“The Lament of the Boat”
Here is a piece from the esteemed Finnish artist, Akseli Gallen-Kallela…
“The Lament of the Boat”, (“Purren valitus”), sometimes referred to as “The Boat’s Lament”, is an oil on canvas painting by the Finnish artist, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, from 1907. This composition is an idea that Gallen-Kallela revisited several times over the years, between 1901 and 1924.
In this piece, Gallen-Kallela depicts a man leaning against a boat. The boat is old and ruined with a large hole visible in the middle. The man, often interpreted as an old warrior, stares off into the distance, remembering past grandeurs. In the upper left, a group of cranes fly past in formation.
The idea for this composition originated as an illustration for The Kalevala, the Finnish epic. In the 1901 version, the model for the main figure was Johannes Front, a Swedish shoemaker. The details differ slightly from the 1907 version. In the back right, a person is drawn stoking a fire along a path. The words, kauko mielisyys, meaning “remoteness”, are written in the border.
In 1906 and 1907, when Gallen-Kallela revisited the idea, he said that the painting reflected his mindset and mood. In 1906, he changed the face of the man to the Finnish composer, Robert Kajanus. Gallen-Kallela was friends with Kajanus and used him as a model several times, including in his controversial painting, “Symposium”, from 1894.
In I907, Gallen-Kallela finished his most famous version of the piece. In 1908, it was exhibited at the House of Knights in Helsinki, Finland. Though it was sought to be purchased for the Antell Delegation, the art collection of Herman Antell that formed the core collection of the Ateneum Art Museum’s collection, Gallen-Kallela declined to sell, as he was afraid it might be copied by the public. In 1908, he sold the painting to Pál Majovsky, the secretary to the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and a friend of the artist.
In 1923, Gallen-Kallela moved to the United States, living first in Chicago and then in Taos, New Mexico, where he worked on illustrations for his unfinished Great Kalevala project. He revisited this composition, painting another variant. In this version, the man wears traditional birch bark shoes and a cap with the colors of the flag of Finland on his head. The birds are missing from the sky, and the background is more detailed.
The painting passed from Majovsky to Minister Onnu Talas, the ambassador of Finland to Hungary. In 1961, Talas’ estate sold the painting to Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, a Finnish bank, which housed the painting in its head office before it stopped operation in 1995. This painting is now part of the Nordea Art Foundation Collection, owned by the Nordea Bank, which owns a large number of important Finnish art.
“The Lament of the Boat” is part of the Nordea Art Foundation Finland Collection, which loans its collections to museums and galleries.
For more on Akseli Gallen-Kallela, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
