Secco
160 x 3240 cm, 52 m²
Soldered stained glass
140 x 62, 6 pcs.
Not under conservation as a cultural monument

In a valley near the Lihula manor house, organically blending into the landscape, lies a gigantic postmodernist cultural temple designed in the EKE Projekt design institute. The building’s author is Rein Tomingas, and it was recognised as the Estonian Building of the Year upon its completion. The tall windows in the middle of the building’s exterior façade hide a mirror hall behind them, the design of which was born through the cooperation between the building’s interior architect Maire Kangur and the monumental painter Eva Jänes.

In the upper part of the dark-toned ballroom expanded with mirrors, above a heavy wooden cornice and against the ceiling is a semi-abstract pannel that flows as one uninterrupted strip. In addition to the mirrors next to the windows are the narrow mirrors on the wooden-metal carcass of the coffer, which expands the large-scale artwork’s reflections onto the ceiling. The scenically rich surfaces depicting lush larger-than-life plant motifs are balanced by unicolour geometric areas. The flora in the pink, green and yellow tones reminiscent of a sweltering summer’s eve are complimented by the occasional small birds and animals, providing the rural folk with realistic joy of recognition. There are a small number of human figures on the pannel as well, including a dancing ballerina, but the piece would have benefitted from omitting these elements.

Surprisingly enough, one can read from Karin Paulus’s book 101 Eesti nõukogude aja ehitist (“101 Buildings of the Estonian Soviet Era”, 2019) that Eva Jänes had allegedly depicted typical Soviet Era symbolism in her painting – the hammer and sickle, and peace doves. Prejudice in a critics mind can make one see issues where there are none – there is a sickle-shaped (crescent) moon but nothing more. It is unfortunate that an author who earnestly only focused on the art throughout their oeuvre is attributed the use of Soviet paraphernalia, and their artwork praising the grandeur of nature, born alongside the Singing Revolution, is lumped together with Evald Okas’s inherently Soviet painting in Maarjamäe Palace.

The three stained-glass windows created for the café a year later enchant the viewer with an exciting colour combination – blue, lime green, purple and pink. The saturated colours characteristic of Jänes’s work are transformed into an otherworldly lucid colour harmony by the light passing through them. The great stylisation of the knight figures (near the Lihula Castle!) on the stained-glass windows deserves acknowledgement as well – in this case, the fragmented stained-glass method itself has been a fine cooperation partner to the artist.

Reeli Kõiv