Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil on canvas. 1960s.
Signature: NINEMAE / Höstgöra på skåne – åkrar

Each painting by Boris Ninemäe (1925-1991) is like a small short story that he tells us through impasto, color, and form. Sometimes they are quiet and intimate, sometimes more colorful and expressive. Among them are both straightforward and enigmatic pieces. At first glance, everything seems clear with this large-format painting. The artist takes us to a sunny autumn day, where a group of people are working in the field. But who are these people in the field? Is it a generalization about agricultural work, because, as is typical of Ninemäe’s style, these people lack clear facial features?

At the same time, he has considered it important to emphasize their geographical location in the title. And what work are they doing exactly? Because the baskets are empty and the furrows are flat. The woman in the red headscarf is holding a potato picker, but we cannot see the harvest. Is this potato picking or something else? The latter takes the thoughts even further in time and space – to the small village of Barbizon in 19th-century Northern France where Jean-Francois Millet painted the peasants of his hometown. Are Ninemäe and Millet not painting the same people? Because in one of Millet’s most famous works, “The Corn Harvesters” (1857), we see peasants harvesting an almost nonexistent crop from a field of indefinite size.

The Estonian and French characters are also similar in body language and clothing – even though they are separated by a hundred years or more in time. Are the artists poeticizing everyday life here or showing the existence of existential problems? Despite the ambivalent questions, Ninemäe’s short stories help us remember our roots, the dreams of our ancestors, and our presence in the age of supermarkets and alienation from farm work and life – regardless of time, geographical location, or origin.

Text: Regina Mets