Still Life with Flowers

This work is probably Lepo Mikko’s Pallas Art School graduation piece, in which the young artist has had to demonstrate his maturity. On the other hand, the painting features elements of the motifs and formal aspects that permeated his entire oeuvre.
Among the motifs we can witness elements that would later define Mikko’s characteristic style: a string instrument, flower bouquets, an empty bottle, fruits, a piece of clothing, and a painting placed in the corner. Such a painting-within-the-painting was a principle that Mikko used quite often: he would include his own or someone else’s painting or a fragment of it or sometimes an empty picture frame. This was a motif that enabled him to speak about making art in a broader sense and to emphasise the specificity of art, which was one of the principles of the Pallas school of painting.
Mikko’s choice of warm colours and the search for harmony between them is something that would characterise his oeuvre up until the 1960s. Soft fusions prevail instead of contrasts, sharp conversions and divided surfaces, and dispersion is preferred over contours, but here and there (e.g. in the outlines of the guitar) Mikko has also emphasised concreteness.
It is interesting to observe Mikko’s treatment of light: through a large window on the right, which is only partially shown to the viewer, streams in light, creating not only brightly lit surfaces in the room but also some shadier corners.