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Over to you...What do you think of this painting? A selection of comments will be published on the site. |
Painting of the MonthAkseli Gallen-Kallela, 'Lake Keitele', 1905. As Russian landscapes fill the Sainsbury Wing exhibition galleries, we focus on a related work in the National Gallery's collection. Like their counterparts in Russia, painters in Finland also used landscape to explore issues of national identity - their country had yet to achieve independence from Russia. The Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela made a hauntingly beautiful painting of silvery light on the waters of Lake Keitele, where he spent the summer of 1904. It draws on ancient poems about the mythic origins of Finland, as well as using the silent emptiness of the landscape itself to full evocative effect. Find out more about the ghostly traces left by the hero Väinämöinen, and how Gallen-Kallela's art relates to the work of avant-garde painters from other countries.
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