Finlandais

1935 · 85291 — Porvoosa: Werner Soderstrom Osakeyhtio 1935. Presumed First Edition First printing. Hardcover. Good/No dust jacket present. Format is approximately 9.5 inches by 12 inches. 59 1 pages of illustrated text and 57 numbered images including one fold-out. Cover is worn and soiled. Decoration on front cover. Decorative endpapers. Hinges have some weakness. Stamp of the Legation of Finland on title page. The artist Jorma Galen-Kallela gave valuable help in the editing work and was thanked by the publisher. Akseli Gallen-Kallela 26 April 1865 - 7 March 1931 was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala the Finnish national epic. His work is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallén to Gallen-Kallela in 1907. In 1884 he moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian. In Paris he became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt the Norwegian painter Carl Dørnberger and the Swedish writer August Strindberg. During this period he traveled back and forth between Finland and Paris. For the Paris World Fair in 1900 Gallen-Kallela painted frescoes for the Finnish Pavilion. In the fresco Ilmarinen Plowing the Field of Vipers there was a hidden political message: one of the vipers is wearing a small Romanov crown telling of Gallen-Kallela's wish for an independent Finland at the time of the Russification of Finland. The Paris Exposition secured Gallen-Kallela's stature as the leading Finnish artist. In 1918 Gallen-Kallela and his son Jorma took part in the fighting of the Finnish Civil War. When General Mannerheim heard about this he invited Gallen-Kallela to design the flags official decorations and uniforms for independent Finland. Onni Okkonen 20 August 1886 - 18 May 1962 was a Finnish art historian based at the University of Helsinki. Okkonen was born in Korpiselkä in Karelia and earned his Ph.D. in 1914. He was appointed professor of art history at the University of Helsinki in 1927 a position that he held until 1945. His main research interests were Finnish art and Italian Renaissance art. His works include an overview of the history of Finnish art Suomen taiteen historia 1945 which was translated into English in 1946 as well as monographies on Wäinö Aaltonen Juho Rissanen and Akseli Gallen-Kallela. He was also active as an art critic for the newspaper Uusi Suomi as well as a fiction writer and painter. He was chairman of the Kalevala Society from 1937 to 1942 and a member of the Academy of Finland from 1948 to 1956. The Kalevala is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth describing the controversies and retaliatory voyages between the peoples of the land of Kalevala called Väinölä and the land of Pohjola and their various protagonists and antagonists as well as the construction and robbery of the epic mythical wealth-making machine Sampo. The Kalevala is regarded as the national epic of Karelia and Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature with J. L. Runeberg's The Tales of Ensign Stål and Aleksis Kivi's The Seven Brothers. The Kalevala was instrumental in the development of the Finnish national identity and the intensification of Finland's language strife that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917. The work is also well known internationally and has partly influenced for example J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium i.e. Middle-earth mythology. The first version of the Kalevala called the Old Kalevala was published in 1835 consisting of 12078 verses. The version most commonly known today was first published in 1849 and consists of 22795 verses divided into fifty folk stories. An abridged version containing all fifty poems but just 9732 verses was published in 1862. In connection with the Kalevala there is another much more lyrical collection of poems also compiled by Lönnrot called Kanteletar from 1840 which is mostly seen as a "sister collection" of the Kalevala. Several artists have been influenced by the Kalevala most notably Akseli Gallen-Kallela who has painted many pieces relating to the Kalevala. Werner Soderstrom Osakeyhtio hardcover