Lars-Gunnar Nordström, Blue Moment, 1948–49, colour woodcut, 26.5cm x 40cm Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen

Editorial: Fresh Insights from a New Look at our National Collections

Marja Sakari

Marja Sakari, PhD, Museum Director, Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum

 

April 3, 2023

 

As I write this Editorial, the Ateneum Art Museum is about to reopen. Following a year of renovation work the museum will look different; in addition to replacing the entire air-conditioning system, we have renovated the public spaces in the basement with a new-look museum shop and other services in the court area, a new toilet area and newly organised tickethall. The grand staircase has been repainted and cleaned; the Ateneum auditorium has a new technical equipment and the workshop a new interior design.

This renovation period also gave us the opportunity to rework the collection display and we reopen the museum with our new collection exhibition ‘A Question of Time’. This thematic display aims to challenge the way in which the collection of the Finnish National Gallery has traditionally been viewed. Instead of the usual chronological approach, ‘A Question of Time’ presents the collection through four themes – The Age of Nature, Images of a People, Modern Life and Art and Power – that range across different eras and draw on today’s burning issues. There are questions hovering in the background. How has the Ateneum collection been built up over the years? How can it be a collection for everyone? In this edition of FNG Research we present the collection display through the lens of an interview with Anne-Maria Pennonen and Mariia Niskavaara, the two curators of the theme The Age of Nature which we have chosen as the most urgent issue of our time to be foregrounded in ‘A Question of Time’.

A new biography in English about the art and life of Helene Schjerfbeck also challenges the traditional view of one of Finland’s most beloved artists. Art historian Marja Lahelma’s online book Helene Schjerfbeck: An Artist’s Life is published alongside this edition of FNG Research.

Our spring edition highlights two exhibition projects, namely the upcoming Albert Edelfelt exhibition at the Ateneum Art Museum and the current exhibition and research project on Alexander Lauréus, held at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. Two articles are dedicated to Edelfelt. First, in ‘A Discovered Painting: Albert Edelfelt’s Study for Woman from Arles’, the art historian Laura Gutman spotlights a painting that was not known before and had not been mentioned in Bertel Hintze’s authoritative catalogue raisonné. In her complementary article, ‘How Albert Edelfelt’s Portrait of Mme Dani Turned into Study for Woman from Arles’, Tuulikki Kilpinen analyses the same painting from the conservator’s viewpoint.

Turning to the Sinebrychoff Art Museum’s programme, Gill Crabbe sheds light on a project that led to the current exhibition of Alexander Lauréus, in an interview with the curators Ira Westergård and Lotta Nylund, whose doctoral thesis on Lauréus has been the research base for the show.

The philosophical questions behind conservation and restoration form the subject of Ari Tanhuanpää’s article ‘On the Will of Preservation’, also in this issue. The concerns he contemplates are especially pertinent today, not least when the cultural heritage of Ukraine is being destroyed in the wake of hideous war.

While Ari Tanhuanpää’s article differs in subject from Tuulikki Kilpinen’s, both underline different aspects of the importance of conservation. Kilpinen’s case study shows how essential it can be to collaborate with art historians in the process of authenticating an artwork. Together with Laura Gutman’s research we can now prove that the painting sold in 2019 at an auction in Paris is an authentic work by Albert Edelfelt. In addition, the painting, which was earlier considered to be a portrait of Mme Dani, is in fact a study (1891–93) for Edelfelt’s painting Woman from Arles (1893).

Tanhuanpää’s philosophical and deep pondering upon the meaning and premises of conservation is an important statement for the preservation of culture in general. In introducing the ideas of Cesare Brandi, who bases his thinking on semiotics and phenomenology, Tanhuanpää points to the importance of considering an artwork as more than its materials and how it should thus be safeguarded. The art object remains self-identical across time, even if damaged by time. And it is just there that conservation is needed, to maintain the authenticity and originality of the object’s ontological essence. It means preserving an artwork’s pure form. This, according to Tanhuanpää, is a paradox as artworks are mostly materials and a conservator is dealing mainly with materials. But while taking care of its materials, a conservator succeeds at the same time in maintaining the essence of the piece. From there comes the imperative to maintain the materials for as long as possible. Tanhuanpää discusses whether the Kantian categorical imperative from which Brandi derives his thinking can be applied to conservation.

When I read the interview with Mariia Niskavaara and Anne-Maria Pennonen alongside Ari Tanhuanpää’s article, somehow they seem to be connected. Both address the meaning of safeguarding art, to make us remember and but also to make us witnesses in time. The points both these articles make are basically the same. While conserving artworks we, as humans, have the chance to prevent something spiritually and intellectually invaluable from disappearing, in the same way that with the theme of The Age of Nature, the museum attempts to contribute to activities that could slow down climate change and ultimately avert catastrophe.

Finally, we are delighted to announce the results of the selection process of our two research interns for 2023. We look forward to publishing the outcomings of their research next year.

