Konrad Mägi lived in Viljandi on several occasions and painted the town and its people. Mägi, who constantly complained about losing the will to live while living in Tartu, found good care at the home of a childhood friend in Viljandi and began a new creative period after two summers in Saaremaa.

When searching for painting locations, Mägi doesn’t stay far from Viljandi. Several times he depicts the area around Lake Uueveski, where this road also leads – the house in the bushes is the local watermill.

The winding road between two high ridges leads the viewer’s gaze into the depth of the painting. Picturesque views unfold before us, but the main event of the painting is in the sky and the clouds there.

Mägi consistently studied clouds – there are several sketches that have survived where he has drawn only clouds, sometimes adding in written word the colors seen in the clouds. Usually, his clouds are dramatic, vivid, massive cumulus clouds, and it is in the clouds that the most important emotions of the painting are, because through the clouds that Mägi expresses his emotional experiences or introduces a sacred dimension. The constantly flowing form of the clouds, their ceaseless dynamism, is something quite different from the idyllic windless landscape down here: it’s as if the lower and upper parts of the painting are in conflict with each other.

Here in Viljandi, Mägi’s clouds change. In Saaremaa, he depicted clouds realistically: what was in the sky made its way onto the canvas. But now, he begins to fantasize more and more; ruffles are painted into the clouds, which aren’t actually possible. He also invented the purple tone for the clouds – Konrad Mägi immerses himself more and more into fiction.

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