Girt (Ģirts) Andreyevich Vilks was a Latvian-Soviet artist and People’s Artist of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. He was born into the family of a blacksmith from Durbe. From 1936 to 1940, he attended the Liepaja Art Studio. After that, he enrolled at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Latvia, where he studied various disciplines under the guidance of the painter Vilhelms Purvītis.
In the mid-1930s, Vilks began working as a set designer for various theaters in Riga. In 1937, he independently completed his first set designs for the Small Ensemble of the Art Theater. In 1940, he began working as the chief artist at the Riga Art Theater.
In 1946, Vilks made his first book illustration for a folk song titled “She Draped a White Shawl Over Her Shoulders”.
Girt Vilks also worked in monumental painting, designing the interiors of hotels and boarding houses. He designed the Rizhskaya Metro station in Moscow and created an artwork made of stained-glass called “Latvian Riflemen”.
In the epic poem “Kalevala”, a titmouse warns the protagonist Wainamoinen who is attempting to cultivate land and plant barley that the barley will not grow and bread will not be produced unless the forest has been cleared for arable land by fire. Wainamoinen proceeds to clear the forest, felling all the trees except for a single tall birch. He leaves the birch standing so that migratory birds can rest.
An eagle lands on the birch to rest. In gratitude
for the tree and Wainamoinen’s thoughtful attitude towards birds, it starts a
fire that is essential for the sage’s mission. The relevant passage from the “Kalevala”,
translated by John Martin Crawford, reads as follows,