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Featured image: Lars-Gunnar Nordström, Blue Moment, 1948–49, colour woodcut, 26.5cm x 40cm.  Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen

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Ferdinand von Wright, Pigs and Magpies, 1875, oil on canvas, 63cm x 83cm Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen

A Question of Time

Gill Crabbe

Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

As the Ateneum Art Museum reopens to present its new-look display of its permanent collection, Gill Crabbe discusses its core theme with the curator Anne-Maria Pennonen and doctoral candidate Mariia Niskavaara and asks how they set about their radical approach in viewing its artworks through the lens of today’s urgent world issues 

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This spring, if you walk into the Central Hall of the Ateneum Art Museum, the architectural heart of this elegant neoclassical building which houses the Finnish National Gallery’s Ateneum Art Museum collections, you will no longer encounter the grand Golden Age paintings that have long resided there as lauded foundation works in the canon of Finnish art. Gone are the classic monumental canvases of Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Pekka Halonen, and Albert Edelfelt, some to be dispersed across other rooms in the new reworking of the collections display. Instead, in this cream of the Gallery’s exhibition spaces one finds a dynamic mix of works old and new, famous and less well-known, large-scale and small, some iconic in a new way, some charming and some frankly confronting. And their common ground? All are reflecting one of the most urgent issues on today’s world agenda – Nature.

For the age of nature is the age which it is said we are now entering; having traversed at ever-increasing speed the anthropocene, we are now beginning to face a world that places humans and non-humans on a more equal footing, as we start to realise the impact of humans on the non-human world. Thus for the Ateneum Art Museum’s new collections display the theme of The Age of Nature has emerged, following discussions, consultations and copious research, as the central topic alongside three others: Art and Power, Images of a People, and Modern Life. These four themes together provide a lens through which we can view afresh the Gallery’s collections under the umbrella title of the exhibition ‘A Question of Time’.

Since 2016, when the previous reworking of the collections display opened to mark the centenary of Finnish Independence with the theme ‘Stories from Finnish Art’, the world has changed more than we could possibly have imagined, with Covid-19, war in Ukraine, widespread economic recession, the energy crisis and of course climate change. These urgent issues seek expression through an art that not only reflects these changes but more importantly can respond to them, to educate the art-going public, and ultimately to change people’s lives. The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture’s policy programme for 2030 exhorts museums to do just that: as the Museum’s Director Marja Sakari writes introducing the new collection display in her foreword to the catalogue of the exhibition, ‘(t)he values it sets for museums are community and interactivity, reliability and continuity, pluralism and democracy, courage and open-mindedness […] thereby creating opportunities for creativity, education, identity-building and understanding change’. And one important way to embrace those values is to present the canon of art history through concerns that are pivotal today, because to understand the past is to understand how we reached this point of the present, and to contemplate how we might take our next steps into the future.

So how did the Ateneum Art Museum go about exploring these pressing issues of our time in curating this new display; and more specifically how did the curators of the Central Hall’s theme of The Age of Nature create a display that goes beyond a specific narrative to invite viewers to join a conversation that can have a real impact on their lives and on the world today?

‘Our express purpose in the process has been to critically discuss the canon of Finnish art and radicalise the ways in which our collection is customarily viewed,’ Sakari writes. ‘From the outset, an important factor in the planning of the new collection display was making the curatorial process transparent and opening it to discussion.’ Aligned to this was a need for larger curatorial teams and a fresh look at involving external actors. Accordingly, over the winter of 2021–22, the Museum organised a discussion series, together with the Bildung+ project of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra (an independent organisation which fosters research and co-operation in building sustainable futures) under the theme of ‘Perspectives on Time and Power’. The purpose was to consider how the Finnish National Gallery’s art collections can be viewed from the perspectives of climate crisis, identity and equality.

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Featured image: Ferdinand von Wright, Pigs and Magpies, 1875, oil on canvas, 63cm x 83cm
Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen
Public domain. This image of a work of art is released under a CC0 licence, and can be freely used because the copyright (70 full calendar years after the death of the artist) has expired.
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Helene Schjerfbeck, c. 1895 Photographer unknown Archived Photo Prints. Archive Collections, Finnish National Gallery Photo: Finnish National Gallery

Helene Schjerfbeck – An Artist’s Life

Marja Lahelma

Marja Lahelma, PhD, art historian

In the past decade, Helene Schjerfbeck, one of Finland’s most celebrated artists, has received increasing international recognition, yet her biographies have been available only in Finnish and Swedish. Now art historian Marja Lahelma reassesses the painter’s life and oeuvre in this first biography published in English. We hope that in publishing this book online, this project initiated by the Ateneum Art Museum will meet the growing demand from professional enthusiasts keen to find out more about this innovative artist who boldly followed her own path towards modernism.

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Marja Lahelma: Helene Schjerfbeck – An Artist’s Life

Publisher Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki,  2023
Editor-in-Chief Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff
Editor and Picture Editor Hanna-Leena Paloposki
Language Revision Gill Crabbe
Graphic Design Lagarto / Jaana Jäntti and Arto Tenkanen
Copyright Authors and the Finnish National Gallery
ISBN 978-952-7371-63-3 (pdf)
ISSN 2343-0850 (FNG Research)

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction
Early Years
  • Childhood
  • An Art Student in Helsinki
  • An Artistic Debut
In the Big Wide World
  • À Paris!
  • Finistère
  • Boulevards and Ateliers
  • St Ives
Artistic Transformation
  • In the Footsteps of the Old Masters
  • Endings and New Beginnings
  • A Room of Her Own
  • Towards Synthesis
The Modernist
  • The ‘Renaissance’
  • Friends and Promoters
  • The First Solo Exhibition
Surface and Depth
  • Materials and Inspirations
  • The Painter of Modern Life
  • Variations and Reinterpretations
Grand Finale and Afterlife
  • The Second World War
  • The Late Self-Portraits
  • Life After Death

