Polemics on Sacred Images in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the mid-16th to mid-17th Century: theory and artistic practice

The aim of this project is to identify the ideological points of conflict in the Catholic-Protestant controversy over sacred images in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries, and to determine their impact on artistic practice. This analysis and its links to artistic practice will reveal the multi-layered nature of the Europeanisation process of Lithuanian culture and will show Lithuania as a part of the European cultural and intellectual continuum, thus enabling the contextualisation of the cultural heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The project analyses multilingual theoretical works by representatives of different Christian denominations (Antonio Possevino, Emanuel de Vega, Andriejus Jurgevičius, Andreas Volanus, Piotr Skarga and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski), protocols of disputations, and other textual sources (sermons, lecture materials, etc.), as well as examples of sacred art preserved in places of worship in the former Lithuania of the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries. These sources have not been consistently studied as local sources of the Catholic-Protestant ideological controversy over sacred images. The objectives of this study are: to analyse the theoretical textual sources of Catholic and Protestant authors on the polemic on sacred images and clarify their main theoretical arguments as well as points of conflict; to examine the links between the artistic practice of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the period under study and the polemic on sacred images; to highlight the multi-layered nature of the theoretical arguments and aesthetic presuppositions of this polemic; and to contextualise the expression of local theoretical and artistic practice in the European context.

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-PD-24-48.