Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil on plywood. 1946.
Signature: A. Kesner maastik 46.

Albert Kesner (1898-1965), who studied painting at Pallas from 1920 to 1927 under Konrad Mägi and Ado Vabbe, received a scholarship to travel to Paris as a talented student after graduating from school. This time in the European art mecca left a certain French style, namely soft transitions of light and shade and a free, pasty brushwork, in his work for the following decades. At this time, Kesner’s color palette began to be dominated by cold blue-green tones in summer landscapes and gray-white in winter landscapes.

The landscape before us depicts a spacious midsummer view of Tartu County (Kesner lived in Mäksa on the southern bank of the Emajõgi river) with light yellow fields under a blue-white sky. The blue-green trees and bushes in the foreground are painted with the artist’s characteristic lushness, highlighting the best of Estonian nature.

Text: Mai Levin