Paper short abstract:

Latvian national fine arts developed by borrowing heritage concepts created by other cultural activities, connected to the nation-building processes. The differences of discursive economies make it a study of status representation within knowledge production.

Paper long abstract:

My presentation concerns the efforts to formulate Latvian national arts from the last decades of the nineteenth century to World War I. Due to increasing number of ethnic Latvians educated in institutions of Russian Empire and abroad, as well as increasing density of local art market, a necessity to formulate principles of national fine arts besides other forms of cultural representation rose. Still, there were no state-governed national art and high art education institutions in the Latvian speaking provinces of Russian Empire at the time. The idea of national art developed within the framework of free and often international discussions, borrowing models of identity from more mature art scenes abroad as well as from other areas of representation like discourse of folklore and ethnography. As a result, several coexisting versions of national art identity can be distinguished in the given period of time. Visual arts can be "nationalized" via form - developing particular ethnographic patterns of ornamentation or via content. The latter ranges from formal depictions of local landscapes (V. Purvītis) and people (early J. Rozentāls) to motifs of ancient history (A. Baumanis), folklore (Ā. Alksnis, R. Rudzītis) and mythology (late J. Rozentāls). The developing scene of ethnic visual arts became a place of negotiation and exchange between international artistic techniques on the one hand and construction of national cultural heritage on the other hand. As such it demonstrates highly interesting dynamics of discourse economy taking place in a field of tension between realms of different status, traditions and rules.