Gill Crabbe, FNG Research

Following the recent opening of a groundbreaking Tiepolo exhibition at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, one of the key contributors, Tiepolo expert Dr Irina Artemieva, Keeper of Venetian paintings at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, discusses the research and international collaboration involved in the FNG project

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Dr Artemieva, you joined The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in 1982 and became Keeper of 15th to 18th-century Venetian paintings in 1985. How did you become interested in the works of the Tiepolos?

Works by the Tiepolos make up a very important part of the collection of Venetian art of the 18th century and therefore from the start I set about finding out as much as I could about them and about the works, with the intention of adding in new information to that gathered by my predecessors.

 

You are also the scientific director of The Hermitage-Italy Centre in Venice. What is the importance of The Hermitage-Italy Centre for your research and for your links to Italian colleagues?

I was appointed scientific director of The Hermitage-Italy Centre in Venice because over the course of my work – and it’s nearly 40 years that I have been working at the Hermitage – I have formed very friendly and fruitful relationships with many of my Italian colleagues. I know nearly all the key members of staff of the leading museums in Italy and lots of specialists in specific areas. As for my acquaintance with Tiepolo specialists, my own interest – and the reason why I have gone more deeply into the study of Tiepolo – has been connected with the preparation of a major international exhibition and conference that marked the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giambattista Tiepolo, which took place in Venice back in 1996. For that conference I prepared a large paper on the history of the ceilings by Tiepolo painted for St Petersburg.

 

The art of Tiepolo found its way into important Russian collections already in the 18th century and its popularity continued throughout the 19th century. How do you explain this and the importance of Tiepolo in Russia?

Giambattista Tiepolo is, of course, one of the leading artists of the 18th century. His art marks the apotheosis of Venetian painting: the triumph of light and colour, its ability to convey aspects of reality through even the most imaginary subject. Tiepolo’s imagination had no limits and he was able to master any format, any form, from the smallest to most grandiose, but it was in the latter that he most majestically gave embodiment to his art. Art that demanded above all great internal spaces. Interiors of this kind were only to be found in royal and princely residences and, of course, to commission a master of such a level demanded huge financial resources. So it’s not surprising that he worked in the area of monumental painting in Venice both for the old and the new aristocracy – particularly the new – creating grandiose cycles and fresco wall paintings at the Palazzo Labia in Venice, and at the Villa Cordellina, and Villa Valmarana in Vicenza, as well as abroad. There’s a particularly interesting article in the catalogue accompanying the Sinebrychoff Art Museum exhibition devoted to Tiepolo’s links with Swedish clients and the attempt to invite him to paint a grand ceiling for the royal palace in Stockholm, although unfortunately this commission never took place. For Russia too the grand style was close to the heart of the monarchs and during the reign of Elizabeth, from 1741–62, when there was a huge amount of palace building, there was particular interest in the art of Tiepolo. His painting was really best suited to the style and the architecture of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700–71) and attempts were made to commission works by Tiepolo for Elizabeth’s new winter palace. Three ceilings were also commissioned by the Chancellor of the Russian Empire, Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov (1714–67), for his palace on Sadovaya Ulitsa in St Petersburg.

As for later purchases, even in the 18th century, we see that only the richest Russian aristocrats could afford to adorn their mansions with works by Tiepolo, among them Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov (1750–1831) and Chancellor Alexandr Andreyevich Bezborodko (1747–99). At the start of the 19th century a large monumental canvas, The Banquet of Cleopatra (1747), was acquired for the new imperial residence the Mikhail Castle. We see thereafter how even in the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the Russian patron Baron Alexandr Stieglitz (1814–84), half of the monumental cycle created by Tiepolo for the Ca’ Dolfin was also acquired. Later Russia became the home of one of the best collections of monumental paintings by Tiepolo. The significance of this collection cannot be exaggerated, even though not all of the works have survived to the present day.

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Featured image: Lorenzo Tiepolo, after Giambattista Tiepolo, Triumph of Venus, Catalogo di varie Opere (…), 1774, etching.
The National Library of Finland, Helsinki
Photo: The National Library of Finland

 

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Anne-Maria Pennonen, PhD, Curator, Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum

Also published in Hanne Selkokari (ed.), Magnus Enckell 1870−1925. Ateneum Publications Vol. 141. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, 2020. Transl. Wif Stenger

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Finnish artists began to find visual themes for their works on the islands of the eastern Gulf of Finland in the 19th century. In particular, Suursaari (known as Hogland in Swedish and Gogland in Russian) attracted many artists and became a popular place to visit and paint each summer. The island was also referred to as Paratiisisaari (‘Paradise Island’) and ‘the pearl of the Gulf of Finland’.

