The treatment of time in Estonian painting was primarily connected to nature at the start of the 20th century. There are few time dimensions associated with human life (for instance the human life cycle) or treatments of time referring to urbanism and modernism (work, vacation, relaxation, etc.). At a broader level, we can speak of chronophobia, the fear of the passage of time, and the love of time in Estonian art. A sign of chronophobia is the frequent leaving of artworks undated, for which there were various reasons. At the same time, Estonian artists generally ignored history and also their era: surrounding events were rarely documented.
The way Estonia’s artists of that time perceived time can be described more broadly as being down-to-earth. Utopian treatments of time generally look to the past. Futurism never puts down roots, unlike mythological and national romanticist views, which wish to go backwards in time. In that down-to-earth paradigm, rhythms of idealised pastoral rural life set the tone. In their repetition and predictability, they instill tranquillity in the viewer and at the same time anchor him to a past that is slipping away. There are various reasons for a nostalgic perception of time: romanticism, but also politics. At the same time, we can speak of a gendered treatment of time since the bulk of Estonian artists is very male-centred and the rhythm of life of women was very rarely depicted.
For this reason, the way Estonian artists treated time became rather conservative in the first half of the 20th century while also being politically engaged. Especially during the Second World War, the past became a refuge. The nostalgic rhythming of one’s life according to nature sharply contradicted the surrounding new time regimens, which articulated time altogether differently, for instance through fear (waiting for a knock on the door, the unpredictable dynamics of war news, etc.).
A certain concept of slowness also signals a pastoral or down-to-earth perception of time in older Estonian painting. We rarely see hurrying, the turbulent passing of time in works since stability dominates ahead of dynamism, and repetitiveness dominates ahead of the unique and the surprising. Time prevailingly proceeds meditatively, tranquilly, slowly.
The rhythm of the seasons is overlooked. Winter scenes are rare and there are also few autumn views. The subjects are mostly depicted in daylight. We rarely encounter midnight darkness. People in the artworks are mostly active. Time is not allowed to be wasted. A few isolated views of attending Sunday church services end the workweek (a Christian treatment of time is generally represented very moderately). A bourgeois treatment of time also gradually emerged in art, characterised among other things by the nonfunctional use of time (such as café scenes, picnics).
Artists were rather dispassionate regarding historical events. Mandatory voting and a noticeable decline in artistic quality characterise pictures of historical events. Works that focused on the atmosphere of the era instead of a plotline turned out to be better. Even so, painting in historical styles did play a certain role and became a means for putting up a kind of aesthetic resistance in the era of Soviet occupation. We see in the work of Olev Subbi how he programmatically paints objects from the 1930s in painting styles borrowed from the 19th century, wishing thus to refer back to the past in his work.