What are the secret meanings of the canvases of the Finnish painter Gallen-Kallela

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

We continue to acquaint our reader with the work of Scandinavian artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, whose works entered the world treasury of fine arts. Today, in our publication, a gallery of paintings by a Finnish painter, a prominent representative of the romantic trend in the iso-culture of Finnish Art Nouveau at the beginning of the 20th century - Gallen-Kallela.

Many of Gallen's works have forever entered the golden fund of Finnish fine arts, of which he was one of the founders. It should be noted that the range of the painter's creative interests and hobbies was very multifaceted:. And what is interesting, the type of such a universal artist was unexpected for Finnish culture, so his work aroused not only admiration, but also loud negative reviews both among critics and in society as a whole.

However, why be surprised? The artist lived and worked at a time when the whole world was overwhelmed by creative evolution, when art was literally flooded with various newfangled trends, whose representatives were divided into many opposing camps.

Nevertheless, no matter how it was in the encyclopedia "ARTCYCLOPEDIA", which brought together artists from all countries and eras, the section "Finland" contains only 10 names, one of them is Gallen-Kallela.

Turning the pages of a biography

The Finnish artist of Swedish origin was born in 1865 in Pori (a port city in Finland) in the family of a private lawyer Peter Gallen, which had 12 children. The artist's mother was fond of painting and introduced her gifted son to it. Their surname expressed the duality of local culture. The artist's grandfather was named in the Finnish manner - Kallela, his father - in Swedish - Gallen. And Axeli himself, after more than 20 years, will call himself Gallen-Kallela.

The young man received his primary art education at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in Helsingfors, and improved his skills at the R. Julien Academy in Paris (1884–1889), where eminent artists VA Bouguereau and F. Cormon were teachers at that time. The work of J. Bastien-Lepage had a great influence on the young master.

At the beginning of his creative career, the young artist was attracted by images of people from the common people, scenes from rural life, which he knew well from his childhood. That is why one of his first paintings, The Boy and the Crow (1884), written under the influence of French naturalism and in the spirit of Scandinavian verism, is so realistically reliable and psychologically convincing.

Returning from Paris in the summer of 1885 to his homeland, Gallen began work on the painting "The Old Woman and the Cat", which was modeled on a local elderly woman. And already in the fall, at the exhibition of the Finnish Art Society, this canvas caused conflicting opinions. The conservatives did not approve of the unattractiveness of the depicted, and the liberals took the work with enthusiasm - they were captivated by the master's ability to find touching subjects in the everyday life of commoners.

In the same manner, the artist painted the canvases "The First Lesson" (1889), "The Finnish Bath" (1891), "The Shepherd from Panayarvi" (1892), where with love and great pictorial skill he embodied the characteristic types and everyday life of the peasantry, the national character, features of a distinctive lifestyle. Along with this, Gallen-Kallela reflected in his paintings the harsh melancholy of Finnish nature, its gloomy and light landscapes, dense forests and endless fields with deep lakes with snowy distances.

It is worth noting that the artist was looking for inspiration for his realistic plots in the most unexpected places. He could often be seen, for example, in a freshly dug grave, where he lay immersed in his thoughts, while slowly smoking a cigar and pretending not to notice the observers.

The legends of the Finnish epic - Kalevala - became the guiding lines in the master's work. By the way, the Kalevala epic (Karelian-Finnish epic) has common folk roots and unites Russia and Finland. He inspired many Finnish and Russian artists, composers, poets, and he also met the interests of Gallen. His significant work of this period was the triptych “The Legend of Aino” (1891), based on the Karelian-Finnish legend.

Symbolism in the work of Gallen-Kallela

However, writing in a realistic manner in the era of flourishing modernism was a huge courage. Critics reproached the young painter for his lack of imagination and the ability to see true beauty. So, under their pressure and the spirit of the new time, by the beginning of the 20th century, Gallen gradually moved away from his ideas and entered the mainstream of "Nordism" (northern modernity), becoming a significant, and over the years and the largest representative of his national-romantic trend.

The turning point in his work was the tragedy that befell his family. The death of his little daughter broke the thin strings of the artist's soul, and since then his brush has lost its "soft realistic character and has become tougher and more aggressive." In his work, he began to widely use symbolism with a secret meaning and artistic techniques of the Art Nouveau style. So, moving from oil to tempera, Gallen-Kallela learned to capture feelings and thoughts vividly and expressively.

In 1906, the artist creates a picturesque allegory - "Lovers", which conveys all the acuteness and pain of forbidden love. A sword thrust into a man's back pierces his heart and penetrates the heart of his beloved, as if uniting them forever. Experiencing incredible pain, the couple merged in a passionate kiss … This story, touching to the depths of the soul, was also taken by the artist from the Finnish epic.

At one time Gallen was acquainted with the famous Russian master of painting Nicholas Roerich, together they made a long journey across Karelia. It was Roerich who helped Galen-Kallele to find the theme that became the main one in his work. And also a kind of friendship-enmity connected the Finnish artist with Maxim Gorky, who at first criticized the master for his "decadence", but later himself fell under his influence. By the way, Gallen created several portraits of Gorky.

The artist's aspirations to work with "large" forms were realized in the monumental decorative paintings of the Finnish pavilion at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. A series of works for the plafond was dedicated to the Kalevala. A quarter of a century later, the artist made a similar mural in the lobby of the National Museum in Helsinki (1928).

During his creative career, the artist worked a lot in Karelia, visited Italy and Germany, traveled several times in British East Africa (now Kenya), lived in America for three years. And, of course, he painted many portraits dedicated to Africans and the indigenous people of America - Indians. But that is another story.

The last years of his life, Gallen-Kallela was actively involved in politics. In 1918, Gallen-Kallela and his son took part in the Finnish Civil War. Later, the artist was asked to design flags, state symbols (coat of arms and flag of the Ukhta Republic, Order of the White Rose of Finland, Order of the Cross of Freedom) and uniforms of independent Finland. The artist also developed a Finnish uniform bayonet-knife of the 1919 model.

Died 66-year-old Gallen-Kallela in Stockholm in 1931 from pneumonia. On the way from Copenhagen, where he lectured at the local university, the artist was very cold and did not get out of the hospital bed.

Considering the work of Scandinavian artists who worked at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, I would like to say that some of them remained true to the ideals of realism until the last days. In our publication: The charm of the atmospheric Scandinavian landscapes of the Swedish classic artist Arvid Lindström you can see the gallery of his delightful paintings.