Roman Nyman was born as part of the same generation as Konrad Mägi and Nikolai Triik and similarly to those two artists, he also studied at the Stieglitz drawing school in St. Petersburg, where future draftsmen were trained. Like the others, he also travelled to Paris, Italy, Germany and Norway but he still did not develop into a beginning of the century modernist. Focusing primarily on stage scenery and painting landscapes, Nyman developed into a teacher and a pop artist in both the theatre and painting during the era of Estonian independence. Pure, warm colours, contrasts between light and shadow, decorativeness, the depiction of natural settings from his Estonian homeland and peace and stagnation were his trademarks through to the end of his creative work. "It appears as if the landscape had posed for the artist. Not even a breath of wind or the smallest wave can be felt," researchers have written.