Konrad Mägi

The current auction expositions have left such a picture of the Estonian art history, where prevail landscape and city views or still-lives, somehow pushing the importance of the portarait art to the background. It is true, the local art history is not exactly rich in portraits and the reason could first of all be the special requirements of this art form: it requires high technical skills, which must be accomplished by an extraordinary ability to change a simple drawing of a person into portraying of the person - into a subtle viewing of his/ her inner world. Therefore the number of artists, having wished to take such a complicated task has not been big. And who elso, if not Konrad Mägi?
More frequent portraying of man in the European painting started in the 15th century Italy, the so-called Reneissance period. While comparing with the Middle Ages, when mainly were depicted saints or characters, known from the Christianity, the turn towards portraying of a live human being was steep, but not unexpected. Already in the 14th century the prevailing social scheme started to re-form (spreading of city-states), in connection of which also changed the previous values - the secular man started to emerge gradually, and was not viewed any more as an anonymous particle of a mass, but rather as an outstanding individual. Already then the portrait art was roughly divided into two types: simple painting of a person, the sole aim of which was as true depiction as possible and painting of the soul of a person, where in addition to the outer form of a man was also of importance his essence. (Beginner of this trend is sometimes regarded Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa).
The Estonian painting has never placed portrait especially to the foreground or left it on the background. It has always sort of existed, but has never been completely visible. Just this situation creates a paradox: wider public often does not accept portraits, being afraid to see in a picture just a stranger. At the same time art expert regard portrait painting to be the proof of the existence of certain high skills - the fact that the artist possesses besides the skill to paint landscapes and lifeless objects also the skill to paint a human being with a very enigmatic inner world. Painting of a portrait is a kind of aspiration to generalize and put into words the world through the eyes of the person, looking down from the picture. We can say without exaggeration that portraits often help to give light to the artist's other creation, as portraits concentrate in some senses all the best traits of the author's world vision and handwriting.
Next to the name of Konrad Mägi from the Estonian art history can maybe be found three-four artists, who would be as outstanding in the cultural history of the last 150 years and would have altered and formed its processes. From one hand his importance as a teacher and the first director of Pallas, from another hand - and this first of all - his importance as an artist. We can often notice here and there the samples of Mägi's extra forceful colours, partly balancing on the borders of mental conditions. We undoubtedly grasp the Konrad Mägi-style of room without being able to define it.
Portrait of Alvine Käppa is very characteristic to the few samples of the portraits of Mägi and therefore it is one of the most widely exposed and well-known portraits by Mägi ever. The artist has not exactly been interested in the concrete person but he tries to depict an ideal type of a woman - a wide-eyed maiden with a slightly glowing skin. Glance, being as blue as a lake bottom that looks past the artist, grazing once again the window frame in order to leave the room finally, is something that our experience can grasp. While blending into the bright green background, it still does not become the "victim" of seduction - no one can get too close to an ideal.
We can discuss the extraordinary traits of the work in different ways. Should we start from the fact that the chance to acquire Konrad Mägi work is very seldom, it is almost impossible to acquire large-format works that have been accomplished by the author at the peak of his creation period? Or the fact that as portaits in the local older art have been pushed aside to a quite big extent by landscape paintings, the creation of Mägi is also few in numbers, but the more remarkable? Or even such a fact that from the few portraits by Mägi only three works have remained in private collections?
The work was exposed at the exhibition, dedicated to the 100.anniversary of the artist in the Estonian Art Museum in 1978 (catalogue no 90). Also the work is exposed at the exhibition, dedicated to the 100.anniversary of Konrad Mägi in the Tartu Kivisilla gallery in the year 1998.