When Vytautas Kalinauskas, who has already created his famous illustrations for Goethe's Faust and Dante's Divine Comedy, was asked what he considered himself to be - a graphic artist, a set designer or a film artist - he answered simply: an artist. He was artistic, elegant, intellectual. According to the art critic Algimantas Patašius, he was "an aristocrat without a coat of arms" who became a sworn aesthetic dissident.