Magnus Enckell visited Suursaari nearly every summer between 1901 and 1912. In his day, the island had not yet become the tourist destination it would be in the 1920s. Many artists depicted the island, which is now part of Russia, until the war years of the 1940s. It was handed over to the Soviet Union as part of the Moscow Armistice of 1944.^[1] Besides Suursaari, Enckell also visited another island that now belongs to Russia, Pitkäpaasi, as well as Kuorsalo, which is closer to the mainland and part of the Finnish city of Hamina. During his summers on these islands, Enckell created many works portraying the sea, as well as life on the islands and their inhabitants.

Enckell was attracted to maritime life and sailing, in particular from the early 20th century onwards, enjoying the fresh air during long boating jaunts with friends. In this period, health officials were propagating new information about the role of the sun and light, particularly in combatting infectious diseases. Artists too were interested in the fashionable trends of the day, such as naturism and neovitalism. According to naturist ideals, natural nudity without restrictive clothing or shoes, as well as sunbathing and swimming, helped the body to free itself from the shackles of civilisation. Neovitalist thought, on the other hand, saw the individual as part of a life force that governs nature. It aimed to improve a person’s wellbeing through physical culture, while at the same time warding off the ills brought on by modern urban life.^[2] These new movements were entwined with the popularity of Suursaari, where the rocky shore hid sheltered inlets with sandy beaches, which later became dotted with colourful changing huts and where the island’s summer residents swam and basked in the sun.^[3]

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^[1] Leena Räty. Paratiisisaari. Menetetty Suursaari taiteilijoiden kuvaamana. Lappeenranta: Etelä-Karjalan taidemuseo, 2002, 5.

^[2] Riitta Ojanperä. ‘Vitality’, in Timo Huusko (ed.), Surface and Depth. Early Modernism in Finland 1890−1920. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, 2001, (94–112) 96–97; Riitta Ojanperä. ‘Keho, vauhti ja voima’, in Pinx. Maalaustaide Suomessa. Maalta kaupunkiin. Porvoo: Weilin & Göös, 2002, (252–55) 254–55; Riitta Ojanperä. Taidekriitikko Einari J. Vehmas ja moderni taide. Helsinki: Valtion taidemuseo / Kuvataiteen keskusarkisto, 2010, 233−36. See also Marja Lahelma. ‘Colour Revolution, Vitalism and the Ambivalence of Modern Arcadia’, in Hanne Selkokari (ed.), Magnus Enckell 1870−1925. Ateneum Publications Vol. 141. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, 2020, 143–55; also published in FNG Research 6/2020.

^[3] See J. W. Mattila and Jorma Mattila. Suursaari. Helsinki: WSOY, 1941.

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Featured image: Magnus Enckell, From Suursaari Island, 1902, gouache and pencil on paper, 46.8cm x 66.4cm. Finnish National Gallery /
Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen

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Marja Lahelma, PhD, Scholar, Adjunct professor, University of Helsinki

Also published in Hanne Selkokari (ed.), Magnus Enckell 1870−1925. Ateneum Publications Vol. 141. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, 2020. Transl. Don McCracken

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At the end of the first decade of the 20th century, Magnus Enckell, whose works were formerly known for their sparse content and reduced colour, began to make paintings using a free brush technique and a bright palette. This new direction is represented by Boys on the Beach, a landscape he painted in Suursaari in 1910, which glows in shades of pink, purple, blue and yellow. The sea is calm, but the curve of the shoreline, the tense position of the boy in the foreground and the strong brushstrokes infuse the work with a rhythm and a sense of movement. The sparkling light of the sun is reflected through the tops of the trees, from the stones on the shore and the boys’ bare skin. The work can be said to be vitalist in terms of both its subject matter and its execution.

The vitalist movement, which advocated a natural, healthy and liberated lifestyle, emerged at the turn of the 20th century in opposition to the decadence of modern life and its destructive impact on physical and spiritual wellbeing. Although the development of technology and science, and the industrialisation and urbanisation that went hand in hand with that, ushered in greater prosperity, it was felt that modern life had at the same time alienated people from nature. The prevailing mechanistic world view and profit-based culture created a deep division between the body and spirit, and between people and their natural environment. Vitalism manifested in the content and ideas of the art world through, for instance, depictions of outdoor life, sunlight, water and the naked – especially the male – human body. Vitalist-themed works often employed a style and composition that emphasised an impression of dynamism and also expressed the deeper philosophical foundation of vitalism.[1]

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[1] Sven Halse. ‘Wide-Ranging Vitalism: On the Concept and Phenomenon of Vitalism in Philosophy and Art’, in Gertrud Hvidberg-Hansen and Gertrud Oelsner (eds.), The Spirit of Vitalism: Health, Beauty and Strength in Danish Art, 1890–1940. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2011, (47–57) 52.

