Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil on canvas. 1961.
Signature: R. Uutmaa 61 a

“You look at the sky and think how vast infinity can be, how wide and how impressive.”

—Richard Uutmaa

“Sometimes I feel a hellish joy, enjoying a landscape: it is only for me. /…/ They say the landscape is the same but why is it not the same? Because to me it is only a changing vibration of colors, an eternal nuance of light and shadow,” has written Richard Uutmaa, a devoted admirer of Estonian landscapes (M. Levin “Richard Uutmaa. Loving Estonia”, 2008, p. 280).

The artist’s earliest known painting of Lake Pühajärv dates from his so-called “purple” period (1941, private collection). Already there, we notice the aspiration for monumentality, which became a common feature of his views of Lake Pühajärv later on. The same can be said of the present painting, which has a strikingly powerful effect in its grandeur and a more restrained, cooler color scheme than usual.

Uutmaa loved to travel to southern Estonia at the end of summer, in August and September, because it gave him the opportunity to use pure ultramarine, emerald green and cadmium yellow to capture the fresh fields, lakes and forests there. This painting was most likely created during these months. Uutmaa particularly enjoyed the clouds dominating the landscape, which stand out particularly powerfully in the painting – it is by them that the artist is often first recognized!

Text: Mai Levin, Katre Palm