Finland, Finland, Finland
View allAll Photos Tagged kalevala
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNimxhfrnEQ
Free flowing water
The air is so warm
It breathes for you
It sees through you before the storm
And if the lake can't
Be the sister
To the moon
To the river
To the sun
The leaves are falling
Cutting the moonlight
They break the waves
Gazing to the stars
And if the lake can't
Be the sister
To the moon
To the river
To the earth
I know I wouldn't be strong
Wouldn't be brother to the moon
I know I wouldn't be strong
Wouldn't be sister to the woods
There is another soul
Another path
There is another God
I know I wouldn't be strong
Wouldn't be brother to the moon
I know I wouldn't be strong
Wouldn't be sister to the woods
[Song: "Brother Moon" by Amorphis, off the 2006 album "Eclipse." The album is inspired by the story of Kullervo, from the Finnish epic " The Kalevala"]
Explored 15 September 2020
No pouch for me this Monday ;-) This is one of the shots I've taken for the MM theme "Pouch", but I won't post it there, because it's way too abstract – after all, all you can see of the black pouch (a cheap fabric thingy that came with my glasses) is that white, swirly bokeh on the left and the one piece of backlit fluff ("Last Fluff Standing"). But since I really like how this turned out, nicely mysterious and minimalist, I thought I'd share it with you nonetheless. All my other attempts at "pouch" were sort of "Meh", with either the light not right, or too much going on, or just plain boring. The thing inside of the pouch is a beautiful bronze pendant, a "Knot of Fate" made by Finnish jewellery manufacturer Kalevala Koru back in the 1990s; it's a present given to me by a dear Finnish friend, and I'd already used it for the MM theme "Copper" back in May 2019. The pendant comes with a lovely bronze necklace with rather big, round links, which provided the golden bokeh. In the unedited RAW file there was more of the pouch's fabric visible, but I found that very distracting, and since I don't post it to MMs anyway, I thought I might as well add a really dark vignette which basically made those fabric spots "invisible".
Have a lovely week ahead, dear Flickr friends, and stay safe and healthy!
Eines der Bilder (bzw. das einzige, das mir am Ende gefallen hat), die ich für das MM-Thema "Pouch" gemacht habe. Für "Pouch" ist es nun definitiv zu abstrakt, denn vom Hauptmotiv, dem Beutel, sieht man in voller Schärfe nur einen Mikrofaser-Fussel und sonst das helle Bokeh-Gewirbel links. Dieses minimalistisch-geheimnisvolle Bild gefällt mir aber doch recht gut, weshalb ich es Euch gerne zeigen wollte, auch wenn ich darauf verzichte, es bei MMs hochzuladen. Für "Pouch" sollte sich ja auch etwas in dem Beutel befinden, und das ist hier ein Bronze-Anhänger, den ich schon im Mai 2019 für das Thema "Copper" verwendet hatte, ein "Knot of Fate" des finnischen Schmuckherstellers Kalevala Koru. Das goldene Bokeh im Bild ist die Kette des Anhängers, die aus recht großen, runden Gliedern besteht, die eben ein besonders schönes Bokeh zaubern. Im Original-Raw-Bild war viel mehr vom Stoff des Beutels (schwarz, dünn, Mikrofaser) zu sehen, was ich aber störend fand; und da ich das Foto eh nicht bei MM zeige, habe ich einfach eine dunkle Vignette darübergelegt.
Ich wünsche Euch eine schöne Spätsommer-Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde, passt gut auf Euch auf :-)
Macro Monday: #Copper
Crazy Tuesday: #LowKey
Bronze pendant and necklace; diameter of the pendant: 2,7 cm / 1,06 inches
This is a Kalevala Koru "Knot of Fate" bronze pendant and necklace given to me by my best friend from Finland many years ago. Kalevala Koru is one of Finlands leading jewellery manufacturers founded in 1937 (more about the company's history: Strg / Ctrl + www.kalevalajewelry.com/global/story/history). One of its trademarks are variations / reinterpretations of traditional designs dating back as far as the Iron Age, the Viking age, the Middle Ages or previous centuries. The jewellery, which is always designed and made in Finland, mostly using materials from Finland as well, is available in gold, silver, or bronze finish. The bronze used for the Kalevala Koru jewellery is a copper-tin alloy. The name "Kalevala" ("koru" means jewellery) was inspired by the Finnish national epic, "The Kalevala", a "19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology" (Wikipedia).
