Kasaritsa Landscape

Mägi arrived in Kasaritsa near Võru for the first time in the summer 1916, when the judge and amateur artist Martin Taevere and his wife invited him to spend the summer. The artist was a stranger to them, but rumours about his poor health had inspired the compassionate Taeveres to invite Mägi to come and stay at their house.

Mägi sojourned at the Taeveres’ place but made outings in the neighbourhood to search for places to paint. He found those mainly at a walking distance from his accommodation: throughout his career, Mägi generally preferred shorter paintings trips. That is why there are several recurrent motifs in his paintings.  

In Kasaritsa, Mägi was particularly fascinated by the hilly landscape and the little lakes between the hills. Such variations in rhythm make not only the composition more interesting but also affect the colour scheme through the alternating shades of green and blue. By that time, depicting bodies of water had become an important and recurrent motif for Mägi: we can find rivers, lakes and the sea in a number of his paintings.

Mägi’s perspective of looking at landscapes changed in Kasaritsa: he began preferring a panoramic viewpoint and gave up detailed renditions of nature. A broader glance at nature became prevalent, which within an ideological framework could be associated with the fact that Estonia gained its independence during Mägi’s South-Estonian period: the panoramic view could be an expression of a patriotic sentiment. However, such an interpretation is dubious because Mägi was rather tepid in his reactions to the politics of the day.