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Featured image: Helene Schjerfbeck, c. 1895
Photographer unknown
Archived Photo Prints. Archive Collections, Finnish National Gallery
Photo: Finnish National Gallery

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Albert Edelfelt, Study for Woman from Arles, 1891–93, oil on canvas, 41.5cm x 32cm Albert Edelfelt Association, Paris Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen

A Discovered Painting: Albert Edelfelt’s Study for Woman from Arles

Laura Gutman

Laura Gutman, Diploma of Advanced Research of the Ecole du Louvre, art historian, independent curator

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On 22 November 2019, the Albert Edelfelt Association[1] bought a portrait in an auction organised by Morand & Morand at the Hôtel Drouot, in Paris. The painting, which had remained in France since its creation, was not listed in Bertel Hintze’s catalogue raisonné of the Finnish artist Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905), which serves as the authoritative reference book on the artist. The oil painting was described as a portrait of Marie Félicité Dani, wife of Francis de Saint-Vidal, and signed Albert Edelfelt. The indication of provenance was the Dani family estate.[2]

As the work was not catalogued, a material and historical study was undertaken to ensure its authenticity, as well as ascertaining its place in the painter’s oeuvre. In April 2021, when travel became possible again after the Covid-19 pandemic, the painting was brought to Finland to be conserved and studied by Tuulikki Kilpinen, a member of the Albert Edelfelt research team.[3]

This essay retraces the historical research, from false leads to coincidences, that made it possible to retrieve the painting into Albert Edelfelt’s production. It leads to and sheds light on another little-studied work by the artist, preserved in Finland. The two paintings are being reunited on the occasion of the Ateneum Art Museum’s Albert Edelfelt exhibition in the spring of 2023.

False leads and valuable information

The investigation of the model and her husband in the early stages of the research yielded some more information. Marie Félicité Dani (1864–1950) was a sought-after model, who posed for several artists. In 1895, she married Francis Porral de Saint-Vidal (1840–1900), a renowned French academic sculptor who exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français between 1875 and 1898.

The talent of Saint-Vidal had already been noticed in 1865 by Alexandre Dumas fils. The writer introduced the young sculptor to his renowned friend Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–75), who became his professor. Saint-Vidal was indebted to Carpeaux’s neo-rococo style and is considered his follower. He produced several portraits of celebrities (e.g. Ludvig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, and the soprano Jeanne Granier), works which were appreciated for their expressive power, as well as a monument dedicated to the painter Alphonse de Neuville (1889).[4]

Originally based in Bordeaux, Francis de Saint-Vidal was an elected member of the National Academy of Science, Literature and Fine Arts of Bordeaux from 1876 until 1882, when he moved to Paris. The Five Parts of the World, a monumental fountain placed under the Eiffel Tower during the World Fair of 1889, was the breakthrough for the artist, who was rewarded with a bronze medal. He exhibited for the last time in 1898 and died in 1900 in Riom; Marie Félicité Dani was his widow.[5]

The name of Saint-Vidal was forgotten after his bronze monuments were melted down during the German occupation to be reused in the Second World War. A marble fountain placed in Setif, in Algeria, has been vandalised in recent years for its depiction of female nudity. The loss has ultimately created a renewed interest in this forgotten sculptor.[6]

The private life of Saint-Vidal had been quite turbulent. Married in Bordeaux in 1869 to Mathilde Hernozant, he divorced her in 1890. He lived in an open relationship with Irma Antoinette Delmas, and also with Anna-Marie Tréouret de Kerstrat[7]. Children were born from each union.

Marie Félicité Dani and Francis Porral de Saint-Vidal were married on 29 June 1895 at the French Consulate in Florence. Their marriage was registered at the end of the year in Nice[8], the city of her birth. The desire to avoid scandal may explain these circumstances, the two spouses being divorced. Marie Félicité Dani had divorced Louis-Zacharie Dalaise in 1894, with whom she had two children.

The initial hypothesis of a link between Saint-Vidal and Edelfelt, as suggested by the auction house when revealing the painting, was misleading. There seems to have been no connection between the two artists other than their common appreciation of the beauty of Marie Félicité Dani. It is unclear how the painting entered the family estate, whether it was a gift or a purchase due to the quality of the portrait.

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[1] The Albert Edelfelt Association has been set up in Paris by the French relatives of Albert Edelfelt, descended from the Swedish line of the artist’s father, Carl Albert Edelfelt. Dedicated to improving the knowledge and appreciation of the art and life of Albert Edelfelt, it reaches out to, among others, the French-speaking audience on the internet: www.albertedelfelt.com (accessed 18 February 2023).

[2] Morand & Morand, Commissaires-priseurs [auctioneer], Drouot, Vente intérieurs parisiens, 22 November 2019, lot 109.

[3] See Tuulikki Kilpinen’s article ‘How Albert Edelfelt’s Portrait of Mme Dani  turned out to be Study for Woman from Arles’ in this same issue 1/2023 of FNG Research, https://research.fng.fi/2023/04/03/how-albert-edelfelts-portrait-of-mme-dani-turned-into-study-for-woman-from-arles/. The Edelfelt research team – Edelfelt expert, art historian Marina Catani, specialist scientist Seppo Hornytzkyj and conservator Tuulikki Kilpinen – has studied Albert Edelfelt’s artworks many times during the past decades and also published articles on their research.

