Akseli Gallen-Kallela

• Akseli Gallen-Kallela : Lemminkäisen äiti, 1897, 85,5x108,5 cm, canvas (A I 640, Antell) [© Copyright holders] (61.0 kB)

Gradually Gallen-Kallela realized that it was not possible to capture the spirit of the Kalevala by means of Realism. It called for a more intuitive and simplified approach. Lemminkäinen's Mother (1897) is a story about the wayward Lemminkäinen who is rescued from the river of Tuonela, the river of death, by his mother and brought back to life with the help of a little bee. For Gallen-Kallela Lemminkäinen's mother represented maternal love. The painting shows the scene where the mother has managed to pull her son ashore, but life has not yet returned to him. The painting is filled with symbols of death and signs of the mother's desperation. The greenish pallor of Lemminkäinen's partly covered body, the ominous blackness of the river of Tuonela, the dark swan of death, the golden sunrays, the flowers of death, the river's blood-stained stones, and the lifeless petrified surface of the realm of mortality with its skulls and bones is a far cry from everyday Realism. But the artist has included also a touch of Realism by using his own mother as a model for the mother of Lemminkäinen. Her mournful expression is said by the artist to have resulted from hearing all the sad and oppressing things with which Gallen-Kallela distressed her in order to create the right atmosphere.

Lemminkäisen äiti