Expressionalist or Regionalist? The Place of Oeuvre of Painter Domsaitis in the Context of the First Part of 20th Century German Art Tendencies

Painter Pranas Domsaitis (1880-1965) was born in Eastern Prussia, painted in Germany and Eastern Africa but his paintings were brought to Lithuania. As a rule they are characterized as expressionistic. Nevertheless the big exhibition of Domsaitis's paintings held in Kaunas in 2015 allowed to formulate a thesis that his oeuvre is much more diverse: sometimes expressive, sometimes realistic or romantic. This article aims at examination of the relations of Domsaitis's paintings with German artistic scene and designate the their character in the field of the 20th century painting. It tries to qualify the place of Domsaitis oeuvre in the history of fine arts of the first part of the 20th century and comes to conclusion that, of course, his paintings has some traits of expressionism but in general they are intermediate phenomenon situated between modernism and local regional painting (Heitmatkunst, or native art).