[4] Prosper Georges Marcelin Bouniceau-Gesmon. M. F. de Saint-Vidal et sa fontaine, étude critique. Paris: Alphonse Lemerre Editeur, 1889.

[5] Registre des décès [Death Register] [6 E 3253]. Archives départementales du Puy-de-Dôme, https://www.archivesdepartementales.puy-de-dome.fr/ (accessed 10 May 2022).

[6] Armand Vial. La Belle de la source. Alger: Tafat Editions, 2021.

[7] I am grateful to the sculptor Laurent Davidson for information on his great-grandfather. Laurent Davidson’s email to the author, 9 May 2022.

[8] Registre des mariages [Wedding Register], Nice 1895. Archives départementales des Alpes-Maritimes, https://www.departement06.fr/culture/archives-departementales-2797.html (accessed 15 May 2022).

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Featured image: Albert Edelfelt, Study for Woman from Arles, 1891–93, oil on canvas, 41.5cm x 32cm
Albert Edelfelt Association, Paris
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen

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An ultraviolet image of Albert Edelfelt’s Portrait of a Woman, showing the fluorescence of organic red lake in the red areas and zinc white composed of inorganic pigments in the yellow areas. The pink colour of the skin is a mix of several pigments, of which fluorescence occurs only in red lake and zinc white Photo: Tuulikki Kilpinen

How Albert Edelfelt’s Portrait of Mme Dani Turned into Study for Woman from Arles

Tuulikki Kilpinen

Tuulikki Kilpinen, independent conservator

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Introduction

A small oil painting, which was auctioned in Paris at the Hôtel Drout on 22 November 2019, arrived from France at my studio in the spring of 2021 for authentification and conservation at the request of the new owner, the Albert Edelfelt Association in Paris and its president Sven Edelfelt. The notes accompanying the sale cited the auction catalogue of Morand & Morand, and Lot no. 109 was a portrait of Mme Marie Félicité Dani (1864–1950), the wife of French sculptor Francis de Saint-Vidal, painted by the Finnish artist Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905). The provenance was the family estate.[1] The work appeared to be in poor condition and to have been neglected. It is not included in the catalogue raisonné of Albert Edelfelt compiled by art historian Bertel Hintze (in Finnish 1953) and there was no sketch that resembled it in the sketchbooks. At the auction the painting was dated as 1884.

A research team was gathered to study the painting. This included the art historian and Edelfelt specialist Marina Catani, a specialist researcher in pigment analysis Seppo Hornytzkyj and myself as an expert in painting techniques and materials. The team had worked together earlier on other Edelfelt paintings.[2] The art historian Laura Gutman joined the team to study the French archives. Each of us had our own specialty, but we all needed more biographical information about Mme Dani, the painting, and her sculptor husband from France. Research on artworks usually begins with art-historical studies on the provenance with the aid of archival material. In this case, however, there were inconsistencies in the work’s provenance information and in the messages gleaned from its materials. Thus, at the request of the owner, the team agreed to begin first with the conservation, contrary to its usual procedure. We had to find a link connecting the supposed model with Albert Edelfelt’s life and works. The varied research photos were of no use to begin with[3]. Our work started in May 2021.

In this article, I present the material and technical research that we have carried out and show how some parts of the missing art-historical information can be supplemented with this kind of research, applying the methodology of technical art history[4]. I also compare the artwork under study with other works by Edelfelt that the Edelfelt research team had previously studied, namely Queen Bianca (1877) and Portrait of the Opera Singer Aino Ackté (1901), as well as a new study for Portrait of Zachris Topelius (1889). While our research was underway Laura Gutman studied French archival sources and was able to shed new light on the owner and the provenance information, as well as on the date of the studied painting as described in her article ‘A Discovered Painting: Albert Edelfelt’s Study for Woman from Arles’.[5] As a result, the date of the painting was first shifted to 1895–97, and then pinpointed to 1891, based on various written sources.

Thanks to further research, both Marina Catani and Laura Gutman could connect the painting under study with Edelfelt’s Woman from Arles (1893), which resides in the collection of Tampere Art Museum. That is why I have also examined that work and compare it with the painting under study. In this paper I use the title Portrait of a Woman to denote the painting which was sold as a portrait of Mme Dani, until our research found it to be the study for Woman from Arles. I will show how the research carried out by the Edelfelt research team reveals the painting technique and materials that connect the work with Albert Edelfelt’s production.

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[1] Text in the auction catalogue: ‘Portrait de Marie Félicité Dani, (1864-1950) épouse de Francis de Saint-Vidal, de profil. / Huile sur toile, signée vers le bas à droite /41.5cm x 32cm. / (Accident visible en bas, à gauche / Trace de clous visibles sur les bordures gauche et supérieure) / […] Provenance: descendance de Marie Félicité DANI épouse de Francis de SAINT VIDAL et resté dans la famille depuis l’origine.’

