Eero Järnefelt

• Eero Järnefelt : Raatajat rahanalaiset, 1893, 131x164 cm, oil, canvas (A I 514) [© Copyright holders] (50.3 kB)

Finnish Realism did not regard peasants with pity but through statement of fact or idolizing. In this respect Eero Järnefelt's painting The Wage Slaves (1893) holds a special position in Finnish art. It was painted near Lapinlahti, at Puurula where land was cleared for cultivation by the traditional method of burnbeating. Following with the principles of plein air painting Järnefelt excecuted the work in situ, with people of the house and neighbours as his models. The principal figure of the painting is a young girl with a soot-covered face, who stares directly at the viewer.

The title to the painting gives some clues about its origins. The name comes from a line in the Kalevala: 'when the maid of all the smallest, she the handmaid hired for money'. In other words these labourers are hired men and women, who receive their pay in corn, given that the crops do not fail. The year in which the picture was painted was the second bad year of the decade. The workers here depicted were in for hard times and the girl in the picture knew it.

The Wage Slaves has provoked much discussion in Finnish art history. On the one hand it has been seen as a purely Tolstoyan, socially committed portrayal of proletarian suffering, and on the other as a religious work, in which case attention has been drawn to the saint-like portrayal of the young girl, the halo of smoke around her head and the devout atmosphere of the beautifully depicted romantic wilderness with its woodland scenery stretching into the blue distance.

The Wage Slaves is unique in the artist's entire output. Not once did Eero Järnefelt return to depicting enslaved and exploited Finnish peasants. All his subsequent portrayals of the people were in a humorous, genre style.

Raatajat rahanalaiset