From the Treasury of the Estonian Art Museum

With its simple and elegant sculptural form and its association with the beginning of life, the egg has captivated many Estonian artists of the twentieth century. In the work Vaikuses (In Silence) by interior architect and painter Mari Kurismaa (1956), the egg floats as if in a state of weightlessness in a metaphysical urban space, bringing together the two opposing central aspects of Kurismaa’s creation: a love for real architectural space and for the conditional-imaginary space of painting. As a favourite motif of the Surrealists, the mysterious white egg allowed for endless associations, symbolising the multitude of possibilities or ultimate potential.