30 Aug 2014

Pagan Art: The Aino Triptych

(click to enlarge)

One of the most renowned painters of pagan subject matter is the Finnish artist Akeseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931). He is particularly well known for his illustrations for the Kalevala, the national pagan epic of Finland that was preserved by the work of the poet Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884) in the early 19th-century just as the oral tradition that had preserved it for centuries was starting to die out.