Renaissance Man

« The studio-castle Tarvaspää. »

On our way around the solar system, we paid a visit to Akseli Gallen-Kallela's studio-castle in Tarvaspää which is now a museum. [There is also Kaleva, Gallen-Kallela's summer cottage and studio in Ruovesi, which is a little north of Tampere. ] The house was completed in 1913 and is another lovely example of the Jugend architecture of the period. Gallen-Kallela was a particularly talented artist and illustrator who unfortunately died before finishing his seminal work, an illuminated edition of the Kalevala. The castle/museum contains much of his artwork and depicts his openness to new things such as a tiled bath inside the house, a novelty which he came to know in the US when he was visiting there. His artwork was also influenced by his travels and the difference in styles make it easy to see which period of his life each work is from. Cosmopolitan yet one of those most closely associated with the rise of Finnish nationalism and identity.

I must admit that I've not read the entire Kalevala or the lesser known Kanteletar from cover to cover as, like any national epic, it's long and full of references to things that you have to go hunt down the meanings of if you are to fully understand it. I've noticed that the Oxford translation is awfully dry and lacks any of the poetic metre, which might also be a contributing factor, so I'll be giving the Otava edition from 1989 a try since it is regarded as the best English translation. I have been thinking about doing a serial sort of kalevala-a-day blog, in a similar style to the Pepys Diary online, as a way to get me to really read it and annotate it. I managed to register kalevala.info and kanteletar.net so if I don't become totally bored with the idea in the next few weeks I'll do something with it. And the photos from Juhannus may have to wait another day or two as the weather is gorgeous today for a change and I'm going out into the bright light instead of sitting in the dark cave scanning photos. :)