Kalevala Koru provides each piece of jewellery with a background story regarding the origin of a pattern or shape, the idea behind the design, or what inspired it. While the "Knot of Fate" pendant design is discontinued, I was still able to find the following background story for the pendant (translated from Finnish by Google Translate and slightly reworded by me):
"Legend has it that the one who can weave beautiful braids is also able to control the direction of the wind as well as birth and death. Because braids can reveal the fate of their wearer, they are regarded with great respect. When looking at the braids' entwined paths, we might even be able to take a glimpse into the future."
Mysterious... The text also mentions Aurora Karamzin (1808-1902), a Finnish-Swede philantropist also known as Princess Aurora Demidova (Strg / Ctrl + en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Karamzin), so probably the "Knot of Fate" design was inspired by a piece of jewellery she wore.
Processed in Luminar 3 (enhanced details on the pendant only), ON1 Photo Raw (HDR filter "Glow" and LUT "Thoreaux"), and Analog Efex (Vignette and Film effects Warm and Subtle).
Happy Macro Monday, Everyone!
Bronze-Anhänger (Durchmesser: 2,7 cm) und -Kette der finnischen Schmuckschmiede Kalevala Koru. Der Name "Kalevala" ("koru" bedeutet Schmuck) ist inspiriert vom finnischen Nationalepos "Kalevala", ein im 19. Jhdt. von Elias Lönnrot auf der Grundlage mündlich überlieferter finnischer und karelischer Mythologie zusammengestelltes Werk in 22.795 Versen und 50 Gesängen. Kalevala Koru, gegründet 1937 (mehr über die Geschichte des Unternehmens: Strg / Ctrl + www.kalevalajewelry.com/global/story/history) ist einer der bedeutendsten finnischen Schmuckhersteller und ist unter anderem für seine Neuinterpretationen von Fundstücken, Mustern oder Designs bekannt, deren Vorlagen unter anderem aus der Eisenzeit, der Wikingerzeit und anderen Jahrhunderten stammen. Insbesondere bei den historisch inspirierten Stücken gibt es auch immer eine kleine Geschichte dazu.
Diesen Anhänger hat mir vor vielen Jahren mal meine beste Freundin aus Finnland geschenkt. Das als "Knot of Fate" oder "Helsinki-Riipus" (Helsinki-Anhänger) bezeichnete Design wird nicht mehr hergestellt und so konnte ich auch nicht mehr viel über die Hintergrundgeschichte des Designs finden, nach längerer Suche aber immerhin folgenden (aus dem Finnischen von Google Translate übersetzten und von mir umformulierten) Text dazu:
"Der Legende nach beherrscht derjenige, der des Zöpfeflechtens mächtig ist, auch die Richtung des Windes sowie Geburt und Tod. Zöpfe werden mit Respekt betrachtet, da sie das Schicksal ihres Trägers offenbaren können: Betrachtet man den verschlungenen Pfad eines Zopfes, kann man vielleicht sogar einen Blick in die Zukunft werfen."
Mysteriös... Der Text erwähnt außerdem die finnisch-schwedische Philantropin Aurora Karamzin (1808-1902), auch bekannt als Prinzessin Aurora Demidova (Strg / Ctrl + en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Karamzin), deshalb vermute ich, dass die Gestaltung dieses Anhängers von einem Schmuckstück inspiriert wurde, das Karamzin getragen hat.
Ich wünsche Euch eine schöne Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde!
"Old": Aeneid (Eneide, in Italian), Latin epic poem written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC.
"New": Kalevala, Finnish epic poem written by Elias Lönnrot in the 19th-century (even if based on ancient Finnish and Karelian folklore and mythology).