[2] The Edelfelt Studio Practice Team (Catani, Hornytzkyj & Kilpinen) was active in the years 1998–2005 at the Finnish National Gallery. They compiled a database of 14 paintings by Albert Edelfelt, of which 5 are published: Tuulikki Kilpinen. ‘Metamorphosis on a canvas: a painting process reconstructed by literary and pictorial sources and material study’, in Conservare Necesse est. Festkrift till Leif Plahters på hans 70-årsdag. Oslo: IIC Nordic Group, 1999, 176–85; Tuulikki Kilpinen. ‘Impressionismin imussa, tutkimus Albert Edelfeltin Pariisin Luxembourgin puistosta – maalauksesta’, in Kirsi Kaisla (ed.), Edelfelt Pariisissa. Turun taidemuseon julkaisuja 2/2001 – Tikanojan taidekodin julkaisuja 2/2001. Turku: Turun taidemuseo, 2001; Tuulikki Kilpinen. ‘Modulations sur la toile: La Reine Blanche d’Albert Edelfelt’, in Pierre Curie (ed. and trans. in French), Histoire de l’art, 50, 2002, 65–76; Tuulikki Kilpinen and Marina Catani. ‘Kaleidoscopic exuberance and colour ascetism: Edelfelt’s portrait of Ackté, 1901’, in Ashok Roy & Perry Smith (eds.), Modern Art, New Museums. Bilbao: IIC Guggenheim Museum, 2004, 129–32; Tuulikki Kilpinen and Marina Catani. ‘Ou est l’enfant? Pinnan alle – Albert Edelfetin Lapsen ruumissaatto, 1879’, in Erkki Anttonen (ed.), Edelfelt: Matkoja, maisemia ja naamiaisia. Helsinki: WSOY, 2004, 31–50.

[3] The imaging concerned (VIS = visible radiation) from the front and reverse in both symmetrical and raking light, ultraviolet and infrared radiation with a Nikon 600 digital system camera, date 1–3 June 2021.

[4] An introduction to technical art history (in Finnish): Tuulikki Kilpinen. ‘Rantamaiseman tapaus’, in Auli Martiskainen (ed.), Elämän jälkiä, ikoneja. Konservaattori Helena Nikkasen juhlakirja. Heinävesi: Lintulan luostari, 2015, 137–48.

[5] See the mentioned article in FNG Research 1/2023, https://research.fng.fi/2023/04/03/a-discovered-painting-albert-edelfelts-study-for-woman-from-arles/.

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Featured image: An ultraviolet image of Albert Edelfelt’s Portrait of a Woman, showing the fluorescence of organic red lake in the red areas and zinc white composed of inorganic pigments in the yellow areas. The pink colour of the skin is a mix of several pigments, of which fluorescence occurs only in red lake and zinc white
Photo: Tuulikki Kilpinen

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Retouching a painting at the Conservation Unit of the Finnish National Gallery. Photo: Finnish National Gallery /Jenni Nurminen

On the Will of Preservation

Ari Tanhuanpää

Ari Tanhuanpää, PhD, senior conservator, Finnish National Gallery

An extended version of the paper presented at the 3rd International Artefacta Conference ‘Agency’, University of Turku, Finland, 16–17 February 2023

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Introduction

There are countless artworks and other objects of cultural heritage that have been destroyed, intentionally or unintentionally, over the course of history. This fact seems to call into question the categorical imperative for conservation that Cesare Brandi (1906‒88) put forward in his theory of conservation (Teoria del restauro, 1963). Brandi ‒ an art historian, art theorist, critic, and poet[1] ‒ is one of the most cited names in conservation theory, but this particular issue has received surprisingly little attention among Brandi scholars. Brandi claimed that when an individual encounters an artwork they ‘feel immediately an imperative […] for conservation’.[2] Yet one might ask whether Brandi’s imperative has anything to do with what is happening in the real world or is there a serious flaw in his reasoning?

Cesare Brandi´s Teoria del restauro

It should be noted that Brandi theoretically deals only with artworks in his book, which can be considered a shortcoming.[3] Brandi’s theory of conservation is connected to his art theory, which is based on semiotics and phenomenology; he has been influenced by philosophers such as Benedetto Croce (1866‒1952), Edmund Husserl (1859‒1938), Martin Heidegger (1889‒1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905‒80) and Jacques Derrida (1930‒2004).[4] The concept of presence is crucial in it ‒ that is the immediate presence of the artwork that is distinct from the parousia of the factual existence. Brandi underlines that the artwork does not signify: it ‘presentifies’.[5] Regardless of the date of creation of the artwork, it ‘is not given in the past […] [but] in the present’.[6] Brandi refers to this ‘pure reality’ (realtà pura) using his neologism astanza, or ‘adstance’ (a word derived from the Latin, adstare, ‘proximity’) and contrasts it with flagranza or the ‘flagrance’ of existential and empirical reality.[7] Brandi cites John Dewey’s book Art as Experience (1934): ‘A work of art […] is actually and not just potentially a work of art when it lives in some individualised experience. As a piece of parchment, of marble, or canvas, it remains (subject, however, to the ravages of time) self-identical throughout the ages. But as a work of art, it is recreated every time it is aesthetically experienced. This means that, until such a re-creation or recognition ‒ in Brandian terms, riconoscimento ‒ occurs, the work of art is only potentially a work of art […]. It is simply a piece of parchment, or marble or canvas.’[8]

Brandi did not address this distinction in his theory of conservation, but it is central to his concept of art. In Brandian terms, the conservation of an artwork means preserving its pure form. Paradoxically, the physical materials of the artwork, on which the conservation treatments must exclusively focus, are secondary to this ‒ physical matter is completely subordinate to image; its only function is to act as a medium for the manifestation of the image. This gives rise to the requirement that conservation must aim to preserve the material of the artwork for as long as possible.[9]

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[1] Brandi published monographs on Giorgio Morandi (1941), Duccio (1951), and Giotto (1983). He wrote several art theoretical studies, on painting (Carmine o della pittura, 1962), on sculpture (Arcadio o della scultura, 1956), on architecture (Eliante o dell’architettura, 1956), and on poetry (Celso o della poesia, 1957). His theoretical work culminated in three works: Segno e immagine (1960), Le due vie (1966), and Teoria generale della critica (1974). Brandi served for a long time as director of Italy’s most important conservation institute Istituto Centrale del Restauro (ICR), in Rome (currently Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro (ISCR).

