The Decades of Realism and National Romanticism

In Finland the period of Realism cannot be defined in terms of precise years or decades. But it can be said that its finest florescence occured in the 1880s. Many traits from previous styles lingered throughout the decade and even after; it was this rather dated and therefore familiar and dependable art that found most favour with the public at large.

The 1880s were above all a decade of plein air painting. Plein air painting meant that the artist literally worked before his subject in the open air. The term plein air was however associated with a wider context: it was a sign of liberation from academic constraints. In terms of colour this meant pureness and light as opposed to the darkness of the asphalttinted academic palette.

The new Realism of the '80s was all in all characterized by a light-filled depiction of reality. Another factor underlying the creation of art was a belief in the triumph of life and truth. Artists were expected to be courageous and unprejudiced in their approach. The artists of the '80s looked with scorn upon the Realism of the of the preceeding decades. They belittled the idealized pictures of common people, the 'misinterpreted sunday-peasants' of the Düsseldorf artists. It was now the duty of the artist to avoid and reject the embroidery and ennoblement of reality. The reality of the here and now was the only true one, because it was the only one the artist might really know. Historical subjects were by their very nature distorted.

The public had difficulties in embracing all these new ideas, and it was the new subject-matter that it tended to reject rather than the technical or artistic realisation of the paintings. The portrayal of distress and poverty would have been readily accepted, had it been done with noble intentions. But it was difficult to stomach pictures of shere misery, the kind which frankly showed that the 1880s was not for all its citizens light, air and noble deeds.