Paul Raud

An Estonian Impressionist artist, known as a landscape painter and portrait painter, who made a significant contribution to the development of painting in Estonia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Paul was born into the family of a field buster. He had a twin brother, Christian, also subsequently a famous artist and founder of the Estonian National Museum.

Being the first painter to return to his homeland after graduating from the Academy and a talented teacher, he became the most influential and weighty figure in Estonian art. In addition to genre and landscape paintings, ethnographically accurate original portraits of simple people, he painted so-called “ceremonial” or “armchair” portraits in the academic style to order.

Key ideas:

– Having studied and perceived the technique of the Impressionists, Paul Raud reveals himself as a direct and keen observer of nature, vividly and emotionally responding to what he has seen. Genre features are combined in the paintings – the landscape is integrated into the plot and plot canvases are “landscaped”. Especially this concerns the paintings of peasant life, from depicting of which Estonian artists were very far before. In this case, the artist manages to preserve the freshness of perception of nature in his best works.

– The artist builds compositions in the spirit of Impressionism, that is, the point of view on objects is random and creates a sense of the immediacy of observation. Under the influence of the new technique, a free picturesque stroke and a significant clarification of color appear.

– The achievements of the open-air effect of the master are in the portrait genre as well. For example, “Self-portrait with a palette” (1908) stands out with a bright color. Also, unusual are “large-scale” composition and spectacular lighting. The artist chooses to depict national characters, accurately noting their ethnographic characteristics. At the same time, he plays it artistically and transfers the psychological state of the model.