SYMBOLISM
Jean Moréas publishne The Manifesto of Symbolim in Le Figaro magazine, Paris 18.9.1886
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Breaking up with visual realism. Art must follow an inner reality
Turning away from the sensory perception into the internal world
Making the invisible into visible.
Subjectivity
Subconscious, dream, intuition, sight, revelation, feeling
The artwork referred beyond the grasp of perception
Inocence and spiritual growth (platonism, f.ex. Magnus Enckell, Väinö Blomstedt) but also
decadence and decay (mysticism, spiritism, occultism, theosophy and esoteric and
anthroposophist theories, f.ex. Gallen-Kallela)
Friedrich Nietzsche, Emanuel Swedenborg, Joséph (Sár) Péladan / Rose & Croix (1892)
Sigmund Freud
According to the symbolists, it was precisely music that was able to achieve an immediate
connection with absolute beauty
The connection between the visual arts and music was one of the bearing forces of Finnish
symbolism (f.ex. Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Jean Sibelius, Robert Kajanus, Oskar Merikanto. Sibelius,
Järnefelt, Halonen, writer Juhani Aho, artist Venny Soldan-Brofeldt, poet Eero Erkko all lived
around the Tuusulanjärvi lake and f.ex. Sibelius and Järnelfelt were also related through
marriage, Järnefelt’s sister Aino was Sibelius’ wife)
SYMBOLISM AS AN EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCES, NATIONAL ROMANTIC IDEALS
AND SPIRITUAL QUEST
AKSELI GALLEN-KALLELA (1865-1931)
• Symbolism in national romantic Kalevala insipired paintings which formed the Finnish
national identity based on mythical history of the finnish people
 Gallen-Kallela also began making graphic art: woodcuts, etchings, posters (best known is the
poster for Edward Munch & Gallen-Kallela exhibition in Berlin 1895), advertisments (best
known is a car company Bil Bol 1907) and ex libris graphics
* Life and Death, 1884
* Madonna (Mary and Impi Marjatta Gallen-Kallela), 1891
* Inspiration, Crépuscule d'atelier, woodcut, 17x10
* In Memoriam Impi Marjatta, 1897, etching, 14x20
* Flower of death, 1895, woodcut, 16,5x14,5
* Flower and death, 1896, colour woodcut, 9,5x5,5
* By the River of Tuonela, preliminary painting for the Mausoleum of Juselius in Pori, 1903, tempera on
canvas, 77x145
* By the River of Tuonela, 1904-1905, colour etching, 17x11
IMAGINATION AND FANTASY
HUGO SIMBERG (1873-1917)
• Fantasy combined with old folk tales, remarks about everyday life and humanistic themes
• Ideas grow from a subjective story-telling into universal symbolic language
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Side by side with his teacher Gallen-Kallela, Simberg found graphic art, etchings and ex libris
graphics, which he produced along with as his favourite working method watercolour in small
scale
* By the River of Life, watercolour and gouache, 1896, 23x14
Landscape
* Evening of spring in Ruovesi, 1897
* Evening in the spring, melting ice, 1897, 27x37, Ateneum
The Death
* Garden of Death, 1896, watercolour and gouache, 15x17, Ateneum, as a fresco in Tampere dome
* Farmer and Death on the gates of Heaven and Hell, 1897, 12x8, Ateneum
* Permissible (Farmer and Death), 1895, 30x20, Ateneum
* Death is listening, 1897, 14x16, Ateneum
The Devil
* Farmer’s wife and the poor devil 1899, 19x12, Ateneum
* The Poor Devil with twins, 1898, watercolour and gouache, Ateneum
* The Ring dance, 1898, 15x23, Ateneum
* The Clock Ringer, 1906
The Angel
* On the Crossroads with an angel and a devil, 1896, 15x18, Ateneum
* The Wounded Angel, 1903, 127x154, Ateneum
* Picking the wings of the angels, 1911, 19x23, Ateneum
Heli Rekula (born 1963)
* Altarpiece from the Theme Pilgrimage Series, 1996, photograph, 162x293 cm
The Nature
* Frost, 1895, watercolour and gouache, 43x34, Ateneum
* Autumn I, 1895, watercolour and gouache, 31x14, Ateneum
* Autumn I, 1896, woodcut, 21x9, Ateneum
* Autumn II, 1898, etching, 23x12, Ateneum
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931)
* Hiisi, 1899, 23x15, Kiasma
Imagination
* Fairytale I, 1895, watercolour and gouache, 25x16, Ateneum
* Fairytale,1898, etching, 21x13, Ateneum
* The Elf king is sleeping, 1896, watercolour and gouache, 19x28, Ateneum
* Yawning Snake on the Caucasian mountains, 1899, Simberg was travelling in Caucasia in 1899
Tampere Dome , 1902-1907
- Architect Lars Sonck
- Altar piece ”Resurrection” by Magnus Enckell
- Frescos by Hugo Simberg: the Garland BEarers, the Snake of Paradise, Wounded Angel, Garden
of Death
DECADENCE AND DECAY VERSUS INNOCENCE AND SPIRITUAL GROWTH
Magnus Enckell (1870-1925)
- Enckell represents a Paris-oriented symbolism. He had contacts f.ex. with the Rose and Croix –group.
His style and ideals also have their roots in the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, Joseph Péladan, Oscar
Wilde and Arnold Böcklin as well as “black colorism” – that is shadow&light luminarism - of the French
artist Eugen Carrière. Correspondence between spiritual and material, music and painting as well as
the controversy of fin de siècle decadence and decay and search for innocence and spiritual growth
* Death wandering, 1896, watercolour and pencil, 50x67, Ateneum
* Awakening, 1894, 113x85, Ateneum
* A boy with a skull, 1893, watercolour and charcoal, 66x95, Ateneum
Masculine – Feminine
Eros – Purity
Sin - Innocence
Väinö Blomstedt (1871-1947)
* Archer, 1897
* Diana hunting, 1910s
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931)
* Démasquée, 1888, 65x54 cm
* Ad Astra, 1907
* Symposion, 1894
* Conceptio Artis, 1894, 65x47
* The Queen of Babylon, 1899
Franz von Stuck (1863-1928, Germany) Sin, 1893
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918, Austria) Judith and the Head of Holofernes, 1901