The Collection of the Finnish Art Society and the Idea of a Museum

The Finnish Art Society had achieved a great deal in the country's artistic life. There was now cause to talk of trends and guidelines, to discuss questions of art policy. But the country still lacked a public art collection and a place for it. Things began to make progress when Grand Duke Aleksandr, the society's patron, bought baron O.W. Klinckowström's art collection, donating it to the Finnish Art Society in 1851. The collection was remarkably large for its time: 28 works, which form the heart of the Finnish national gallery, the foundation of the later Art Museum of the Ateneum. It was not until more than ten years after receiving the donation that the Art Society was able to announce that henceforth The permanent collections owned by the society will regularly be on view to the public on notified days and hours the whole year round in these Society rooms.

The showrooms for the Art Society's collection were nevertheless impermanent and modest. Zacharias Topelius wrote in 1861, two years before the collection was first publically displayed: Because we are far removed from the throne and without support from the peak of society, we have had to acquire our material resources and our actual aid from among the great masses of our civilized citizens. This income accumulates, so to speak, in drops from numerous different sources that are dispersed all over the country. . . In such a situation we cannot expect giant steps, as we have already heard said. The word that will change these stones into bread and these wildernesses into gardens is yet to be uttered. We must content ourselves with the few green shoots that promise the approach of spring to these snowy tracts, even though it may happen slowly.

In other words, there was seen to be no reason for much optimism.

But the thought of a museum building kept coming up. It was an enormous national project that caused much talk, aroused heated discussion and vehement arguments, dividing opinions in several directions. Fredrik Cygnaeus used all his influence to further his own idea of an art academy 'as the noblest claim of freedom', only to bitterly find other ideas superseding his. It was the aspiration of C.G. Estlander, professor of aesthetics and member, later chairman of the society, to combine the teaching of art and applied arts under the same roof that finally gained most support. Architect Theodor Höijer's neorenaissance house of the arts was completed in 1887. It was the combined school and museum, abode of co-operation between the arts and applied arts that Estlander had envisaged. After Estlander's suggestion the building was named the Ateneum. On its facade were carved the words Concordia res parvae crescunt, harmony makes small things grow. In the ornamental sculpture the figure of Patria, the fatherland, consecrates the arts to fruitful and harmonious co-operation.

The Ateneum of our day is governed by the fine arts. The school and collections of the applied arts have left the building and settled elsewhere.

The Collection of the Finnish Art Society and the Idea of a Museum