Art History in Latvia
arthistorylatvia.org is a digital platform dedicated to the study and presentation of Latvia’s artistic heritage, with a particular focus on sacred sculpture, church interiors, applied art, and digital methods in art-historical research.
The aim of the website is to show how rich and varied the history of art in Latvia is, and how digital technologies can help to document, analyse, and present cultural heritage. The content of the website is planned in both English and Latvian.
The digitisation of Latvia’s heritage is still developing. This website presents different approaches to digital documentation and interpretation, including 3D modelling, digital reconstruction, visualisation, and online cataloguing. These methods can support art-historical research and make cultural heritage more accessible to a wider audience.
Sanita Bitko
Sanita Bitko is an art historian and digital heritage researcher working at the intersection of art history, information technology, and 3D documentation. She holds a BA in Computer Systems from Riga Technical University and MA degree in Art History from the Art Academy of Latvia, where she continues her research in the field of early modern sacred art.
Her research focuses on 17th- and 18th-century sacred wood sculpture in Latvia, questions of authorship and workshop practice, iconography, church interiors, and the use of digital technologies in art-historical analysis. A central part of her work is the use of 3D models and structured visual analysis to study sculptural form and artistic handwriting where written sources are fragmentary or absent.
This website brings together publications, conference papers, digital projects, 3D reconstructions, and research resources, including the digital catalogue of baptismal fonts in Latvia.
Education
Art Academy of Latvia, MA, Art History
Art Academy of Latvia, BA, Art History
Riga Technical University, BA, Computer Systems
Riga State Technical School, Programming Technician
Contacts
Email: sanita.bitko@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8271-5987