Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Oil on cardboard. 1953.
Signature: Kalju Nagel 1953

Before us is a painting from the Crimean Journey series by Kalju Nagel (1918-2005) who studied painting at Pallas under Aleksander Vardi. From the second half of the 1940s to the end of the 1950s, Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia were symbols of exotic Southern lands that fascinated Estonian artists and where they could go on creative missions.

However, Nagel is not so much captivated by the high mountains and slender cypresses typical of Crimea in this motif but by the coastal view with old boathouses, which reminded him of the village of Altja in Lahemaa. The realistic-style painting is an honest depiction of a place in which the panorama of snowy mountain peaks in a generalized formal language seems crisp and sublime to the Estonian eye.

Text: Harry Liivrand