Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Colored pencil on paper. 1958.
Signature: Süvalo / K. Süvalo Karksi maastik. 1958

Konstantin Süvalo (until 1936 Štšerbakov. 1884–1964) was born in Karksi, Viljandi County. In order to save money for art studies in Riga, he worked on the railway where he saved enough money to enter the Venjamin Blum private school in Riga in 1909. The very next year, however, he continued his studies at the prestigious Riga City Art School, headed by the well-known landscape painter Vilhelms Purvitis and taught by such masters as Janis Tilbergs and Janis Rozentals.

It was from them that his love for plein air painting and his journeys into nature began. There, he created watercolors and drawings and later on, paintings in the studio. However, in order to convey the genuine experience of nature as accurately as possible, the style of his drawings was similar to the approach to painting – the same slanted lines as short brushstrokes on canvas.

This heartfelt piece of the artist’s hometown of Karksi where his relatives lived on the Potisepa farm, is made on the same principles. Light and dark are always important to the painter: the forest in the foreground is darker, the open hill in the background is light – this is how Süvalo applies the tones to the base here, too. The horizon is, as usual for Süvalo, high. In the middle of it, however, a yellow-colored house, surrounded protectively by forest branches, is home…

Text: Mai Levin, Katre Palm