In early 1929, a student strike was held at the Kaunas School of Art. This collective protest launched a new period in the development of Lithuanian art, in which young artists who had studied in independent Lithuania and Western Europe would play the most prominent part. Seeking to take the lead, this young generation proclaimed the idea of a new art. The group named Ars, who organised a controversial exhibition in 1932, expressed the most radical views. Its nucleus was comprised of the painters Antanas Gudaitis, Antanas Samuolis and Viktoras Vizgirda and sculptor Juozas Mikėnas. They were joined by graphic artists Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas, Telesforas Kulakauskas and Jonas Steponavičius. The group was supported by their older colleagues Mstislavas Dobužinskis and Adomas Galdikas, who also took part in the exhibition. The members of Ars placed a provocatively written statement in the publication that accompanied the exhibition, which effectively became the first manifesto of Lithuanian art.
"[...] we are determined to serve this epoch of national revival and establish the artistic style of this epoch. A work of art is a new reality. We desire to enrich our lives with new values. [...]"
The concepts of both newness and tradition were, however, problematic in the context of Lithuania's national school. In search of reference points, young artists turned to Lithuanian folk art. Their choice had dual aims: to renounce naturalist portrayal using the principles of "naive" or "primitive" art and at the same time support experimentation within the fundament of tradition. Thus, the significance of folk art in Lithuania resembled the operation of primitivism in the work of the leading Western European modernists while differing from it. Folk art was perceived as not only an agent of modernisation, emancipation of imagination and breaking the old canons, but as a connection to Lithuanian cultural heritage.
The members of the Ars group also sought to adapt the Western modernist experience. All of them (excluding Samuolis and Kulakauskas) had recently completed their studies or were still studying in Paris. Though, the avant-garde movement was already ebbing in France's capital. In the inter-bellum many Parisian artists were choosing the middle way, attempting to blend the viewpoints of the modernist and the classical aesthetics. What Lithuanians encountered in Paris was a brand of modernised tradition or halfway modernism, rather than radical, innovative challenge. This Parisian experience proved to be just as ambiguous as the domain of national culture that was shaping the attitudes of Kaunas' artists.
The revolt of the Ars artists that shook Kaunas society was brief. Having organised their second exhibition in 1934, the group disbanded. In 1935, the members of Ars joined the Lithuanian Art Society, which united artists belonging to different generations and was founded on different initiatives, and turned towards traditional art. Even though the Ars group had not formulated a clear program, their theses and works, especially the expressionist paintings, had a lasting impact. They had set the benchmark for the blend of national originality and European modernity, which determined the development of Lithuanian art for decades to follow.
The group's efforts to renew Lithuanian art weren't isolated; though had the most impact. The efforts of other artists - for instance, Pranas Domšaitis, Eastern Prussia-born graduate of Königsberg [Kaliningrad] art academy - had a tangential relationship with Lithuania's interwar culture. Domšaitis, who emigrated to Western Europe in 1910, spent most of his time in Berlin, where he joined the German expressionist movement. In the 1930s, the artist experienced the Nazi regime's repressions: being a modernist, he was banned from participating in exhibitions, and his paintings were removed from Germany's state museums.
Painter Vytautas Kairiūkštis, also shied from the trends dominating the art sphere of Kaunas; and never managed to fire the conservative public taste. In 1923, he organised the "Exhibition of New Art" in Vilnius together with Polish artist Władysław Strzemiński. This exhibition, which featured, among others, Warsaw artists Henryk Stażewski, Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnowerówna, was one of the first manifestations of the Polish avant-garde. Both of its organisers, who had studied in Moscow, were influenced by Russian suprematism and constructivism and Western cubism. They cultivated abstract painting, experimenting with compositions comprised of geometric shapes and contrasting colours. In 1924, Strzemiński left Vilnius. Kairiūkštis, who was teaching at the Lithuanian Vytautas Magnus high school and supervised the art studio there, withdrew to the margin of local cultural life. Having repatriated to the Republic of Lithuania in 1932, he too shifted to work with the more moderate expressive means of Art Deco and postimpressionism.