Garden from Haikko

Albert Edelfelt's Garden from Haikko (1887) depicts the garden of Haikko Manor near Porvoo in southern Finland — the estate that became the Finnish painter's summer retreat and the subject of some of his most personal landscape work. Edelfelt had achieved international success with his large figure compositions and portraits; his Haikko garden paintings represent a more intimate and private dimension of his work — the painter at home in a Finnish summer landscape he genuinely loved. Haikko's garden, with its view toward the sea, gave him outdoor subjects that combined the cultivated and the wild in the specific Finnish manner.

Edelfelt renders the Haikko garden with the plein air freshness of his best outdoor work — the specific quality of Finnish summer light, clearer and more direct than French light, falling on garden flowers, paths, and the surrounding landscape. His palette is light-keyed and fresh — the brilliant greens of Finnish summer, the blue of the Baltic in the distance, the warm colors of garden flowers. His technique combines careful observation with the Impressionist-influenced freedom he absorbed during his Paris years.