Finland, part 7: back to Helsinki

With one last day in Finland, I saved the Ateneum, an amazing museum housing a terrific collection of Finnish art, for my last lingering Finnish cultural experience. What a museum! The collection is organized, not by era or art style, but amazingly, by subject matter. So there is a room of horse artwork from all different eras, with a gorgeous 16th century etching featuring horses in battle right next to a surreal horse piece from 1973, next to a bronze of horses plowing from the early 20th century, next to a photograph of horses in a field from 1992. There is a dog room, a cat room, a bird room, and so on. What an amazing plan! It really keeps you interested as you go through the museum. With over 4300 paintings and more than 750 sculptures, there is a lot to see.

the Ateneum art museum, Helsinki

Unfortunately you can't take pictures at the Ateneum so I did some drawings and paintings.

The cool part that really related to my research was getting to see all of the Gallen-Kallela artwork, much of it studies for Kalevala illustrations, as well as actual paintings. Here are some samples of this work that I got from the Ateneum website (click on the pictures to see larger versions):

The Aino Myth

The Fratricide

Kullervo's curse

Lemminkainen's Mother

Kullervo Rides to War

the first lesson (not from the Kalevala but a nice image that might be mirrored in one of the scenes between Tom and his son Arne)

And here are some of the sketches that I did:

Ankseli Gallen-Kallela: study for 'The Giant Pike' (1904)

Ankseli Gallen-Kallela: study for 'The Defense of the Sampo' for the Finnish Pavilion in Paris, 1899

Emil Cedercreutz: Man Plowing, bronze, 1907

Finland is a magical country. I got everything I wanted and more from the trip. On our last day I was frustrated because I had wanted to get a shot of young Tom standing at a wooden ship's wheel, and even though we'd been to the two Maritime Museums and all over the shipyard areas, we hadn't found one. But on our way to the Ateneum art museum on our last day, we decided to walk past the harbour. And there was the Mary Ann, with a lovely, perfect wooden ship's wheel -- and a website painted on her side!


When we got to the museum I called the number on the website, but the person at the other end didn't speak English, so I went down and asked the very nice coat check man to make the call for me and see if we could get permission to go aboard and get the shot. To make a long story short, permission was granted, so after the museum we went back to the hostel and got the camera and Don's costume, and as the rain really started to fall, I got my grey skies over young Tom at the wheel, just as I had imagined the shot.

just like the old photos at the Maritime museums!

Helsinki is of course lovely. Here is just a quick sample of what the city looks like:

train station in the center

gorgeous cathedral

statues depicting scenes and characters from the Kalevala are everywhere; here is Vainamoinen with the jawbone harp made from the giant pike (and some Finnish pigeons)

The trip has been amazing. I feel much better prepared now to tackle not only the character and essence of Tom Sukanen based on his roots, but also the stylistic and cultural considerations of the Kalevala epic and its representation in the film. In addition I have made many new Finnish friends and people who will be willing to help me with things such as music and soundtrack (such as the contact I have at the Folk Music Department at the Sibelius Academy), as well as questions about the Kalevala, maritime history, visual art, folk lore, culture, and, for the future, Finnish film festivals.

I feel ready to head into production back in Canada.

Incidentally, here's a trick question: was this picture taken in Finland or Saskatchewan???


Until next time... Sisu!