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Featured image: Magnus Enckell, Man and Swan, 1918, oil on canvas, 108cm x 80cm. Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation, Mänttä
Photo: Vesa Aaltonen
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Harri Kalha, PhD, Scholar, author / Adjunct professor, University of Helsinki & University of Turku

Also published in Hanne Selkokari (ed.), Magnus Enckell 1870−1925. Ateneum Publications Vol. 141. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, 2020

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Society speaks verbosely of its own silence, takes great pains to relate in detail the things it does not say, denounces the powers it exercises…
– Michel Foucault

‘What on earth? Are we really at an exhibition of the artist Magnus Enckell?’, exclaimed Kasimir Leino, critic for Uusi Suometar, in May 1909. For a few years now, the painter had delved into colour, and reactions were ambiguous. One of the main works exhibited was a portrait of veteran artist Albert Edelfelt. ‘Its mottled background disturbs us’, the critic pondered, ‘why splash greens and reds onto Edelfelt’s familiarly somber features, and add violet, even green onto his greying hair? We consider such folly a trivial nod to recent fashions […].’^[1]

Some four years later ‘R-o.’ of Pohjalainen berated the ‘excessive refinement and delectation which risks becoming rather sugary. Thus a work like Parisian variety show is downright sickly sweet [äitelä in Finnish].’^[2] The colourful depiction might well be seen as capturing the essence of modernity in all its fleeting fancy, yet the verdict was grim.

The reception of Enckell’s colour paintings seems particularly harsh when expressed by the era’s most respected connoisseurs. Edvard Richter of Helsingin Sanomat praised, in a 1917 article, Enckell’s earlier oeuvre as ‘peerless products of linear strength and plastic feeling’, but he continued: ‘What is there to say about Enckell’s paintings in this new exhibition? In all honesty, they are good. However – they are good because Mrs. H’s portrait is finely drafted and the portrait of Mrs. C with son is masterfully composed. Were I to say anything more, it would not be in earnest.’^[3]

Even so, Richter could not refrain from adding: ‘Their colours don’t delight my eyes, they express nothing but a rather excessively bright red, an immoderate working of colours, which have lost their sense of freshness.’

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^[1] Kasimir Leino. ‘Magnus Enckellin näyttely’, Uusi Suometar, No. 120, 29 May 1909.

^[2] R-o. ‘Ryhmänäyttely Ateneumissa’, Pohjalainen, 14 April 1913.

^[3] Edvard Richter [E. R-r.]. ‘Septemin näyttely’, Helsingin Sanomat, 11 February 1917.

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Featured image: Magnus Enckell, Awakening Faun, 1914, oil on canvas, 65.5cm x 81cm
Hoving Collection, Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen

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

Also published in Hanne Selkokari (ed.), Magnus Enckell 1870−1925. Ateneum Publications Vol. 141. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, 2020. Transl. Wif Stenger

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We have become accustomed to thinking of modernism in art as a continuous process of renewal and regeneration. In this light, art history has been written as a sort of bildungsroman, from the art movements of the late 19th century to the triumphal march towards Abstract Expressionism in the 20th century. The careers of individual artists are also examined according to this narrative, which aims at ever-improving results and emphasises the artist’s path towards stylistic purity and clarity.^[1] Jaakko Puokka, author of a monograph on Magnus Enckell, sought to see increasing clarity and consistency through the phases of the artist’s career. In his view, Enckell’s late phase brought a mellowness and ‘a return to the Classical-Hellenic style, the birthplace of the crystal-sharp young male figures that he created three decades earlier’.^[2] Puokka continues his analysis of Enckell’s late period, writing that, in his painting of Diana and Endymion, Enckell broke free from the imbalance that had led to his ‘aestheticising gourmandism’.^[3]

Puokka’s interpretation of Enckell’s development of new content and sustainable form seems, however, to be wishful thinking based on the writer’s own artistic ideals and valuations of Enckell’s work from his own era.^[4] During his final decade, Magnus Enckell’s art seems heterogenous and even hesitant: his gaze became retrospective, repeating similar mythological motifs from his younger years, turning inward to his home environment and nostalgic park scenes, or seeking a lost paradise and the support of religion. The style of his paintings also varied between cubist-like structuralism and Nabis-style symbolism. Enckell was undeniably problematic to his contemporaries, but Puokka’s text emphasises a need to develop a narrative around the artist’s career and life that would satisfy them.^[5]

How then should we approach Enckell’s late period? How should we interpret his tentative art, which at times looked towards something new and at other times harked back to the past?

