For several years now, Erich von Kügelgen (1870–1945) has been emerging from the shadow of his more famous artistic relatives – Carl, Gerhard, Constantin and Sally – into the focus of art-historical interest. His sombre, surface-oriented Symbolist painting has long proved difficult for viewers to interpret, and scholarly engagement with his work was hampered by the lack of biographical material. In preparation for the major Kügelgen exhibition of 2023–2025, previously unknown documents have come to light in the family archive, which the author has subjected to scholarly analysis. Numerous surviving letters reveal a man marked by a troubled childhood and a lifelong inner conflict between two professions, that of painter and that of physician, a tension he processed through his art. This article situates his life within the turbulent era endured by many Baltic-Germans, who after 1914 found themselves homeless, torn between Germany, the Baltic region and the Russian Empire and caught between competing observances and loyalties. Erich von Kügelgen’s biography appears almost prototypical of these destinies. Amid this confusion, the late-vocation artist sought orientation and found it in the German-Russian painter Sascha Schneider (1870–1927), whose life and work are likewise introduced and set in relation to Erich’s. Closer examination, however, also reveals distinctly individual narrative and humorous aspects of Kügelgen’s art. Finally, the Tartu exhibition drew attention to Hermann von Kügelgen, Erich’s father. The son of celebrated landscape painter Carl, Hermann distinguished himself in Tartu as a teacher of drawing and design, and as a progressive spirit who anticipated Bauhaus concepts in Tartu.
The past is always irretrievably lost; nevertheless, we are left with our heritage and photographs. In some cases, the two may also coincide. On one hand, photographs themselves form part of our heritage, and on the other hand, they are used to document our heritage. In this article, I discuss how photography affects our engagement with the past, shapes our understanding of the past, and recreates the past in the present day. Photography is instrumental in shaping concepts and practices central to many approaches to heritage. Examples can be considered in this article of heritage presentation and interpretation, as well as surveying and archiving processes. Documentation is an integral part of heritage preservation, conservation, and restoration. Since all objects can be considered as sources of information, the preservation of heritage can also be viewed informationally. Since its introduction, photography has actively participated in the process of defining heritage and also in its institutionalization. Heritage, regardless of its location, is easier to grasp and handle in visual form. The use of photography significantly changed the way the general public experienced architecture. Through photographs, distant objects suddenly became closer. The circle of individuals who had visual knowledge of architecture increased noticeably. Photography contributed significantly to the introduction of heritage objects and thus to the broader use of the term "heritage" itself. Today, conservation/restoration can no longer be imagined without photography. Again, this is not something particularly surprising, since photography was developed in addition to the previously used methods of visual representation. It must be recognized that photography helped make the describing and surveying of monuments more accurate. Photography did not bring a radical change to the documentation of monuments, but was smoothly integrated with visual practices that had been in use until that day in age. Photography also plays an important role in the theoretical discussion of conservation/restoration. The central problem of conservation and restoration is the question of object authenticity. Photography's association, whether apparent or not, with nature and objectivity allowed it to be used to support various theoretical concepts. Obviously, the relationship between heritage and photography is not unilateral or clearly defined; it is a complex interaction between multifaceted phenomena.
As the Sailing Regatta of the 1980 Summer Olympics was going to take place in Tallinn, it was accompanied by a large-scale and ambitious plan for urban development, which shaped the city's constructional image remarkably. This article studies the preparations for the Tallinn Olympic Regatta within the framework of the concept of Olympic urbanism, treating the construction plans linked with the regatta as an autonomous type of city planning. The aim is to analyse how the planned, partially realised and unrealised building projects reflect the construction dynamics and spectacle characteristic of the Olympic cities. The article is based on the author's master's thesis, Tallinn Under Full Sail. Olympic Urban Change Shaping The City, at the University of Tartu in 2024.71 The article does not concentrate on the architectural analysis of single objects, but on the building programme as a whole-its political background, planning process, and impact.
In this article I analyse the late medieval wall paintings in Rym & auml;ttyl & auml; Church (Finland), dated 1514. I focus on the wall paintings in the porch and the large Last Judgement painting on the east wall of the nave. The porch, considered a liminal zone, serves as a transitional area that marks the boundary between the secular outside world and the sacred interior of the church. I argue that the morality motifs and the Mother of Mercy motif depicted in the wall paintings in the porch prepared the viewers to enter the church and see the Last Judgement scene in the nave. The themes of bad morals and mercy in the images of the porch played an important role in reinforcing the passion history of Christ and the salvation of the soul at the Last Judgement. Via images, the porch played a crucial role in reinforcing the shared Christian worldview, as individuals passing through it symbolically renew their commitment to this worldview. Drawing on the theories of liminality, as well as art historian Paul Binski's ideas on cathedral portals, the article situates the porch within the broader context of medieval art, highlighting the societal functions of images therein.
For several years now, Erich von Kugelgen (1870-1945) has been emerging from the shadow of his more famous artistic relatives-Carl, Gerhard, Constantin and Sally-into the focus of art-historical interest. His sombre, surface-oriented Symbolist painting has long proved difficult for viewers to interpret, and scholarly engagement with his work was hampered by the lack of biographical material. In preparation for the major Kugelgen exhibition of 2023-2025, previously unknown documents have come to light in the family archive, which the author has subjected to scholarly analysis. Numerous surviving letters reveal a man marked by a troubled childhood and a lifelong inner conflict between two professions, that of painter and that of physician, a tension he processed through his art. This article situates his life within the turbulent era endured by many Baltic-Germans, who after 1914 found themselves homeless, torn between Germany, the Baltic region and the Russian Empire and caught between competing observances and loyalties. Erich von Kugelgen's biography appears almost prototypical of these destinies. Amid this confusion, the late-vocation artist sought orientation and found it in the German-Russian painter Sascha Schneider (1870-1927), whose life and work are likewise introduced and set in relation to Erich's. Closer examination, however, also reveals distinctly individual narrative and humorous aspects of Kugelgen's art. Finally, the Tartu exhibition drew attention to Hermann von Kugelgen, Erich's father. The son of celebrated landscape painter Carl, Hermann distinguished himself in Tartu as a teacher of drawing and design, and as a progressive spirit who anticipated Bauhaus concepts in Tartu.
