Cloud Towers, Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1904) Original Finnish title: Pilvi tornit Gallen-Kallela is invaluable to art history in his own country and has given Finland its identity where collective visual memory is concerned. The national epic the Kalevala - a mythological tale of the creation of the world and Finland in particular - was penned in the mid-19th century after centuries of oral tradition at a time when Finland was first under Swedish rule and had been grand duchy of Russia since 1809. Akseli Gallen-Kallela gave this epic a face by giving it paintings, drawings, book decorations and by taking stories from the epic as subjects for frescoes in the Finnish pavilion at the 1900 World Fair in Paris. In doing so, he also immediately established his own name.