[2] I use the second edition of Teoria del restauro (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1977) as my reference. The English edition of the book, translated by Cynthia Rockwell, was published in 2005, Theory of Restoration, edited by Giuseppe Basile (Firenze: Nardini Editore). A more correct translation for the title would be Theory of Conservation.

[3] Brandi states that the concept of conservation is not to be articulated ‘on the basis of the practical procedures in which it is carried out, but in relation to the work of art as such from which it receives its qualification’. Cesare Brandi. Restoration. Theory and Practice. Edited by Giuseppe Basile. Associazione Internazionale per la storia e l’attualità del restauro – per Cesare Brandi. Palermo: AISAR editore, 2015, 16, http://www.aisarweb.com/images/ebooks/brandi-restoration-theory-and-practice.pdf (accessed 6 January 2023).

[4] See, e.g. Paolo D’Angelo. Cesare Brandi. Critica d’arte e filosofia. Macerata: Quodlibet, 2006.

[5] Cesare Brandi. Les deux voies de la critique. Trans. Paul Philippot. Bruxelles: Vokar, 1989, 51.

[6] Cited by Massimo Carboni in his Cesare Brandi. Teoria e esperienza dell’arte. Milano: Jaca Book, 2004, 44‒45.

[7] Paul Philippot. ‘The Phenomenology of Artistic Creation according to Cesare Brandi’, in Cesare Brandi. Theory of Restoration. Edited by Giuseppe Basile. Firenze: Nardini Editore, 2005, 30; Giuseppe Basile. Teoria e pratica del restauro in Cesare Brandi. Saonara: Il Prato Editore, 2007, 56. On this distinction crucial to Brandi’s thinking, which he does not, however, discuss in his theory of conservation, see Brandi’s Teoria generale della critica. Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1998. Stefano Gizzi has compared astanza to Walter Benjamin’s notion of aura, in his ‘The Relationship Between Brandi’s “Astanza” and Benjamin’s “Aura” and its Influence on the Restoration of Monuments’, in J. Delgado & J.M. Mimoso (eds.), Theory and Practice in Conservation. Proceedings of the International Seminar. Lisbon: Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, 2006, 73‒86.

[8] Brandi, Theory of Restoration, 48. Brandi’s term riconoscimento has a thematic connection to what Étienne Souriau called ‘instauration’. That is ‘a process that elevates that which exists to an entirely different level of reality and splendour […]. “To instaure” does not so much refer to the act of creation as it does to the “spiritual” establishing of something, ensuring it a “reality” within its own genre.’ Peter Pál Pelbart. ‘Towards an Art of Instauring Modes of Existence that “do not exist”’, https://desarquivo.org/ (accessed 31 December 2022).

[9] Brandi, Theory of Restoration, 49.

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Featured image: Retouching a painting at the Conservation Unit of the Finnish National Gallery.
Photo: Finnish National Gallery /Jenni Nurminen

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Alexander Lauréus, A Monk in a Ruin, which has been made into a Wine Cellar, 1823, oil on canvas, 65cm x 50cm. Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen

Alexander Lauréus – Journey to Success

Gill Crabbe

Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

The exhibition ‘Alexander Lauréus – To Rome’ involved careful research and curation in reassessing the artist’s oeuvre, as well as in attracting international audiences who might be less familiar with this foundational artist in Finland’s national art collection. Gill Crabbe meets the show’s two curators, Ira Westergård and Lotta Nylund, to discuss their collaboration

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Planning a bicentennial exhibition of an artist offers a golden opportunity to reassess their significance, not only in terms of their place within the canon of art history but also their relevance to today’s culture. So when the Sinebrychoff Art Museum was approached in 2020 by Lotta Nylund, Chief Curator of Villa Gyllenberg Art Museum, with a proposal to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Alexander Lauréus (1783–1823), whose oeuvre is the subject of her doctoral thesis, they did not need much persuading. Yet while this might in some ways seem strange for an artist whose fortunes had long been in the doldrums, and who had not been the subject of an exhibition in over 40 years, the museum’s chief curator Ira Westergård could see the potential in spotlighting this Turku-born painter who in his day had enjoyed considerable success as a pioneer of a new kind of genre painting in the early Romantic period. For this kind of exhibition project can not only revive interest in an artist, marking a pivotal point of ‘rediscovery’ but also, in spreading the net to a wider international audience, it can even mark a moment of discovery for the very first time.

