After a while, I knew I liked linear painting. Hugeously. Humongously. It is probably why I’m so fond of Akseli Gallen-Kallela, one of the internationally most famous artists in Finland in his time.

He visualized the national epic of Finland, Kalevala, in a completely original way. Here is an example, called Lemminkäisen äiti, depicting Lemminkäinen and his mother.

Lemminkäinen was a kind of a tragic hero who shot a swan and got thrown into the river of Tuonela (a kind of an underworld) by some lapplander, and his mother had to fish him out and put him back together. Poor guy was only doing what he was told by an evil woman, Louhi, who had promised Lemminkäinen the daughter of Pohjola as a bride.

Gallen- Kallela often used clear, dark outlines, and the paintings depicting stories from Kalevala were all painted like this. I’m not a huge fan of Gallen-Kallela’s other works, even though they’re interesting in their own right and skillfully done.

The following is called Ad Astra, which means “towards the stars” or something like that.

His other works are either symbolist, or depict African scenery. I’m not that much into symbolism, and I’m not so crazy about Africa, either. It’s the Kalevala pictures I like the most. The linear style was often combined with a realistic painting of the actual figures in the pictures, and that’s what I nowadays always do without even thinking about it.

So here’s one of my first attempts at linear painting. I was quite cautious about smudging the outlines with the inner colour.

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The composition is pretty confusing, there’s no perspective, and all the figures stare in different directions. The painting as a whole is hard to take in, so I’ve divided it in individual portraits.

This is supposed to be an Egyptian woman. I’m not sure if there’s anything Egyptian to her features except the hairstyle, and perhaps the thick eyebrows (remember Elizabeth Taylor from Cleopatra?). However, I adore the combination of grass green, white and salmon.

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This one’s a guy with a crown and a princely hairdo. He looks pretty weird, even aside from the expression on his face. At this point, I knew the painting was going to be a mess.

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This guy’s the only one with a body. It looks horrible. Horrible.

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I think I was going for a Greek profile here. They have those magnificent, aquiline noses you know.

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Next! Hmm. Horrible. He’s got that “spilkum” hairdo. It’s the Swedish name for this bowl that was used for churning milk!

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And the reason why this is called a spilkum hairdo is that they put the spilkum bowl on a child’s head, then cut any hair that was long enough to peek from under the brim. Some parents still do that, not literally, but they cut the hair in that stupid way so that it’s even on all sides. Poor kids!

The next one I actually like. The colours, that is.

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There are no words to describe these really… I’m glad I’ve come a long way since this painting.

(Pictures 1 and 2: http://www.helsinki.fi; http://www.bitfrost.it)