Latvian art is comparatively young. Until the middle of the19th century our artists received their professional training in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Before their time it was mostly travelling foreigners who painted in this country, and often the Baltic provinces were not their final destination, just a step closer to a career and earnings in the capital of Russia St Petersburg. By the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries many water-color artists and draughtsmen, inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment,  worked here, studying and documenting Latvia’s nature and social life. Their work remains a valuable legacy. We tend to think of the prominent German-born student of local history, historian, draughtsman and water-color painter in one person, Johann Christoph Brotze (1742-1823) as a Latvian. Yet a Latvian artist earning a living in his/her own country is a phenomenon of the 20th century.

Our first professional artists had a sense of mission ― working for the benefit of their nation. The art students in St.Petersburg founded the Rūķis (Dwarf) group; in their debates and work the concept of Latvian national art was born. Our first prominent artists were Ādams Alksnis, Jānis Valters, Janis Rozentāls, and Vilhelms Purvītis.

The first incentive to portray Latvia in works of art arose in 1896 when the Exhibition of Latvian Ethnography was held in Riga. Rooms were set up just like the ones servants and their masters used to live in olden times, along with old-style threshing-barns and bathhouses. People took their treasures out of chests, boxes and closets ― and they realised how very rich they were. An exhibition of Latvian art was also opened during the show.

The history of Latvian art is manifold. Mark Rothko, the world-famous founder of avant-garde art was born in Latvia. Then there is the aggressively engaged art, at its best in the works by Gustavs Klucis; we have had Sovietists and masters of thematic painting Eduards Kalniņš and Boriss Bērziņš (pictorial values were always more important to them than any bows to ideology), sculptors experimenting with various forms and genres (Kārlis Zāle, Teodors Zaļkalns, Kārlis Zemdega), painters of icons, portraits, plein air and chamber-style easel paintings; we have had our share of art commissioned by politicians,  symbolist paintings, accomplished magazine graphics, thematic drawings... The list goes on.

The attempts of the last few decades to take art out of museums and galleries and into the public space, to provoke and shock the viewer and to try the traditional limits of art have provoked many a debate. Once young bucks have let off their steam in paintings, performances and installations stubbornly rejected by the older generation and have exhausted their need to attack the bones of the past, letting the bubbling excitement subside a little, the skeleton of our art begins growing some fresh and beautiful flesh.

What is most important in Latvian art these days? you may ask?

Just like anywhere else, it's the process itself.