A ground-breaking artist, who made a made a huge contribution to defining the Finnish artistic national consciousness, Akseli Gallen-Kallela's career nevertheless began with a conventional training at the Académie Julian in Paris. His teachers, William Bouguereau and, later, Fernand Cormon, were traditional proponents of a highly polished style of Academic art that was a world removed from the symbolist, avant-garde paintings which have come to define the artist.

Gallen-Kallela's art was based on a vision of Finland that was inspired by the Kalevala, an epic poem rooted in mythology and oral folklore, and which inspired a number of other artists seeking to establish a Finnish national identity on the country's road to c...