Lemminkäinen's Mother

Lemminkäinen's Mother
ArtistAkseli Gallen-Kallela
Year1897
MediumTempera
Dimensions85 cm × 108.5 cm (33 in × 42.7 in)
LocationAteneum, Helsinki

Lemminkäinen's Mother (Lemminkäisen äiti) is an 1897 Romantic nationalist painting by Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela.[1] The painting illustrates a passage from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century.[2][3]

The painting depicts a scene from a poem where the hero Lemminkäinen has died and his mother has dredged the pieces of her son's lifeless body from the river of Tuonela and sewn them together again. She is shown with the body in pietà style, waiting for the bee, a messenger of the god Ukko (god of the sky, weather, harvest, and thunder), to bring her honey from the gods to bring her son to life again.[1][4]

References

  1. ^ a b "Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Kalevala". Ateneum. Archived from the original on 24 December 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  2. ^ Timonen, Senni (21 March 2005). "Lemminkäisen äiti". Kansallisbiografia. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
  3. ^ "Lemminkäisen arvoitus". Serlachius. 9 January 2020. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
  4. ^ "Kauden klassikko 11.10.2013–16.2.2014, Gallen-Kallelan Lemminkäisen äiti". Korundi. Retrieved 21 August 2020.


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