From the Finnish National Gallery’s standpoint there was ample reason to stage a Lauréus exhibition now at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. First and foremost, Lauréus has excellent credentials. ‘Lauréus comes at the starting point of the Finnish canon of art,’ Westergård points out. ‘When the Finnish Art Society was established in 1846, Lauréus was among the very first whose works they collected. A group of nine oil paintings had already been acquired in 1849, and the FNG Collection now includes a total of 31 oil paintings, making it the biggest collection of his paintings in Finland. Although his career really started when he enrolled at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, Lauréus was born in Turku, so the Finnish Art Society more or less co-opted his art into the Finnish context as part of its aspirations in creating a Finnish national identity.’  Lauréus was also a technically excellent painter, executing fine copies from the 17th-century Dutch masters and painting innovatory genre subjects from ordinary life. He was also renowned as a master of chiaroscuro. His works in the collection would therefore have offered opportunities for students at the Art Society’s Drawing School to learn directly from his oeuvre.

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Featured image: Alexander Lauréus, A Monk in a Ruin, which has been made into a Wine Cellar, 1823, oil on canvas, 65cm x 50cm
Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen
Public domain. This image of a work of art is released under a CC0 licence, and can be freely used because the copyright (70 full calendar years after the death of the artist) has expired.
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Two Research Interns Selected by the Finnish National Gallery for 2023

Admin

The Finnish National Gallery is delighted to announce that two research interns have been selected for the FNG research internship programme for 2023. The decisions were made by the FNG Research editorial board, based on the applications received by the end of 2022. The following points were underlined:

  • Priority was given to students whose applications were based on a concrete and defined part of the FNG collections and especially to previously unstudied and/or topical materials
  • The preparation of the working plan and the research questions related to the chosen collections material or other topical questions linked with the museum’s collections

The FNG research internship programme has two aims. The Finnish National Gallery wishes to enhance the study of its collections, including artworks, archives, and objects. At the same time it wishes to support students who choose to study subjects in a museum context, based on physical collections and objects, archive material and data.

The research interns at the Finnish National Gallery for 2023 are:

Maria Hynninen, University of Helsinki

Finnish cultural policies, cultural diplomacy and art in the context of international relationships and networks within the Finnish art world and cultural life during the 1960s and 1970s. This is a previewed time span based on certain preselected archival source materials. The research’s working title is ‘The Time of Foreign Policy within Art’.

Eero Karjalainen, University of Helsinki and Academy of Fine Arts / Uniarts Helsinki

Non-human agents’ role and representations in the art of Tuomas A. Laitinen and Teemu Lehmusruusu. The research is based on the artists’ works in the collections of the Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and other relevant source materials.

Both internships will take place during the autumn period of 2023. The interns will be supported by their in-house tutors while studying their chosen material.

For more information about the FNG’s research internship programme: fngr@nationalgallery.fi

Albert Edelfelt, From St. Cloud Park, Paris, 1905, oil on canvas, 65cm x 81.5cm Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen

Editorial: Merging Past and Present

Marja Sakari

Marja Sakari, PhD, Museum Director, Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum

 

22 November 2022

 

One of the best-known ‘old masters’ in Finnish art history is undoubtedly the painter Albert Edelfelt. One might think one knows his art through and through, but still there have been new books and much new research published lately. These are shedding light, for example, on everything from the artist’s republican political ideas, to his married life. One aspect of recent research has focused on his career as a cultural ambassador for Finnish art at the end of the 19th century. Times change and accordingly so do the perspectives; new archival materials can be found or new truths revealed when one reads already-existing materials from different angles.

The current edition of FNG Research is mostly dedicated to articles concerning Albert Edelfelt. As I write this Editorial, the exhibition ‘Albert Edelfelt: Modern artist life in fin-de-siècle Europe’ is open at the Gothenburg Museum of Art (22 October 2022 – 12 March 2023). The exhibition arrived in Gothenburg from the Petit Palais in Paris, where it had reached almost 140,000 visitors. It seems that Nordic art is now inspiring the international public in the same way that it had done when the artists were still living at the end of 19th century.

For many years at the Ateneum we have been working to promote our classics internationally and to collaborate with museums in Europe. The aim of this kind of co-operation is not only to increase the international impact of our museum or to boost the visibility of our brand abroad, but also to learn and exchange knowledge on many levels.

The exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris was on display in Spring of this year (10 March – 10 July 2022). It was the result of extensive international negotiations, meetings and knowledge-sharing workshops. The most hectic planning occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it was not possible to meet face to face. Nevertheless, the process showed that it was possible to develop the concept of an exhibition through online contact. The Chief Curator of the Petit Palais, Anne-Charlotte Cathelineau, met virtually with our curators Hanne Selkokari and Anne-Maria Pennonen via Teams. As it turned out, their first face-to-face meeting took place only at the opening of the exhibition in March 2022.

As the result of this exchange, we are publishing several articles in this issue of FNG Research. Without this collaboration, we would not have benefitted from the research into, for example, the French Press reviews from Edelfelt’s time. Anne-Charlotte Cathelineau writes about the reception of Edelfelt’s art, starting from his first success at the Salon in Paris in 1877. Her article introduces many earlier, previously unresearched writings in the Parisian Press. We can discover just how important a place Edelfelt was able to occupy in the Parisian art scene during his long stay in the French capital. As Cathelineau states, reading the Press notices from the 1880s and 1890s, it is clear that critics were becoming more aware of a specific Nordic school and its main representatives. From various articles published from that time, she is able to conclude that the praise for foreign artists played into an attempt to revitalise the French school, which many critics of the day saw was in need of renewal.

Two more articles on Edelfelt in this issue consider different aspects of his career. Anne-Maria Pennonen focuses on the cosmopolitan side of the artist, while Hanne Selkokari highlights Edelfelt’s artworks in the Ateneum Art Museum’s collection and his role as an art expert and intermediary on the Finnish art-scene.

