Akseli Gallen-Kallela
was Finland’s leading artist of the late 19th century.
His colourful and dramatic works fixed for a nation images of its
land, its people, and its national epic - the Kalevala.
Gallen-Kallela developed a decorative-romantic style to construct
a series of iconic images
which have since been enshrined in Finnish culture as the national
style.
Finland experienced
a political and creative ‘awakening’ during the second half
of the 19th century
as it sought to assert an autonomous and indigenous culture.
In seeking to distance and difference itself from centuries of rule
by a Swedish-speaking nobility,
and from 1809 the oppression of Russian rule, Finnish intellectual
endeavours became focussed on
the retrieval of a distinct national culture and its ethnic values
amongst the minority Finnish-speaking peoples.
The publication in 1849 of the Finnish oral epic, the Kalevala,
from which source Jan Sibelius developed much of his work,
acted as a major catalyst of this drive to express aspirations of
national independence.
The work of Akseli Gallen-Kallela was taken up as an embodiment of
a nationalist impetus
and was widely utilised in political and cultural debates concerning
the construction of national identity.
