Baltic Journal of Art History

Thinking of the Ends of Things: The Porch as a Location of Morality and Mortality in the Late Medieval Wall Paintings of Rymättylä Church

Janika Aho — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I analyse the late medieval wall paintings in Rymättylä
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.

Collecting Pieces of History: The Latest Discoveries of Estonian Manorial Architecture from the City of Marburg

Elis Pärn — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most important research topics in Estonian art history
writing is manorial architecture, which Estonian researchers have
actively focused on for the last couple of decades. While substantial
progress has been made, the last few years have challenged previously
known results, brought new perspectives, and introduced new
research questions that await further investigation. Research on
the manorial period nevertheless continues to be constrained by the
fragmented historical development of the region, which has resulted
in a considerable portion of relevant source material – particularly
that related to Baltic-German culture – being preserved outside
Estonia. In this context, the city of Marburg in Germany stands out
as a place where two world-renowned research centres – the Herder
Institute and the Foto Marburg Image Archive – hold material related
to the topic complements, and in some cases expands, the sources
already available in Estonia.
Based on research conducted during a fellowship at the Herder
Institute at the end of 2024, this article provides an overview of
Baltic-related collections held at both institutions and presents
recent discoveries concerning Estonian manorial architecture, with
a particular focus on wooden manor houses, which has been a
relatively under researched topic for decades. Drawing on previously
underexplored archive and visual sources – particularly historical
photographs from the beginning of the 20th century –, the article
addresses several questions related to noble residences, associated
economic buildings, interiors: to the ensembles as a whole. In doing
so, attention is drawn to several manors and buildings that have
been destroyed, on which there is no material evidence in Estonia.
This brings to the fore buildings that were not previously known
to research on the topic. In addition, the article pays attention to
other related material, such as libraries and memorabilia, and
to the memories that await researchers, thus emphasising the
methodological value of combining compatible material from both
institutions for future research.

Erich von Kügelgen – ein deutschbaltisches Schicksal. Sein Leben und die Beeinflussung durch den deutschrussischen Künstler Sascha Schneider

Dorothee von Kügelgen — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Photography and Heritage Documentation

Kurmo Konsa — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Olympic Urbanism in Tallinn: Preparations for the 1980 Olympic Regatta

Grete Tiigiste — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

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 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.