Kekki the Farm-Hand

Painted in 1885, Kekki the Farm-Hand is a work by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, now in the collection of Ateneum, that reflects the artistic concerns of the late 19th century — an era of fundamental transformation in both the methods and purposes of European and American painting. Akseli Gallen-Kallela was Finland's greatest national artist, whose illustrations of the Finnish epic Kalevala became central to Finnish cultural identity and the project of national self-definition in the period leading to independence. Trained in Helsinki and Paris, he moved from French naturalism toward a bold Symbolist style perfectly suited to his mythological subjects.

Gallen-Kallela's mature style features strong, simplified outlines and flat areas of intense color reflecting both Symbolist influence and Art Nouveau decorative sensibility. His Finnish forest landscapes are rendered with almost iconic directness — dark pines, granite-gray lakes.