10 Questions by Eve Kask to Lembit Sarapuu

	1. What book(s) of fiction have influenced you most? Who or what have also had an impact on you? Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. And all other books about Greek myths. Even now, occasionally, I read Robert Graves's The Greek Myths. Then Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which I read in my childhood. I think this was the first book I read after learning the alphabet. Arthur Schopenhauer's Wisdom of Life. Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Fr. R. Kreutzwald's Kalevipoeg (Estonian national hero) has inspired several of my paintings. Jack London's White Fang. Heroes of Alcazar. A book on the Spanish Civil War. Manfred von Richthofen's The Red Fighter Pilot. By the way, my favourite author is Knut Hamsun and especially his Town of Segelfoss and The Road Leads On. A fatal part of my becoming an artist was going to art exhibitions at the Art Museum and the Art Hall with my father. What I remember most vividly was Johann Köler's (19th century Estonian academic style painter) Heracles, with Cerberus who guarded the entrance to Hades. I was 7-9 years old. Another inspiration was my uncle on my mother's side, Jaan Siirak. With my mother, and later on my own, I often visited him at his home and studio. There was always an exciting, artistic atmosphere. Later, at the military school in Leningrad, over the weekends when I managed to get permission to go to town, I visited the Hermitage to see the world's art classics. This naturally was another important factor. Still, I think nature has been the greatest influence. I like spending time in nature, observing and contemplating.
	2. Lembit Sarapuu and women? All women I have had close relationships with have inspired many of my paintings, and also helped me to understand human life as such. Many thanks to them for that!
	3. Life or art - which is more interesting for you, more significant? For me, art is more important. Real life - we all know more or less what it is like, with all its joys and sorrows. However, an artist's real life is his art! It has the mystery of inspiration, the boldness of a beginning, hardships of working (resistance of material), and finally the delight of completing the painting! This fascinates the artist and gives meaning to his life, if life has a meaning in the first place besides its own existence.
	4. Unonscious. Depression. What are your relations with these? I must say I have never been able to separate the unconscious from the conscious. I don't know which is which. This belongs in the field of psychiatry. Depression can be caused by many things: greedy capitalists, stupid officials, idiots of various kinds, a nervous and aggressive urban environment, tunnels passing under motorways, chasing humans underground in general, too many cars on the roads, polluted air, constant horrible noise! Dark muddy weather in November and December, and many-many other things. To get rid of all that I go, weather permitting, to the forest or to the beach. A glass of good wine in the company of old friends is another efficient method of overcoming depression.
	5. How important is the room, the place, where you work? I ask because I remember being shocked by your apartment, which looked like an installation - narrow paths for moving around and nowhere to sit. Don't these things annoy you? The room where I work contains my belongings, the tools, picture frames, canvases, cardboard, still unfinished works, items of everyday life, a few pieces of furniture, books. It is quite cramped here, that's true, but what is one to do! On the whole, I do not bother about things. I simply ignore them when I work. Although I suppose I should get rid of the old newspapers.
	6. How do you feel as a creator - have you achieved what you wanted to, or are you still half way there? I think I have achieved a few things, and perhaps there is no longer any need to produce something new. But then all sorts of ideas emerge. And curiosity too - what will the pictures be like once I have painted them?
	7. Quite a few artists of the middle and older generations have suffered, to a greater or lesser extent, because of a drastic change in social standing and new directions in art in the 1990s. How about you? How is artist Lembit Sarapuu doing in the present Republic of Estonia? The change of direction in the 1990s resulted in the present vulture-capitalist environment, where I see myself as a man of the Absurd. Capitalists do not need paintings. There are other trends, and art is a thing of fashion. I dare anyone to argue with that! What is left is the joy of working, painting for myself if I feel like it. Not bad, all in all!
	8. If you could choose another existence, then who, what era, status, age, role, etc would you like to have now? If I could choose another time and existence, I would like to be a Cro-Magnon painter drawing pictures of animals on his cave walls. Or a Renaissance painter at a princely court. Art truly flourished then, the artists were busy and their work much appreciated! I would have loved to be a sailor at the time of great discoveries where people sailed to distant lands and saw incredibly pure nature with all its beauty and dangers!
	9. Could you describe a personal encounter with eternity? I was 11 years old, in the country in southern Estonia. It was almost evening, and I was returning to the farm from the meadows, riding on a horse through the forest. It was a long journey. The horse was walking slowly and shafts of light from the evening sun peeped out of the shadows of huge spruces. All of nature was bewitching. Suddenly I felt something great and sublime, a sense of belonging together with the horse, which had been wounded in the neck during the war by shrapnel, the tall spruces, forest path and the red sun! I was so happy! I later had similar experiences on many occasions where I have the sensation of perfection in nature, but this was the first time!
	10. Are you afraid of death? Explain. I can't say I am desperately afraid of death, but I wouldn't like to die just yet. I would like to enjoy beautiful nature; it would be a great pity not to see the sun any more, and besides, there is still so much to do! Lembit Sarapuu (1930), painter, exhibits since the 1960s. His paintings offer a highly singular interpretation of the mythological world where the hidden side of human nature and relations between male and female poles dominate. Eve Kask (1958), graphic and installation artist, whose works have been described as unconscious, symbolist, feminist/feminine, erotic, expressive, mythical, intensive ...
	| Estonian Art 1/04 (14) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2004 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |