From national romanticism to European influences
It was during the period known as National Romanticism, the Nordic counterpart to Art Nouveau, that Finnish painting acquired its letters of nobility, between 1830 and the beginning of the 20th century. To break away from the Swedish influences of an omnipresent Swedish-speaking elite, painters sought inspiration in Finnish-speaking regions, including Karelia, the birthplace of the Kalevala. Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), a central figure in this movement, drew much of his work from this immense mythological heritage. His large-scale canvases are the most original expression of Finnish art. In a country in search of an identity, writers and composers alike turned to the Karelian forests to unearth their authentic national roots.
Other classical painters came to the fore, such as the von Wright brothers Magnus (1805-1866), Wilhem (1810-1887) and Ferdinand (1822-1906), renowned for their romantic landscapes and bird plates, landscape painter Werner Holmberg (1830-1860) and Robert Wilhem Ekman (1808-1873), who painted heroes from the Kalevala, Finnish mythology. In the mid-19th century, the opening of the École des Beaux-Arts enabled artists to envisage a European career. Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905), one of the first realists, moved to Paris in the 1880s, where he painted a famous portrait of Pasteur. Helena Schjerfbeck (1862-1946), who became one of the country's most famous painters, was one of the first naturalists to open up to modern influences from outside.
From the 1930s onwards, while abstract painting gradually gained ground, surrealism found little echo. The painter Ellen Thesleff (1869-1954) approached abstract expressionism through intuition and a taste for synthesis. National ideals were also expressed in stone, marble and granite, by sculptors such as Wainö Aaltonen (1894-1966). Today, the Ateneum Museum and the Amos Rex Museum in Helsinki offer outstanding collections of paintings, reflecting modern Finnish artistic creation.
The emergence of a new Finnish scene
A bicycle tour of the islands to the west of Helsinki, where sculptures line the walk, is a great way to get some exercise and culture at the same time. These islands, accessible only to pedestrians and cyclists, inspired Finnish artists such as Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) and Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931). Happy Guide Helsinki offers a four- to five-hour tour of these unspoilt landscapes, enhanced by contemporary works of art. The indispensable Kiasma Museum in Helsinki and the Emma Museum in Espoo offer enriching tours of modern and contemporary Finnish art, testimony to a scene in perpetual reinvention. At the Kiasma Museum, whose curvilinear architecture is instantly recognizable, subjects often revolve around ecology, nature and social issues such as feminism. Collections range from the 1960s to the present day.
Among the emerging Finnish scene, Tuomas A. Laitinen (b. 1976) is a protean artist who develops both video installations and sound pieces. Represented by the Helsinki Contemporary gallery, in 2013 he was the first winner of a prize dedicated to emerging artists awarded by the Foundation of the Academy of Fine Arts of Finland. This enabled him to exhibit his work atEmma. His Maps and Mazes project maps the different layers of Helsinki's underground. Sculptor Helena Hietnaten, a graduate of the Aalto University of Art and Design, works with fiber optics, blending traditional Finnish lace-making techniques with high-tech tools. Her luminous sculptures unfold in strange organic shapes.
Photography, an art in full expansion
As elsewhere in Europe, photography began to develop in Finland in the mid-19th century. To discover Finnish photography and its history, visit theFinnish Museum of Photography. Into Konrad Inha (1865-1930) was one of its pioneers, best known for documenting the Finnish countryside, his favorite field of exploration. This was his photographic contribution to the period of national Romanticism, and his contribution to the construction of Finnish cultural identity. In 1910, WSOY, the first Finnish publisher, published A Guide to Helsinki, a collection of sixty photographs Inha took in the capital. In 2009, to celebrate the centenary of this first work, the publisher published an expanded version including one hundred and thirty previously unpublished photographs. This new opus is entitled Helsinki, City of Light. The photographs are of streets, with the addition of beautiful cityscapes overlooking the harbor or inland, where we can make out the omnipresent Nordic architecture, factory smoke and other features of the industrial era. This documentary work is reminiscent of the Lumière brothers' views, although in this case the images are stills. Inha shows the capital in a state of flux, as his tramway passes horse-drawn carriages and passers-by strutting in top hats and crinolines. More recently, English photojournalist Tim Bird, who has lived in Finland since 1982, has produced a comparative series using the same angles as the originals. It can be viewed on the thisisFINLAND website (https://finland.fi/life-society/a-photographic-leap-through-time/), and shows how the capital has evolved over a century.
