''Paraphrase E'' is one of a series of

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

drawings called ''paraphrases'' by

Ado Vabbe Ado Vabbe (19 March 1892 – 20 April 1961) was an Estonian painter, graphics artist, and teacher. Ado Vabbe is known for bringing abstraction back home to Estonia after being educated in the Anton Ažbe art school in Munich from 1911 to 1913. ...

in the

Tartu Art Museum Tartu Art Museum ( Estonian: ''Tartu Kunstimuuseum'') is a state-owned museum of art located in Tartu, Estonia. It was founded in 1940 on a private initiative by the members of local art school Pallas. This is the largest art museum in Southern ...

. The drawing shows a set of lines that act as partial contours of possible images, such as faces and the rear end of a horse. Ado Vabbe was the first to bring abstraction to Estonia after studying with

Vassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

and

Franz Marc Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later b ...

in Munich during the years 1911-1923. The German Expressionist Group

Der Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider) is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May ...

was to have a great influence on his own work, and his "paraphrases" influenced young artists in Estonia.Ado Vabbe
discussed by Eda Sepp in ''Estonian Non-conformist art from the Soviet occupation in 1944 to Perestroika'', Chapter 2 in ''Art of the Baltics: The Struggle for Freedom of Artistic Expression under the Soviets, 1945-1991'', edited by Jane Voorhees, Alla Rosenfeld and Norton T. Dodge, exhibition catalog Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2001/2002,

References

Europeana Europeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe. It includes records of over 50 million cultural and scientific artefacts, brought togethe ...

website
Paraphrase A/BParaphrase IIIParaphrase C/DParaphrase Pea
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