Krišjanis Barons - Riga, Latvia
N 56° 57.095 E 024° 06.307
35V E 323944 N 6315725
This bust of Krišjanis Barons, a folklorist, writer, and publicist, is located outside the Arsenals Exhibition Hall, the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art, in Riga, Latvia.
Waymark Code: WMPM11
Location: Latvia
Date Posted: 09/16/2015
Views: 2
This larger than life-size stone bust of Krišjanis Barons depicts him with at first glance appears to be a very elongated head. However, a photo of him on Wikipedia (
visit link) shows him with a very long beard. No doubt that explains the elongated appearance of the bust. In addition to the long beard, he has a mustache. His eyes are squinted and he appears to be looking straight out in front of himself. A marker at the site provides information in Latvian, English, and Russian. The English text reads:
"Ainars Zelcs. Krišjanis Barons 1984
Krišjanis Barons (1835-1923) was a folklorist, writer, and publicist. His most outstanding contribution to the history of the Latvian people was his huge collection of Latvian folk quatrains or dainas, which he systematised by creating the "Dainas Cabinet." He himself designed the piece of furniture in 1880, and since 2001, it has been part of UNESCO's "Memory of the World" project. Barons published six volumes of dainas, with 217,996 quatrains in all. He is known for that reason as the father of the dainas. The volumes speak to the unique national aspects of the Latvian people, as well as their way of thinking. During his life, Barons published more than 150 articles about natural sciences and education. He opposed superstitions and laid the foundations for the popularly scientific style of literary Latvia language. Barons wrote stories and poems in line with the progressive efforts of his age. He was also a translator.
Ainars Zelcs (b. 1958) is known not only as a sculptor who presents symbolic images in landscape environments, as well as memorial sculptures, but also as a writer: "When I'm not carving stone, I get busy with my writing," he has said."