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^[1] See e.g. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison (eds.). Modern Art and Modernism. A Critical Anthology, 2018 (1982). New York: Routledge.

^[2] Puokka, Magnus Enckell: Ihminen ja taiteilija. Helsinki, Suomalainen tiedeakatemia & Otava, 1949, 210.

^[3] Puokka, Magnus Enckell, 212.

^[4] Puokka, Magnus Enckel, 208.

^[5] Harri Kalha and Juha-Heikki Tihinen, whose studies have focused on Magnus Enckell’s homosexuality, emphasise how difficult it was for his contemporaries (and later researchers) to approach Enckell’s art that features strongly homoerotic characteristics. See e.g. Harri Kalha. Tapaus Magnus Enckell. Historiallisia tutkimuksia 227. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2005; Juha-Heikki Tihinen. Halun häilyvät rajat: Magnus Enckellin teosten maskuliinisuuksien ja feminiinisyyksien representaatioista ja itsen luomisesta. Taidehistoriallisia tutkimuksia 37. Helsinki: Taidehistorian seura, 2008.

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Featured image: Magnus Enckell, View from Kaivopuisto, 1919, oil on canvas, 59cm x 68cm. Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Pakarinen

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Karita Kivikoski, MA student, University of Helsinki

This report is published as a result of a three-month research internship at the Finnish National Gallery

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During my internship at the Finnish National Gallery I studied the Finnish painter Leena Luostarinen^[1] (1949–2013) and her exhibition reviews in the Finnish daily newspapers. Using these sources, I was able to gain some insight into the Finnish art debate taking place in the 1980s and 1990s. Luostarinen is associated with the new painting^[2] and expressionism of the 1980s, as well as the powerful emergence of women painters at that time. In addition, a romantic attitude can be found in her art.^[3] The new painting in Finland did not emerge as a counter-reaction to minimalism or the ‘linguistic’^[4] nature of conceptual art or its over-intellectualisation, as had been the case internationally. In Finland, it was rather a reaction to the ideological and realistic content in art. The starting point of the new painting in Finland at this time was therefore different than it was internationally.^[5]

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[1] Luostarinen studied at the School of the Fine Arts Academy of Finland in 1968–72. She received the Ducat prize awarded by the Finnish Art Society in 1974 and the Pro Finlandia Medal in 1995. She was selected as the Artist of the Year in 1988. For more about Leena Luostarinen, see http://www.leenaluostarinen.com (accessed 22 October 2020).

[2] In the beginning of the 1980s the resurgence of painting was a counter-reaction against conceptual art and its lack of images as well as over-intellectualism. Hannu Castrén. ‘Maalaan, olen siis olemassa!’, in Helena Sederholm et al. (eds.), Pinx, Maalaustaide Suomessa. Siveltimen vetoja. Porvoo: Weilin + Göös Oy, 2003, (210–11) 210.

[3] Marja-Terttu Kivirinta. ‘Sfinksejä ja kissoja. Leena Luostarisen pensseli ottaa etäisyyttä modernin taiteen genealogiaan’, in Marja-Terttu Kivirinta, Lasse Saarinen, Leena Luostarinen, Camilla Ahlström-Taavitsainen, Otso Kantokorpi, Päivi Karttunen, Jüri Kokkonen and Pirkko Tuukkanen (eds.), Leena Luostarinen: Tiikerinpiirtäjä = Tigertecknaren = Tiger Drawer. Helsinki: Suomen taideyhdistys, 2013, (15–22) 17; Kimmo Sarje. Romantiikka ja postmoderni. Helsinki: Valtion painatuskeskus, 1989.

[4] The art object was no longer a unique and special ‘means of expression made by hand’. New means of expression came up and the way of expressing conceptual art became ‘linguistic’, even when images were used. Marja Sakari. Käsitetaiteen etiikkaa: suomalaisen käsitetaiteen postmodernia ja fenomenologista tulkintaa. Dimensio 4. Helsinki: Finnish National Gallery, 2000, 26.

[5] Inkamaija Iitiä. Käsitteellisestä ruumiilliseen, sitaatiosta paikkaan: maalaustaide ja nykytaiteen historia. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto, 2008, 212; Castrén, ‘Maalaan, olen siis olemassa!’, 210.

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Featured image: Leena Luostarinen, Rain, 1981, oil on canvas, 100cm x 180cm. Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Antti Kuivalainen
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