Artistic metalwork has traditionally included a large array of works of art, from jewelry, small sculpture, and medals, to large-scale decorative architectural objects and interior compositions. Various materials are used in metalworking—gold, silver, iron, bronze—as well as different means of production: hot (casting and forging) and cold (forging and hammering). Larger and more simpler pieces of iron metalwork are ascribed to blacksmithing, small and more subtle pieces are classified as toreutic works, while artistic pieces from precious metals such as gold, silver or platinum are classified as works of jewelry.
After the Second World War, jewelry pieces were the most popular metalwork items produced by the Dailė workshops. Their popularity was ensured by women eager to return to a more beautiful style of dress in peacetime, as well as by men searching for elegant tie clasps, cufflinks, and amber cigarette holders. The gold and silver jewelry mass-produced by other "fraternal" republics were too costly for most consumers and were also perpetually in short supply and very often formulaic in design. Consumers were thus drawn to family jewelry they had managed to hide and save during the war and to more inexpensive and distinctive locally made artwork. From 1945 onward, jewelry made from precious metals in Lithuania had to be appraised and stamped in Riga, Latvia (one more burden for Lithuanian manufacturers), another factor that contributed to the popularity of jewelry made from less expensive metals.
It was precisely during this time after World War II that leaders of the art world decided that amber was to be considered the Lithuanian "national material" for jewelry. The concept was not, however, a new one. It was based on the prevailing ideas of pre-war independent Lithuania, which considered amber to be the archetypal symbol of the Lithuanian nation. Raw amber was relatively inexpensive and accessible, pulled from the Baltic Sea or mined in the nearby Königsberg (Karaliaučius in Lithuanian) district, renamed Kaliningrad by the Soviets. The earliest period of Lithuanian jewelry making in the Soviet period was closely linked to the development of amber processing.
Jewelry items were made by the "Gintaras" (Lithuanian for "amber") workshop in Kaunas (opened in 1945), and also from 1946 on by workshops in Plungė, Kretinga, and Palanga, operating under the jurisdiction of the Dailė factory in Klaipėda. An amber workshop also operated as part of the Dailė factory in Vilnius during the 1950s. Amber jewelry was also made by master craftsmen working at Dailė in Kaunas. At the start, all of these crafts and creations were very popular, but over time, such a surge in the use of amber not only led to a fall in the mineral's value, but also to a drop in Lithuanians' desire to wear amber jewelry.
Early jewelry made from silver, copper, and other metals and decorated with amber were unimaginative—adhering to pre-war templates and using interpretations of ethnographic or neoclassical shapes—and featured small, smoothly polished pieces of amber set in exact openwork framing. Brooches with imagery of leaves, grapes, cherries, or insects were popular, while different types of beaded necklaces, often polished like precious stones, were also in fashion. Producers targeted the popular tastes of the masses, making few if any attempts to break out of prevailing stereotypes. Moreover, jewelry was often made using treated amber and little value was placed on appreciating and preserving the mineral's natural qualities. Indeed, "inclusions" found in tiny pieces of amber were considered defects. In this early period, nearly 70% of raw amber was discarded as production waste.
More positive developments took place in jewelry production in the mid-1950s. The Dailė factory in Klaipėda became the center of amber processing and production, bringing together a talented group of artists that, it was hoped, would advance the aesthetic quality of amber crafts. These artists included the sculptors Eugenijus Mikulevičius (b. 1928), Birutė Jociūtė-Mikulevičienė (b. 1926), and Genovaitė Blažytė-Guntienė (1927–1984), ceramists Vacė Kojalavičiūtė-Užpalienė (b. 1931) and Petras Balčius (b. 1935), and others, assisted by a host of skillful craftsmen and artisans.
Several different types of amber works prevailed in the early years of production: small amber mosaic pieces (portraits, landscapes with historical monuments, romantic scenes from folklore), made by amber artisans in Klaipėda (many by G. Blažytė-Guntienė) from small pieces of polished or coarse amber; so-called "reliefs", or wooden panels with relief landscapes, portraits, or figure compositions made from amber shards; as well as works made using the negative carving technique, often copied from designs made by Russian craftsmen in semi-precious stones, in which landscapes were carved into one side of larger pieces of polished amber.
Amber mosaic creations were not a Soviet-era invention. Larger pieces (watches, boxes, snuffboxes, etc.) were already being inlaid by Palanga amber artisans in the early 20th century. Only after trained and qualified artists began working at the art workshops, however, were more complex and intricate scenes and paintings created for interior decor. It would seem that artists, craving creative inspiration, sought to expand the scope of amber craftsmanship. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1960s, conventional wisdom began to maintain that such squandering of amber resources was not viable in the longer term and was, perhaps, even contradictory to a minimalist life style. As a result, amber mosaics, reliefs and negative carving pieces soon fell out of fashion.
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