Finnish Art History and Sitemap

Hugo Simberg | The Wounded Angel, 1903 | The Finnish National Gallery

Finnish art started to form its individual characteristics in the 19th century, when romantic nationalism began to rise in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland.

Prehistoric art

Marks of human activity in Finland has found in Susiluola, Kristinestad.

Some excavation has been considered as a man-made over 100,000 years ago.

After the Ice Age, area of Finland was resettled at around 9,000 years ago and first known sculpture Elk's Head of Huittinen (picture in stamp) has been dated about 5-7000 BCE.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff | Expressionist painter

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker.

He was one of the four founders of the artist group Die Brücke.

Life and work

Schmidt-Rottluff was born in Rottluff, nowadays a district of Chemnitz, on 1 December 1884.

He attended the humanistische gymnasium (classics-oriented secondary school) in Chemnitz, where he befriended Erich Heckel.

He enrolled in architecture at the Sächsische Technische Hochschule in Dresden in 1905, following in Heckel's footsteps, but gave up after one term.

Van Gogh's "Café Terrace at Night" was inspired by Maupassant's "Bel-Ami"

After finishing Café Terrace at Night, Vincent van Gogh wrote a letter to his sister expressing his enthusiasm:

"You never told me if you had read Guy de Maupassant’s Bel-Ami, and what you now think of his talent in general.

I say this because the beginning of Bel-Ami is precisely the description of a starry night in Paris, with the lighted cafés of the boulevard, and it's something like the same subject that I've painted just now". (Letter 678 from Vincent van Gogh to Wilhelmina van Gogh, Arles, 1888.)

Vincent van Gogh | Café Terrace at Night, 1888 | Kröller-Müller Museum, Netherlands

Ellen Pyle | Magazine illustrator

Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle (1876-1936) was an American illustrator best known for the 40 covers she created for The Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s and 1930s under the guidance of Post editor-in-chief, George Horace Lorimer.

She studied with Howard Pyle and later married Pyle's brother Walter.

Life

Born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia on November 11, 1876, to Newcomb Butler and Kate Ashton Thompson, Ellen began her artistic studies at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in 1895.

Rosalba Carriera | Rococo painter

Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757), a Venetian Rococo painter, was best known for her innovative approach to pastels, which had previously been used for informal drawings and preparatory sketches.

She was also credited with pastel as a medium for serious portraiture that redefined the Rococo manner.

In her younger years, she specialized in portrait miniatures.

Carriera would later become known for her pastel portraits, helping popularize the medium in eighteenth-century Europe.

Marco d'Oggiono | Leonardo's pupil

Marco d'Oggiono (1470-1549) was an Italian Renaissance painter and a chief pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, many of whose works he copied.

He was born at Oggiono near Milan.

Of the details of his life, we know almost nothing - not even the date of his important series of frescoes painted for the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Milan. He probably died in Milan.

Luigi Lanzi gave 1530 as the date of his death, but various writers in Milan say it took place in 1540, and now the best accepted date is 1549.

Edwin Harris | Genre painter

Edwin Harris (1855-1906) was an British painter from Ladywood, Birmingham.

Harris entered the Birmingham School of Art at the age of fourteen, where he worked under Charles Morgan, F G Jackson and Edward R Taylor.

Fellow students included Walter Langley, William John Wainwright and William Breakspeare.

Harris was appointed as assistant master and after two years set up his own studio, painting pictures and giving lessons.

Ashraf Abdel Mohsen, 1964 | Abstract painter / Visionary architect

Dr. Ashraf Abdel Mohsen is an Egyptian artist and futuristic architect who founded founded CUBE Consultants, an architecture studio based in Egypt, in 1990.

Besides running his company, he is also a professor of Architecture at Ain Shams University.

Among the most important achievements would be development of the National Theater development, Khufu Avenue and plaza, the Fustat Open Museum, the New Administrative Capital and finally TUTERA City.