“Latvian National Art Museum’s Children’s Exhibition: Nature and Man in Harmony”

The Latvian National Art Museum (LNMM) continues to purposefully create a high-quality offer of educational and interactive exhibitions for the audience of children (3-9 years) and families. The initiative began in 2018 with the exhibition “Who is a friend to whom?”, looking at the depiction of animals in art, and continued in 2020 with the project “Let’s play?”, which focused on the phenomenon of play in a child’s life.

The third exhibition tells about the coexistence of man and nature, which is important in learning about the world, in a language accessible and friendly to children. The art exhibition encourages one to admire the wealth of nature, to appreciate its power and harmony. Central attention is devoted to the sense of responsibility, touching on the issues of conservation of natural resources and diversity, ecology and sustainability.

The art exhibition includes paintings and graphic works from the LNMM collection, covering a period of several decades, emphasizing the variability and permanence of natural processes, as well as variations in motifs, creative techniques and color palettes. A colorful, telling and spare landscape is immortalized in the paintings of Latvian old masters – Janis Rozentāls, Ludolfs Liberts, Konrāds Ubāns, Jānis Tīdemanis – in the works of artists of the middle and second half of the last century – Eduards Kalniņš, Jāzeps Pīgožnis, Boris Bērziņš. A modern vision is provided by the mystery of Erika Gulbe and the actuality of the creation of Andras Egliš.

Presence and involvement are essential elements of the exhibition. Thoughtful scenography and design of the space connects today’s dominant digital environment with the physical world, looking at the past, present and possible future. The exhibition project – exposition, arrangement and accompanying program – offers children and their parents to go on an exciting cultural journey, inviting them to get to know, study and understand the art and flora of Latvia.