The country has also seen some dark times. Marked by eugenics movements, the cult of national identity was taken to extremes in the early 20th century. Faced with scientific studies that traced the roots of the Finnish population to migration movements from Mongolia, shameless nationalists used photography to research and establish the "perfect" profile of the Finnish race. This was embodied in the famous athlete Paavo Nurmi (1897-1973), nicknamed "The Flying Finn".
Finland faced numerous economic crises and recessions throughout the 20th century, and it's only in recent decades that its horizon has brightened, with some great successes, particularly on the cultural front. A graduate of Goldsmith College in London, Axel Antas (1976) is part of the generation of contemporary artists forming the new Finnish scene. He has exhibited at the Helsinki Art Museum and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. Through his photographs, he ironically depicts the disconnection between humans and nature. There are a number of events linked to this medium in the capital, such as the Helsinki Biennial of Photography, which originated in the early 1980s with the creation of the "Photographic Art - Art of Everyday Life" festival. The city is also home to Aalto University, which offers photography training of national and international renown. Students' work is even exhibited at theFinnish Museum of Photography!
The recent explosion of street art
Although Finnish street art practices date back to the mid-1980s, they have only recently gained in visibility and appeal in Helsinki. A local zero-tolerance decree severely hampered artists' creativity between 1998 and 2008, but today this art is finally being recognized for its true worth. The career of Jani Hänninen (1974) is an example of the recent success of this medium. Initially a street artist, he turned to painting after his studies at the Beaux-Arts. Strongly influenced by his early graffiti work, his aesthetic is also influenced by abstract expressionism. A practice of gestures - dripping, lacerations, graffiti - that capture the chaos of the contemporary world. His work can be seen at Galerie Anhava, and in 2010 he was awarded the W. Thuring Prize. Thuring Prize for mid-career Finnish artists.
Since the lifting of the ban, many artists and collectives have emerged in the capital, which has since seen a proliferation of murals. These include Upea and Helsinki Urban Art, the latter of which has created a space dedicated to these practices, the Palisa Urban Art Center. In addition to its temporary exhibitions dedicated to the local scene, the Centre organizes a wide range of activities, including evening screenings and workshops with the artists, as well as a number of books on the subject. It's interesting to see artists exhibited in the center's gallery, most of whom remain anonymous, signing their drawings and paintings with the blaze that protects them while making their name on the street. As Itä-Palisa is a well-known district where street art thrives, the collective organizes guided tours (Palisa Street Art Tour) around the district's emblematic sites. A street art map lists all the works in the district - handy for those who don't have time to wander around or who prefer solo visits (https://finland.fi/life-society/a-photographic-leap-through-time/). There is, however, a remarkable fresco in MP5's characteristically pared-down graphic style, in black and white: naked bodies, gazing skywards, surrounded by palm trees, spread out over the two floors of an elevator shaft. Arabianranta is home to Helsinki's first large-scale mural, painted in 2015 in this developing district by Jukka Hakanen. It's partly thanks to this mural that attitudes towards street art have changed in this polite Finnish capital. Suvilahti to the northeast and Kallio to the north are two other districts not to be missed. The Baana passageway, reserved for cyclists and pedestrians, is one of the few places where you can encounter frescoes in downtown Helsinki. The above-mentioned districts are actually located on the outskirts. A collaboration between Brazilian artist Os Gemeos and local star EGS can be seen on the walls of the underground adjacent to the central station.