And the third book? Well, actually it is an anthology of English language that I used when I was a teenager... but the title was well suited to the theme of this Tuesday! 😅
Have a nice evening, dear friends! 🙋♂️😉
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BChnerei
Das Hühnerei ist das Vogelei der Haushenne und dient biologisch der Erzeugung ihrer Nachkommenschaft. Als landwirtschaftliches Produkt wird es vom Menschen als Nahrungsmittel verwendet.
Nach der finnischen Mythologie, der Kalevala, ist das Universum aus sieben Eiern entstanden, sechs goldenen und einem aus Eisen. Demnach wurde aus den Schalenhälften der Himmel und die Erde, aus dem Eigelb die Sonne, aus dem Eiweiß der Mond, und die restlichen Schalenstücke bildeten Sterne und Wolken. Aus dem schwarzen Dotter des Eies aus Eisen wurde eine Gewitterwolken. ️️️️️
The "old and stable" eternal sage/part time water-god from Finnish folk epic Kalevala!
More on Cyclopic Bricks.
Rare phenomenon in eastern parts of Finland. Did you know: Finnish Mythology and The Kalevala (national epic) the Northern Lights are referred to as the gates of the north.
This geomagnetic storm was captured on 27th of February, 2023 on a frozen lake, Saarijärvi, Espoo.
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
The Old Student House (Finnish: Vanha ylioppilastalo, colloquially called Vanha, "the old one"; Swedish: Gamla studenthuset) is the former student house of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki, located in central Helsinki, Finland, near the crossing of Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie.
The building was designed by Axel Hampus Dalström and was completed in 1870. It represents the neo-renaissance style of architecture.
The student house was originally built at the edge of the city centre, so the students' parties would not disturb other citizens. The construction was funded by a collection from the citizens. In dedication of this collection, the façade of the building bears the Latin inscription Spei suae patria dedit ("Fatherland gave to its hope"). Nowadays, the student house is located in the inner centre of Helsinki, near the Three Smiths Statue.
Near the student house is located the New Student House, completed in 1910. At that point the Old Student House got its current name.
Old Student House contains many famous Kalevala themed works of art, such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela's mural Kullervo Rides to War and Robert Wilhelm Ekman's 390 cm tall painting Väinämöinen's Play.
Southern Finland.
This work could be from The Kalevala (Finnish mythology) if you like.
Texture by SkeletalMess: www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/4675606789/in/set-7215...
The Monrepos Park
For the first time, the famous rune singer appeared in the gorge in 1831. It was designed by the Danish sculptor Gotthelf Borup. The gypsum Väinämäinen Borupa became famous for being installed four years before the publication of the first collection of Kalevala. He was dressed like an ancient hero - in a short Roman tunic, and in his hand he held an instrument that looked like a cithara - after all, no one knew exactly what the hero of northern legends should look like.
Väinämäinen - the hero of the Kalevala
I walked around all the Karelian rocks:
Hitting a rock with a rock,
He carved pine after pine!
Like lightning in black clouds
Spark pines - in the mighty rocks!
It is made of mosses that are green around,
He pulled out spruce by the tops ...
In Finnish mythology, the Swan of Tuonela is a sacred, majestic bird that glides gracefully along the dark, swirling River of Tuoni. It guards the underworld (the land of the dead). Killing the swan is strictly forbidden; according to legend, anyone who attempts to harm it will face their own doom.[ferrebeekeeper]
The Swan of Tuonela, Op. 22/2, is a single-movement tone poem for cor anglais solo and orchestra written from 1893 to 1895 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It is part of the Lemminkäinen Suite, a collection of four tone poems based on legends from the Kalevala, Finland's national epic. [Wikipedia]
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
The Pohjola Insurance building is the former headquarters of the Pohjola Insurance Company at Aleksanterinkatu 44 and Mikonkatu 3 in central Helsinki. Primarily designed by Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen and constructed in 1899–1901, it is a prominent example of Finnish national romantic architecture. It was acquired in 1972 by Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, now succeeded by Nordea.
