Lust, Either Too Much or Important

Art has many purposes, but there is no doubt that some art is for pleasure – and some art also wants to depict pleasure. Such currents are rather scarce in older Estonian art. People work, life is serious, a little poetic at best. Post-war art, on the other hand, has much more playful and relaxed attitudes. Since life had become a little easier in a practical sense, but more complicated in a political sense, it is difficult to define the source of joy more precisely. However, it is striking that the authors of five of the seven works in this chapter are Estonians living abroad, one (Valerian Loik) was an author working in accordance with official norms during the Soviet regime, and one (Valdur Ohakas) was a former political prisoner. In the case of those living abroad, however, the source of playfulness is perhaps not even spiritual – the soul troubles of a refugee can be very great – but artistic. In a society much freer from canons and artistic norms, it was perhaps easier to create more fun art. Loik might have felt safe, but Ohakas had such a bubbly nature that he probably didn't even care what anyone thought was correct and what wasn't.

A Moment for Myself And for You

"I am a person who is satisfied with life," Viktor Karrus once said. "This feeling has given the foundation to my work so far; I believe that this will continue into the future." Today's artistic logic is often such that works are created with specific exhibitions or projects in mind. Of course, there are also works in which, at least initially, it is not clear what will happen next. However, it seems that in the past artists often painted just for their own pleasure. They were fascinated by something, or they wanted to keep their hands in practice, or there were other reasons, but in any case, works were made that were supposed to make one's heart happy, were intimate, came from the artist's close circle, or continued what the authors had been doing all along for years or even decades, without necessarily wanting to go anywhere or break further.

Modernist – Henn Roode 100

This year is Henn Roode's 100th birthday. He was born in Tallinn in 1924, and in the 1940s he started studying at the former Pallas Art School, where he and his fellow students were fascinated by the work of Elmar Kits. They often went to cafes together, discussed, dreamed of Paris – until he and his companions were arrested, accused of planning to hijack a plane and escape to France, and were taken to a prison camp. During the Soviet era, a catalog about Roode barely noted: "Studies interrupted for a few years." When he returned from Siberia, he was already 32 years old. Like Olev Subb, for example, Roode did not talk about his years in the prison camp – not publicly anyway, but rather not among his own people. He wanted to move on, so he graduated from the art institute in 1959, but he could only work as a painter for 15 years. Two years after the passing of his teacher Elmar Kits, Roode died of a serious illness.

Roode became one of the most important authors of the 1960s. He may not have influenced the overall image of the exhibitions, there were other stars, but in the artistic circles he was an indisputable authority both in terms of his personal characteristics and artistic pursuits. As he painted analytically, Roode searched for something he described in his notes as “truth” and “absolute”. "By penetrating the essence of the phenomena, the artist removes coverings not only from human faces, but also from objects. He articulates, splits and dismembers the forms and then reunites them to demonstrate the unity of the world visible in front of the viewer," writes Ninel Ziterova. Roode never forgot the influence of color, but the approach to form was just as important to him. Thematically, he explored both the city and the sea, still lifes and people, created portraits and people on Midsummer, and also reached abstractionism.

Dream Interpretations

Surrealism, fantasy, dreams, symbols and so on permeated Estonian art not with an explosion, but gradually. To some extent, they were always here, even for Konrad Mägi or Oskar Kallis, the reality visible to the eye and perceived by the mind was not enough. However, such approaches became more free after the Second World War, when all kinds of strict canons were dispersed and the proportion of rules decreased. It is true that the Soviet norms were still watching what was happening with a hawk's eye, which is why we see an increase in the proportion of such works since the mid-1980s. However, perhaps the rise of surrealism and fantasy should not be associated so much with historical breakthroughs, but with the personal plans of the authors. At the same time, it is interesting to note that many authors did not start with strangely inexplicable worlds, but arrived there only after they had first dealt with and exhausted the possibilities of the real world for themselves.

Searching Geometrizers

In the 1920s, geometrization, the articulation of forms and the division of volumes became probably the most prominent avant-garde direction of art here in the aftermath of international cubism. At the time, it was not exactly well received, it seemed too radical, but later geometrization seeped back imperceptibly. In a slightly milder form, rather stylizing the forms and refraining from complete cubism, placing geometric shapes in an abstract context and treating squares and triangles as interesting forms, rather than dissolving the visible world into squares and triangles. The most diverse authors, from foreigners to young students, from so-called semi-official authors to former Pallasians, were interested in what happens when geometry becomes the defining element of a painting.

The Many Faces of The Joy of 90s Art

The 1990s was a crazy and unique era, when a lot was renewed, but above all there was a branching out happening. At the same time, many different developments and upheavals took place, they went in very different directions, classical styles were side by side with completely new solutions. It was an era when the main stream branched off into dozens of sub-streams in the era's delta, and there was interest in everything. There were authors who radically changed their previous approaches, and then there were those who stuck to the old lines or wanted to add just a few new nuances. Both formally and in terms of the choice of motifs, that decade was exceptionally diverse: abstractionism and romantic realism, nudes and collages, new techniques and good old brushwork, joie de vivre and tensions –everything was present and at the same time.

Modern Art Classics

Modern art seems to rule out being a classic, but at the same time, certain avant-garde artists still become permanent heroes of history books over time. This selection features authors, some of whom have been faithful to the basic solutions they have found for decades, while others have started a new creative cycle almost every few years. There are both student experiments and retired people's reflections on history, both irony and conceptualism, both modern treatment of nature and abstract rhythms. If becoming a classic requires certain formulas, then in the case of modern art only very few rules apply – the work must be convinced, finished in its own style, not being able to make compromises or being halfway is not the same as artistic experimentation, where new approaches are tried, new forms, not entirely sure where it will all lead. It will eventually take somewhere.

Estonian Women as Artists

Unfortunately, the stronger presence of Estonian women in art history only began after the Second World War. Of course, there were already before: in the Pallas lists, they are sometimes almost half and falf with men, but social models and norms of the era, as well as other reasons, did not favor the further work of women as artists. Most of them disappeared from the scene of history, and thus Estonia was very different from, for example, the art of the Nordic countries, where many female authors were already active at the end of the 19th century – and for this reason, looking back in history, we still have to talk about "female authors" separately and highlight their gender, because the darkness has been there for too long.

Therefore, this selection also starts only from the 1940s and Olga Terri. If we glance over the later decades, we notice that several authors did not want to engage in the power games of the art world and instead devoted themselves to the most important thing: art. Ann Audova or Kaja Kärner worked on art without even appearing very much at exhibitions. Audova even refused to organize a personal exhibition. Little is known about the thoughts of female artists: instead of large and important interviews, where the reader would have been treated to numerous theories, the focus was again on working on oneself and creating art. This does not mean that the theoretical baggage was thin, Sirje Runge is one example of an author who knows very precisely what and why she does and where it is located in the theoretical field. But in general, looking at women authors tells us the danger of generalizations. Their gender did not determine their approaches or motives, they worked in very different styles, genres and motifs, being abstract or close to nature, intimate or political, avant-garde or conservative. They could be anything.