Great summer II , 2009
1970/2009
Ofort, Edition 30
As with many artists’ early works, young Silvi Liiva’s pieces are very open, filled with a renaissance-like curiosity and boldness of expression. The mood of her 1970 engraving “Suur suvi” (Great Summer) is strikingly bright and airy, with a festive atmosphere enhanced by the flurry of blossoms that resemble falling snowflakes against wallpaper and through the window. In 1978, Boriss Bernstein wrote that Silvi Liiva’s graphic poetry is woven from a distinctly feminine substance. (B. Bernstein, “Of People and Their World,” Rahva Hääl, 15 Nov 1978.)
“Great summeri” is one of the few graphic sheets by Silvi Liiva where the characters are indoors, in a room with windows open to the blossoming and the warm breath of summer. Since flowers in psychoanalytic symbolism represent virginity, the window holds a significant place in the house-body symbolism, and the gesture of touching a friend’s hair carries sexual undertones, we can interpret the vision of “Great summeri” as a girlish contemplation or a dream of impending maturity and the many possibilities that come with it. The naive children, however, cannot yet see beyond the “flowers” since their distant future is veiled by a delicate floral curtain.
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