On the Town: Art works from the edge of Europe went on show in Dublin this week at the National Gallery. New Frontiers was organised to celebrate the accession of the 10 new countries, which are primed to join the EU on May 1st.
Urmas Paet, the Estonian minister of culture, said his favourite painting was The Sacrifice by Kristjan Raud. "It is a bit symbolic of political events and in a good way it is a very important part of Estonian culture and history," he said. The Estonian ambassador to Ireland, Simmu Tiik, said he loved the work by Konrad Mägi because it was of the western islands, which "is the best part of Estonia. I'm from there myself - the best people, the best landscape, the best beer," he said smiling.
Artist Seán Mulcahy and his art historian wife, Rosemarie, were both impressed with the collection. "We know so little about these countries," they said, looking at a painting called Settlers, by Lithuania's Antanas Gudaitis. "It could be a holy family," said Rosemarie, whose book, Philip II of Spain, Patron of the Arts, will be published in New York next month while her husband's paintings go on show in the same week at the city's Glucksman Ireland House.
Dorota Folga-Januszewska, of the National Museum in Warsaw, said the painting she would choose from her country's six paintings on show was one called The Motor Race by Rafat Malczewski, because "after the war for a long time Polish art was focused on trauma but this, I think, was the unique one. This artist expressed the love for living".
Alexandra Homol'ová and Katarína Bajcurová, of Slovakia's National Gallery, posed happily in front of a large work by Martin Benka called To the Field. "It is very powerful," they said.