In 1931, during the restoration of Vilnius Cathedral, which had been damaged by flood, the crypt containing the remains of Alexander Jagiellon and two wives of Sigismund II Augustus - Elisabeth of Austria (Elžbieta Habsburg) and Barbara Radziwiłł (Barbora Radvilaitė) - was opened. The discovery of the royal remains produced a stir, which reflected the retrospective climate dominating the city at the time.
Interwar, Polish, Vilnius looked back to the past. The seedbed for the revival of historical artistic traditions was the Fine Arts Department at the Stephen Batory University (restored in 1919), which was presided over by Ferdinand Ruszczyc. In 1932, Liudomiras Slendzinskis, descendant of a renowned dynasty of Vilnius' artists and the most notable painter of the so-called classicist school of interwar Vilnius, took the position of the department's chair. Slendzinskis became especially famous for his decorative compositions created for the interiors of governmental and public buildings, as well as numerous portraits notable for their stylised "Italian" manner and masterly technique representative of historical painting traditions.
Slendzinskis presided over the Vilnius Artists' Society (Wileńskie Towarzystwo Artystów Plastyków), established in 1920 that was joined by the likes of Petras Hermanovičius, Jurgis Hopenas, Rapolas Jakimavičius, Bronislovas Jamontas, Edvardas Karniejus, Kazimieras Kviatkovskis and Mykolas Rauba. This organisation was the first in the Lithuanian region to be professional rather than public, and was comprised solely of artists. The Society organised annual exhibitions, published its own monthly Południe, and had a well-defined ideology shared by its members.
Artists who belonged to the Vilnius Artists' Society and cherished the ideals of neoclassicism renounced individuated artistic temperament as a significant element of the creative act and opposed late-19th century naturalism and impressionism. They perceived creative work as a rational process based on the knowledge of the craft passed on by one generation to another and a synthesis of intellect and the senses. The work of art was understood as a clear, monumental, architectonic visual whole, closely tied to its historical context. Vilnius artists followed styles associated with antiquity, classicism, early-Italian renaissance, and the baroque. They had blended this historical experience with local iconography and the lessons of post-cubist art, forming a distinct school of European neo-traditionalism.
The notion of tradition was important for the Kaunas artists too, although, unlike their Polish counterparts, Lithuanians did not develop a consistent conception of it. Juozas Keliuotis, the editor-in-chief of the neo-Catholic monthly Naujoji Romuva, lead some discussion on the topic. In his publication, he frequently discussed contemporary values alongside those of the past, interpreting tradition as a constituent of modernism, not its opposite. Similar views were characteristic of many artists of the younger generation, including; Antanas Gudaitis, Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas, Stasys Ušinskas, Adolfas Valeška and Viktoras Vizgirda. The traditionalist trends became especially evident in their work in the late-1930s that were intertwined with various modernist currents in both subject matter and composition. Reflections of the classical aesthetic were influenced by interwar Western European (especially French) art, rather than from the original sources. The ideals of French neoclassicism were embodied in the works of sculptor Juozas Mikėnas, who was fond of the poetic female image that resembled the manner of Charles Despiau. Mikėnas had a considerable number of followers during WWII, and in the Soviet period, and laid the foundations of modern Lithuanian sculpture.
Vladas Eidukevičius' paintings stood out amongst the Lithuanian neo-traditionalists. A solitary eccentric wanderer who travelled around half of Europe, Eidukevičius was noted for his colourist skills and prolific output. He had practiced copying the classics when he was young so was proficient, at traditional painting, admiring Velázquez, Rembrandt and Goya. Although the artist gravitated towards the impressionist stroke, conveying the interplay of atmosphere and light, he avoided the accidental gesture and transient impressions. He would usually paint for long periods of time, shaping the monumental and stable structure of the image layer-after-layer using warm "Venetian" hues. Although Eidukevičius spent a mere decade in Lithuania, it was here that he developed his individual manner and left an abundant and valuable collection of his paintings.