Finland's National Painter: Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Scandinavian Review, Spring 2007

As Finland celebrates 90 years as a free nation it seems appropriate to consider the role played by one of the country's leading cultural figures in the struggle for independence-the great painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela. In a conversation with Scandinavian Review, the artist's granddaughter, Aivi Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, provides an exclusive glimpse at the life and contributions of a Finn who is a national treasure to his countrymen but perhaps under-appreciated abroad.

Scandinavian Review: Tell us something about who your grandfather really was.

Aivi Siren: Akseli Gallen-Kallela (AGK) was born in the coastal city of Pori in 1865, just after those dramatic days following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. That year could be called the "year of the blessed babies" in Finnish art. The year also marked the birth of another well-known painter, Pekka Halonen, a pupil of Gaugin; the revolutionary landscape photographer, I.K. Inha, and, youngest of them all, Jean Sibelius. In other words, two painters, a master photographer and a genius composer.

In spite of being very Finnish, AGK was an exotic phenomenon in the Finnish art scene more than 100 years ago. Although a connoisseur of the Finnish soul, he was at the same time a cosmopolitan personality. He was at home with international celebrities, nobility and royalty. He was the Finnish visual artist who more than most promoted the Finnish cause and helped lead his nation toward liberation from the Russian Imperial oppression that had lasted almost 100 years.

He started out as a full-blooded painter in the realist tradition. This was during the five years of art studies in Paris (1884-1889), first at the Académie Julian (where most Scandinavians studied) and later at the studio of F. Corman. He spent summers deep in the Finnish countryside acquainting himself with rural people and painting them. In 1907 he changed his original Swedish name, Axel Gallen, to its Finnish version, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Kallela being the name of the estate from where his forefathers had originated.

SR: I understand AGK was a friend of Strindberg and Gorki. Was he friends with other literary and artistic notables of his day?

AS: He had known all the famous Scandinavians during his years in Paris-Ernst Josephson, Anders Zorn, Prince Eugen, Albert Engström, Ferdinand Villumsen, etc. In Berlin, in 1895, he had a joint exhibit with Edvard Munch, and at the turn of the century Kandinsky invited him to the Munich Phalanx exhibitions.

In Vienna in 1904 he became good friends with Gustav Mahler. Also in Austria at that time, my grandfather befriended Mathias Zdarski, a pioneer in downhill skiing. I believe my grandfather became Finland's first slalom skier. During a sojourn in the United States in 1923-1926 he also struck up a friendship (in Taos, New Mexico) with the English writer D.H. Lawrence.

SR: The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, apparently meant a lot to AGK, and many of his most famous paintings depict specific episodes in this deeply Finnish saga. Was his fascination with it relatively short and concentrated or prolonged and sporadic?

AS: The Kalevala is the most important book of the Finnish people and inspired AGK throughout his life. Even as an 18-year-old he would depict scenes from the epic. Even his last thoughts dealt with ideas for a Great Kalevala, intended to be a Finnish Codex, an illustrated book in folio size that he wanted to leave as a legacy for future generations. Death interrurpted this dream and only the first five poems were completed. He said of the Kalevala: "It was like a shoulder against which one could rest one's tired head." For a time it was like a race between my grandfather and Sibelius to interpret the Kalevala each in his own artistic medium. Kalevala, of course, was compiled by Elias Lönnrot, who journeyed by foot hundreds of miles collecting poetry and folksongs from among the rural people of eastern Karelia.

SR: What are some other highlights of his artistic career?

AS: In 1902-03 he produced his most famous frescoes decorating the Juselius Mausoleum in Pori. They depicted the mystery of Life and Death. The mausoleum was dedicated to a girl, Sigrid, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 11. Her rich, but desolate, father wanted to raise a Finnish Taj Mahal in her memory. AGK himself considered the Juselius frescoes his main artistic achievement. There were eight large frescoes, wall decorations and stained glass windows.

AGK fell victim to malaria in Malaga, Spain in 1904 and a new outbreak of the disease occurred on his East African safari. Nevertheless, his African paintings remain a very important part of his artistic production. While there he completed about 150 works, and the scenes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the Kenyan mountains are especially notable. AGK met President Theodore Roosevelt near Nairobi and was invited to have a drink and chat with him.

SR: Why do you think it took so long for AGK to become an internationally well-known artist?

AS: I think it was largely due to the series of crucial wars during the first half of the 20th century.