This edition is also introducing a much younger and less well-known artist, namely Elga Sesemann. Her art has been exhibited lately in some of our thematic shows, such as ‘Urban Encounters’, in 2018, and ‘Modern Woman’, in the Spring of this year. In her article ‘Hauntings: Taking a Look at Elga Sesemann’s Landscapes’, Emmi Halmesvirta introduces the Derridian term hauntology, a way of bringing to the present mental ghosts that haunt the present, in her analysis of some of Sesemann’s works. This term fits her art perfectly, as Sesemann’s family was forced to flee their home when Finland lost large parts of Karelia and the city of Vyborg during the Second World War. The artist’s traumatic experiences are a ‘haunting’, appearing in the melancholic atmosphere in many of her paintings. As Halmesvirta writes: ‘It is interesting to consider these [Sesemann’s] landscapes of the city from the viewpoint of haunting, because of the spectral quality of the figures in some of them.’ Hauntology has opened for her a new way of looking at the connection between the past and the present in Sesemann’s art.

The third topic in this issue of FNG Research is the conservation of contemporary art works and how the profession has changed over recent decades. Siukku Nurminen has enjoyed a long career as senior conservator of contemporary art for the Finnish National Gallery. In an interview in this edition, she describes her involvement in Sheela Gowda’s installation, Collateral, shown at the recent ARS22 exhibition. The work included materials that are used to make incense in India which were burnt in Kiasma in situ on metal grids, the ephemeral ashes reminding us of the impermanence of life. From the conservators’ point of view this work presented a challenge; first how to burn anything safely in a museum and secondly what to do with the remaining ashes on deinstallation. As the exhibition has now ended, the ashes are being donated for use in the making of ceramics. It is another transformation that will return the materials to the continuum of life. In this case, it is the materiality and the memory of the former artwork that will be haunting us, as new ceramic objects emerge.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to our annual call for research interns for 2023. Applications will be taken until 31 December 2022, and two interns selected by 20 January 2023. Details of how to apply are in this issue.

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Featured image: Albert Edelfelt, From St Cloud Park, Paris, 1905, oil on canvas, 65cm x 81.5cm. Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen
Public domain. This image of a work of art is released under a CC0 licence, and can be freely used because the copyright (70 full calendar years after the death of the artist) has expired.

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Albert Edelfelt, Self-Portrait in 17th-Century Costume, oil on canvas 1889, 64.5cm x 70.5 cm Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen

Albert Edelfelt Goes on Tour

Gill Crabbe

 Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

As the Ateneum Art Museum prepares to open its exhibition of Albert Edelfelt in 2023, Finland’s beloved 19th-century painter has already drawn huge crowds in Paris and the show has now travelled to Gothenburg. Gill Crabbe asked curators Anne-Maria Pennonen and Hanne Selkokari about the secrets of their successful international collaboration

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When the onset of Covid-19 spiralled into a pandemic, one of the many consequences for museums was the havoc it played with exhibition programming. While plans had been carefully laid over several years, across the globe the museum world saw cancellations, postponements and rescheduling of major shows as its custodians struggled to work with the devastating impact of the pandemic. However, Anne-Maria Pennonen and Hanne Selkokari, curators at the Ateneum Art Museum, had already been forced to think outside of the box when they started planning for a major exhibition of one of Finland’s most beloved and greatest artists – Albert Edelfelt. Long before Covid-19 struck, they had been considering how to navigate the upcoming year-long closure of the Ateneum Art Museum for essential repairs. As it turned out, they found there were some advantages to doing things differently.

Now, as Finland awaits the opening in 2023 of the most comprehensive exhibition to date of an artist who is a national hero, Paris has been enjoying the glorious show ‘Albert Edelfelt: Lights of Finland’ at the Petit Palais, a venue built for the 1900 World Fair that Edelfelt himself was closely involved in. Not only that, but the exhibition has now travelled to Gothenburg Museum of Art, ahead of the Ateneum opening. In so doing the curators at the Finnish National Gallery have reversed the traditional sequence of opening their exhibition first on home territory and then touring it abroad.

There are advantages to scheduling a show internationally in this way, not least because new discoveries from research undertaken by other museums involved can open up fresh perspectives and stimulate further research for the Finnish iteration. For a proposal to gain traction with museums abroad, a theme that to some extent can be adapted to suit the location of an individual venue places it in a good position to be accepted. As Anne-Maria Pennonen, who is co-curating the Helsinki show, explains: ‘The idea for this show had already been mooted for several years. Then, when we learnt about the Ateneum building renovation, we thought it would be an ideal opportunity to let our classics travel. Of course, when you think of Edelfelt, then the show had to go to Paris, as he had such strong connections there and even lived there for many years. Our museum Director Marja Sakari had previously been Director of the Finnish Institute in the city and via her contacts a proposal was put together. We had decided that the key theme would be Edelfelt’s international contacts because this is something that is of interest to all parties and he himself was the first Finnish artist to build such an international network.’

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Featured image: Albert Edelfelt, Self-Portrait in 17th-Century Costume, oil on canvas 1889, 64.5cm x 70.5cm. Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen
Public domain. This image of a work of art is released under a CC0 licence, and can be freely used because the copyright (70 full calendar years after the death of the artist) has expired.
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