In the 1950s, Märt Bormeister was known for his large-scale paintings depicting Tallinn’s Old Town or historical events, such as battles with German forces in earlier times. An intimate nature motif, by contrast, was intended more for himself than for display in exhibitions or newspapers. Bormeister painted realistically, which suited him best — allowing him to express the harmony and beauty he considered inseparable from painting. The summer idyll is conveyed as the artist perceived it directly in nature: a high sky, green meadows, and brown haystacks.

In the 1950s, little was written about Bormeister, but one more formal article described him as follows: “He was born in 1916 in the Kadriorg area and began exploring the field of art very early — truly very early. At first, he had to find materials. And he did — the young artist would reach for extinguished embers from the stove, and so the first pictures were placed on the kitchen wall, drawn with black birch charcoal on white plaster. Soon the materials became more varied: sand from park paths was added. Even though it was very temporal, the important thing was that it was cheap and readily available. This led to the first large-scale works — spread across the wide park path! Always Teutonic fortresses, grand castles, high ramparts, and sharp towers. He became so skilled that, at school, 3rd-grade Bormeister was asked to draw ‘historical things’ on the board for 5th-grade boys. Now, in the artist’s studio, there is a whole collection of models: maces and pikes, spears and shields, a small stone-throwing machine. It all began on the sandy paths of Kadriorg; now the artist returns again to a theme close to his heart: the Estonians’ historical struggle against the Order knights.”

Bormeister studied at the School of Industrial Art from 1931 to 1937, including six years in the master class. His main teachers were Jansen, Mellik, and Nyman. During this time, young Bormeister also experienced a wave of modern art — “like measles,” the article notes. He painted a lush basket of grapes with thick impasto, widely spread, and his fellow students praised it as very modern, almost unrecognizable. However, Master Nyman advised him:“Well… let glass remain glass, stone remain stone, iron remain iron. Young man, let us remain practical and realistic.”

Thus, the wave of modernism passed fairly lightly, and Bormeister remained a realist.