Lemminkäinen's Mother

"In her symbolic universality, Lemminkäinen's mother is perhaps the most impressive of Akseli Gallen-Kallela's (1865–1931) paintings on the Kalevala. The theme, based on the Finnish national epic, describes maternal love. The Kalevala warrior and female laugher Lemminkäinen has died because he tried to kill the swan of the Black River in Tuonela. Lemminkäinen's mother females her son's pieces from the river and puts them together. The bee in the picture brings with it the balms of life from the dwellings of the gods. The model of the painting's mother is the artist's own mother. The work was created during the year in a wilderness studio completed in Ruovesi in 1895. After the Aino fable, Gallen-Kallela had renewed the imagery of the Kalevala world into a surface style characteristic of synthetics, emphasizing drawing and large color fields, from 1893. However, there is also a tendency in the painting to faithfully imitate nature. It appears specifically in the mother’s description. Otherwise, the painting reductive styling reaches of time and space beyond, and to emphasize the mythical emotional charge. To enhance the emotional effect, Gallen-Kallela had also started using matte tempera colors instead of oil paints." Description credit: Timo Huusko