art of Estonia

The tradition & historical record

Estonian art is art that comes from Estonia, from Estonian artists or art pieces relating to Estonia. Starting from prehistoric art, there are no caves with paintings in Estonia. About 1700 registered cup stones have been found from the Bronze Age and archaeological finds from the Neolithic period. Nearest two caves with Paleolithic paintings are in Southern Ural Mountains in Bashkortostan and Russia. In Finland have founded over 100 rock paintings sites in vertical walls of granite rocks... but no caves. Neolithic rock carvings have been preserved in granite rocks on the Eastern coast of Lake Onega, also in the White Sea region, on Kola peninsula, Northern Norway and Southern Sweden etc.. ¹

Cave paintings were the first pieces of art, they were found in caves and tunnels. Ancestral farmers and gatherers would use blood, bone marrow and crushed up animal hair to add pigmentation to the illustrations. For example, they used blood to make prey look different from the hunters. Eventually they started incorporating wood into their tools and started making more accurate illustrations and paintings by making brushes from wood and animal hair. ¹

Gothic art in Estonia was mostly found in churches and cathedrals, these churches and cathedrals had paintings and sculptures of religious figures in them. Most of them had Christian symbolism in paintings (most of which were over 8 feet tall); these painting would show Jesus and his disciples in a very artistic and symmetrical way. The Gothic Age in Estonia started around 1200 and ended around 1600, the art paintings from the start of this era were paintings about gods and their disciples (mostly portraying Jesus). The Church of the Holy Spirit, one of more famous churches found in Estonia, has a Gothic interior and exterior. The art on the sides of the loft (above the pews) is about Jesus and his journey to enlighten people. The paintings do not have a known artist but it is known that the artist painted them in the first half of the 1300s. ¹

Most of the Estonian art in the medieval period (mid-1500s to the 1700s) was inspired by Swedish art. The medieval art style would show the concepts of death and battle. Most pieces of art from this era would be flat and would not resemble reality. The art pieces would have skeletons and walking corpses, these would symbolize the death of people from the wars they had with the Swedish forces. ¹

1917-1918 existed organization called Noorte Kujurite Ühing "Vikerla" ('Young Sculptors Union "Vikerla"'). Members were Oskar Kallis, Balder Tomasberg, Välko Tuul, Aleksander Mülber, Aleksander Krims-Radava ja Roman Haavamägi and Paul Liivak. This organization was so short-lived because some members died during Estonian War of Independence. ¹

During the Soviet rule (from 1940 to 1991), the art movement of socialist realism emerged. Socialist realism would show the struggles of the people that were affected by Soviet rule; it would show the struggles of the middle to lower class households in workplace scenarios or as a family in a home. This period of art was not as popular when compared to other art periods. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Estonian art”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

art of Estonia is overview of the Estonian art, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²