Toomas Vint

Toomas Vint’s father was an economist specializing in agriculture and his mother wrote radio plays and poetry. His older brother, Tõnis (1942–2019), was to become one of the most influential Estonian avant-garde graphic artists of the twentieth century.

Vint’s childhood was spent in Nõmme, a suburb of Tallinn filled with gardens, flowers, and pine trees. The suburb, as a zone between nature and city, was the first of the various locations where different environments meet (such as beaches, parks, and the edge of the woods) that became major themes in Vint’s works. This closeness to nature was a testimony to his father’s career as a professor of agriculture and his mother’s avid gardening.

Vint initially studied biology at university but soon lost interest. It was while serving in the Soviet army that he began to draw abstract pictures and write poetry and short stories. After returning to civilian life, Vint worked briefly in television but by the late 1960s started exhibiting his paintings as a freelance artist.

Although his older brother, Tõnis, had become an experimental artist with a significant impact on the avant-garde both locally and throughout the Soviet Union, Toomas Vint did not follow in his brother’s footsteps. After a brief period of creating colorful abstract pictures reminiscent of hippie culture, he soon found his own approach, to which he has stayed true ever since. He is renowned for metaphysical landscapes filled with human figures such as View (1980, ZAM, D06303), objects, or buildings, often dramatized by the setting sun and deep shadows suggestive of moments of transformation. The play of light and dark, deep shadows and subtle yet dramatic atmosphere create a slightly disturbing feeling that contrasts with the idyllic still-life atmosphere suffusing the landscape. “When I make a picture, I know that there has to be a deeper meaning behind it,” Vint has said. “But I don’t formulate it, because then it becomes journalism. My generation was interested in conveying certain feelings.” [1]

In the painting Forgotten Doll Carriage (1979, ZAM, D05342), for example, amid beautiful nature painted in a way somewhat reminiscent of Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), we find a rather disturbing object—an abandoned doll. Childhood is often Vint’s subject, as in A Child on a Seaside Meadow (1974, ZAM, D06541) or Amusement Park (1978, ZAM, D05317), but it is not portrayed as representation of innocence but rather employed as a tool to deepen the emotional effect of scenes with an uncanny atmosphere. The tension is built up by different elements, including emptiness surrounding the subject, as in View, or the object, as in Yellow in the Green (1982, ZAM, D05389). The feeling of loneliness or abandonment is always there, especially in locations where people are usually among others, whether an amusement park or home (e.g., View). The static stillness of nature, as seen in the trees in View Towards the Sea II (1977, ZAM, D06481) and View or in the sunlight on an empty beach (as in Yellow in the Green) only amplifies the overall eerie and disturbing feeling that is so in contradiction with the idyllic quality that is also present.

Since the 1970s, Vint’s landscapes have become popular with a wider audience. Although his work remains tethered to landscape subjects, the dynamics in details, the tension created by only a handful of elements, and the nuanced balance between storytelling and underlying? emotions capture the viewer’s attention. His style, a combination of the skilled use of light, color, and brushwork, has drawn comparisons with naive artists—something Vint has never denied, citing Henri Rousseau (alongside René Magritte) as among his favorites.

Vint has consistently captured the feeling of modern alienation. In the 1990s he started to focus more on a surrealist style, retreating from storytelling and instead emphasizing unlikely associations, the juxtaposition of dissimilar surfaces and forms, and darker themes. The illusion of a slightly shifted reality present in his early works is replaced by fantasy and bizarre occurrences. Vint cannot be considered a landscape painter in the traditional sense, as his compositions, colors, and dramas are willfully exaggerated and removed from reality, creating a sense of longing and estrangement. “He doesn’t work with individual fears and loves,” a fellow Estonian painter, Enn Põldroos (b. 1933), wrote. “It’s more general. Vint’s visions are existential constructions. Plus, they are breathtakingly beautiful, which rarely happens in today’s art. In Vint’s world, things have to be beautiful but sensitive to pain.” [2]

One of the key notions in Vint’s works is “play.” While one can see motifs of children at play, the concept can also be understood more broadly as combining elements that do not typically go together and constructing atmospheres that are psychologically and emotionally unsettling. The defining question in this context is the border between reality and irreality, which is constantly shifting. “This is the aim of the artist: to bring the viewer to the almost invisible border between the real and the ostensible,” Vint says. “So that the viewer can be there until they lose their balance.” [3]

During the Soviet regime, playing was one of the cultural tactics people used to detach themselves from Soviet reality and to highlight the absurdity of that reality. “Play” was one of the rare empowering strategies, as it dodged classification and refused fixed meanings. “From painting to painting, the artist plays a strange game with the viewer, in which the viewer’s longing for reality allows them to accept the wistful as real,” Vint says. [4]

In addition to being a painter, Vint has been one of the most prolific and awarded Estonian writers since the 1970s. His first novel was published in 1968, and he was one of the editors of the samizdat magazine Hees, which also published his poetry collection. However, in the 1970s he gave up poetry to focus on short stories and novels that deal with various subjects but are reminiscent of his paintings in combining reality with irreality, often to address loneliness.

In the 1990s Vint started to comment on the rapidly changing art scene, finding irony in postmodern art, especially the postmodern art world. His essays and novels address this subject. Since the early 2000s, he has solely concentrated on painting and writing.

Eero Epner

Photo portrait: Toomas Vint, 1992. Photo by Peeter Langovits. Estonian National Archive. EFA.204.0.170577

Notes:

1. “Toomas Vint: Iga korralik maal peidab endas seda, mis on vaataja silmades ja südames,” Eesti Ekspress, September 28, 2019.

2. Enn Põldroos, “Toomas Vindi vägitükid kunstis,” Eesti Päevaleht, October 24, 2000.

3. Artist’s website. Archived version.

4. Ibid.