The Lietuvininkai gloves form only a small part of the Lithuanian coastline folk art. Up to the middle of the XXth century needlework had been not only the clothing element, but also part of people’s every day life: work and entertainment, decoration and source of living, love and respect expressing gift, a girl’s and a woman’s possession that could favourably influence a husband’s relatives and a village community and be used as sign of gratitude. In the IInd half of the XXth century with the change of living conditions and traditions the ritual significance of gloves had diminished. Nevertheless, up to the present glove knitting still remains one of the ways of free time spending, expressing one’s artistic individuality and is kind of invisible ties linking a woman with her family, especially, with her children and grandchildren.
The people of Lithuania Minor had long ago experienced another nation’s great influence and threat of denationalisation as well as the importance of national rebirth. The intellectuals tried to arouse theirnationals’ self-respect, to show the world their artistic abilities in making household articles, which contributed to the development of knitting tradition and knitting patterns and the survival of handmade gloves up to the end of the XXth century.
In the Lietuvininkai glove patterns of the analysed period one can observe the repetition of simple decoration motives that are traced in decoration of ancient Lithuanian, particularly from the Baltic seacoast, ceramics and adornment. This sign language directed to the metaphysical world had faded from the people’s memory and its meaning could be detected only with the help of a comparative analysis of the ornamentation of the neighbouring European countries. The analysis shows that the spreading of externally similar motives in Baltic, German, Roman, Slavonic and Ugrofin decoration are not grounds to think that their world outlook had been totally similar. Interpretations of ancient visual symbols in the Baltic region is not identical. Our research shows that prehistoric, gothic and the Renaissance patterns of the Western, Eastern and Central Europe had undergone a revitalization process in Lithuania Minor in the XXth century. The Lietuvninkai like any other nation created their own peculiar folk art. The choice of means of artistic expression depended on glove knitting traditions, as well as on fashions that 104 influenced the ethnic culture of the region. Administrative and territorial borders could not stop that influence since the sea united people living around it.
In the XXth century in Lithuania Minor new and old means of artistic expressions were easily adopted. Forms, pattern compositions, colour combinations get interlaced with ordinary ways of decoration and acquire their peculiar meaning and significance. In such a way foreign and archaic qualities become an inseparable part of a local culture, and the analysis of their peculiarities is possible only within the limits of a definite period.