PORTRAIT GRAFFITI IN MARGINS OF ANTIQUE LITHUANIAN BOOKS

This article presents and discusses fourteen drawings that portray a human and were found in manuscripts and printed books (documents) that were actively used in Lithuania from 17th to 19th centuries. All the drawings were made in the margins of the documents. For the authors the drawings were not planned work but more like quips, scribbles and doodles. Therefore the terms portrait graffiti and (as a synonym) portrait marginalia are used to describe the discussed portraits. According to the formal classification of marginal drawings (suggested by J. Liskeviciene) two of the examined marginal portraits (no. 10 and 14) are classed as seperate and finished works with their own composition; ten marginal portraits (no. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13) represent the readers (document users) sketch like drawings. Two other portraits (no. 1 and 3) are just scribbles that have nothing to do with artictic perception and are very close to book graffiti. From the artistic approcah the most sophisticated of the marginal portraits are “the hunt scene” (no. 14) and the late (first half of the 19th century) “portrait of the teacher” (no. 13). In the viewpoint of documentary and social communication the discussed marginal drawings did not have a direct addressee. They were made not for public but for personal use. Paleographical, structural and content analysis of the document showed that the author of the “bearded nobleman” portrait (no. 2) could have been the elder of Merkine Antanas Kazimieras Sapiega. The political realia of Grand Duchy of Lithuania (from now GDL) are reflected by the heart shaped portrait of a youngster who we can guess is portrayed weeping over the countries misfortunes and internal disagreements duringthe period of foreight military interventions in the years from 1733 to 1736. It was forbiden for scribes to daub on court files and other official GDL documents therefore the discussed graffiti could be linked to psychological stress and discharge. The marginal portraits in personal books are more artistical and their composition is more relaxed. Overall the GDL marginal portraits reveal quite a few similarities to the graffiti (in italian scarabocchi) left in the documents by the workers of Naples bank archive. They were properly examined and classified by the artist and archivist Giuseppe Zevola. According to him this documental graffiti was born out of opposition to the grey everyday routine and experience of “pleasure of anxiety”.