Chapel Pole with sculptures in Veiviržėnai

The chapel pole of exceptional appearance in a country house of Veiviržėnai town in Klaipeda district was masterfully crafted at the beginning of the 20^th century. The silhouette of the chapel pole is typical to Samogitia and perfectly reflects the region’s cross-crafting trends: it consists of a low pole with a quadrangle base and a massive glazed chapel. The chapel and the sculpture group inside it stand out in their appearance, abundance of decorative details and artistic value. The chapel is lantern-shaped with four protruding facades glazed on all three sides. The chapel base and all the outer corners are decorated with rather wide boards ornamented with openwork floral motifs, and the glazed facades are topped with triangular pediments and wooden cross-suns on top. A small ornamented forged cross is placed on a wooden spike above a tin-covered cross-roof. The center of the cross is a circle of a wide iron band with a cross inside. Hollow ends of the cross-beam with pointed three-leaf ends and the rays of the plant twig motif extend from the cross. The pole of the chapel is embedded into concrete and fixed to the base with metal bars. The chapel pole is painted light yellow, the decor is white.

Wooden sculptures of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Anthony, St. Barbara, St. Mark created by the folk master Kazimieras Piaulokas during the period of First Lithuanian Independence are inside the chapel. The figure of the most blessed Our Lady of Lourdes has a closed silhouette, placed on a semicircular base painted in roses. The hands of the sculpture are nearly unmodeled, massive, with a massive rosary on the right hand, and the feet are quite different: formed gracefully and in detail. The details of the sculpture are distinguished by polychromatic finishing: the white robe, the blue shawl, black hair, the rosary dyed bronze. St. Anthony’s figure is static, frontal, of irregular proportions. The saint is depicted in a brown Franciscan habit, with a shaved out tonsure, holding the baby Jesus with a book in his hand and a lily branch with three white blossoms in his other hand. The figure’s face has a broad low forehead and a broad eyebrow line, with deep eyes, modeled similarly to the face of Jesus. Another polychromatic sculpture is the one of St. Barbara’s. The figure has a compact generalized silhouette, with a gray robe, a red cloak, holding a sword in the right hand, and a goblet with a host in the left hand. The pleats of the robe are shallow and blurred, more ornamental, of irregular proportions. The robe edgings, the crown and the cup are dyed bronze, the figure’s hair is black. St. Mark is depicted holding a book in one hand and pressing the other hand to the chest. The sculpture is frontal, static, of generalized forms and irregular proportions: large hands, short arms, sloping shoulders, expressively modeled head. The quite few pleats of the robe are decorative, with dominating smooth plane of the scapular.

Detail