Alexander Lauréus

• Alexander Lauréus : Munkki viinikellariksi muutetuissa raunioissa, 1823, 63x50,5 cm, oil, canvas (A I 614) (48.6 kB)

An indication of Alexander Lauréus's standing and success in Sweden is the six year travelling scholarship granted him by the Stockholm Royal Academy. He spent three years of it in Paris and an other three in Rome. Everywhere Lauréus was interested most by ordinary people, by Roman street sellers, workers, the poor people of great cities. Despite all his Romanticism, deep down Alexander Lauréus had a hold on the world of Realism.

Lauréus was developing in a new direction, towards an art that depicted man and his world in a more profound and realistic way, when a sudden illness that broke out in Rome ended his life. But the foundation for early Finnish Romantic Realist portrayal of the common people had been laid in his art.

Munkki viinikellariksi muutetuissa raunioissa