Seeing, Conceiving in the Baltic,
or Don’t Judge a Modernist Book by Its Cover*
Janis KRESLINS
By delving into the complex and contradictory
expansés of the Baltic during the first decade of the
20th Century, I shall be opening the dooř to a world in
which rugged land meets the sea, vast woods stretch
to the horizon, summet fields are bathed in resplen-
dent light, the winter sun hides behind a můrky haze,
and where any tale about Creative thought and the
power of visual image and language is unequivocally
characterized not by cohésion and convergence, but
by disjunction and displacement [Fig. 1].
To deliver an insight into the culture of commu-
nication in the Baltic during the early years of the
20th Century and to reveal how artistic expression
reflected some of the Basic tensions in the region, it
is necessary to suggest — by means however indirect
— a grammar of the space in which artistic exchange,
intellectual debate and the unintended patterns of
social life, which frequently defy ideological réduc-
tion, could have taken place.* 1 As any grammar, even
this grammar should reveal both morphological and
syntactical properties, it should describe not only
I owe an immense debt of gratitude for permission to use
the images of the private collections of Valdis Vilerušs
(Ikškile) and Jänis Krěslinš (New York), as well as those of
the Academie Library of the University of Latvia in Riga
and the Kungliga biblioteket (National Library of Sweden)
in Stockholm. I have benefited from the learnedness and
intellectual generosity of the collectors.
1 This view of grammar présupposés that lexicon, morphology,
and syntax form a continuum of symbolic units. “Grammatical
structures do not constitute an autonomous formal systém or level of
représentation; they are claimed instead to be inherently symbolic, pro-
vidingfor the structuring and conventional symbolisation of contextual
the constituent éléments of a particular culture of
communication — which we would refer to as word
formation in a standard grammar — but also provide
a conspectus into how these éléments were arranged
in units — sentences. As any grammar it is defined
by its limitations. Grammars aspire to capture the
dynamic aspect of communication, but do it by
employing static models.
The Baltic world during the first decade of the
20th Century was extremely dynamic — in such motion
that one must question the feasibility of applying
certain Enguistic categories to the subject matter at
hand.2 Can we, for instance, even embed the notion
of a perfective aspect in our depiction of this world,
if it appears to revel in constant change? How are
we to conjure iterativeness and mark repetitiveness
if the goal of the artists themselves was to create
a new world, which turned its back on traditions and
conventions? How are we to apprehend participial
constructions — expressions compressed for the sake
of brevity and to allow for new forms of contextu-
contentP — LANGACKER, R. W.: Introduction to Concept,
Image and Symbol. In: Cognitive Einguistic Research 34. Eds. D.
GEERAERTS - R. DIRVEN - J. R. TAYLOR. Berlin - New
York 2006, p. 31.
2 A sense of the dynamic nature of the region is conveyed by
G. von PISTOHLKORS in his survey Das „Baltische Gebiet“
des Russischen Reiches (1860 - 1914). In: Deutsche Geschichte
im Osten Europas — Baltische Händen Berlin 1994, pp. 363-435.
See also PLAKANS, A.: A Concise History of the Baltic States.
Cambridge 2011, pp. 254-285; and NORTH, M.: Geschichte
der Ostsee. Handel und Kulturen. München 2011, pp. 234-237
and 250-254.
26