The Pohjola Insurance Company (precursor of OP Financial Group) was founded in 1891 and specialised in fire insurance. They held a competition for the design of their headquarters, which would also house another Fennomane insurance company, Kullervo, with the specification that the building must be of fire-resistant stone. Based on the submissions, they commissioned Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen to design the exteriors and major interior spaces, but Ines and Ernst A. Törnvall were responsible for the plans. It was the first commercial building by Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen.
The building is national romantic in style, with façades of rough-hewn soapstone, red granite and serpentine decorated with sculptures of vegetation, squirrels, and figures from Kalevala, and on the street corner a tower with a pinecone-shaped roof. When it was built, a reviewer dwelt on its "Finnish-naturalistic" style, but in form the exterior may have been influenced by contemporary American buildings: Henry Hobson Richardson's Cheney Building similarly uses a corner tower, and the use of windows resembles that in Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building. Another Finnish architect, Bertel Jung [fi], criticised the romantic elements as embodying "primitive, partially crude and untamed force". Other reviewers praised it for its comparability to buildings in other countries and to their use of ornament.
Lindgren, the member of the firm who appears to have been most attached to national romanticism, greatly influenced the ornamentation of this building. The main entrance, designed by Hilda Flodin, a pupil of Rodin, is flanked by the names of the two insurance companies, both from Kalevala, and by devils, monsters or trolls; bears, the symbol of the insurance company, top the pilasters and also appear in the interior decoration. Because the mouths of the Pohjola characters are slightly open, passers-by sometimes leave cigarette butts in their mouths as a prank.
The door itself is deeply recessed under an arch, and the vestibule continues the allusion to medieval architecture, with vaulting and with carved animals topping pillars. The rest of the interior also used rustic and folklore motifs, with doorways by Erik O. W. Ehrström, iron wheel chandeliers by G. W. Sohlberg, and a circular main stairway with a cast-iron banister with pine-tree motifs; the newel posts and the benches on the landings were carved wood depicting fern leaves and, again, trolls, and the stained glass featured ferns and owls. The service hall on the first floor was given red pine panelling and a central pillar styled to resemble a tree trunk. However, it has a steel core; behind the façades the building is brick with structural steel and from the start had Swedish-made lifts as well as an electrical generator. The structural engineer was Elia Heikel, who was also working at the time on the Lundqvist Building opposite, which is seen as the first modern commercial building in Finland.
Once a week, Eetu Kalevala, refills his coffee stash. His family drinks a lot of coffee!
Tacoma, Washington 2016
Kosmos Bracelet Story:
Infinite universe
The endless expanse of the sky
The journey of celestial bodies
Thousands of stars and moons and galaxies
Each in their own orbit
Each at their own pace
Know the past and the future
But will they tell us about it?
And if they do, will we understand?
Design Antonio Mazzamauro
BTW - Princess Leia was wearing the Planetoid Valleys necklace in the first Star Wars movie in 1977.
"Let the Fates be now consulted,
And the oracles examined;
Only thus may we discover
Where the Sun and Moon lie hidden."
from: Kalevala, Rune XLIX, Restoration of the Sun and Moon
www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/
*272/365*
*I would appreciate your words kindly, thank you*
Akseli (Axel) Gallen-Kallela (26 April 1865 – 7 March 1931) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. His work was considered very important for the Finnish national identity. He changed his name from Gallen to Gallen-Kallela in 1907. (Wiki)
This black and white portrait was published by the weekly Suomen Kuvalehti when the painter turned 60 in April 1925.
(Processing and colouring by me)
The prototype for this ring dates back to the 12th century. It was found in Perniö, in Southwestern Finland. At that time similar wide shield-like rings were worn in the whole Baltic region. In this ring domestic features were merged with foreign influences, bearing evidence of close interaction between ancient Finns and their neigbours. Souce of the text and ring made by Kalevala Jewelry.
Mythical northern realm of Kalevala is a home to many heroes: wise artists, skilled craftsmen and famous wanderers.
This is my Secret Santa gift to Tino Poutiainen , inspired by his sci-fi mecha builds. Merry upcoming Christmas to you!
On the hills of golden color,
On the mountains filled with silver,
There is other food for hunger,
Other drink for thirsting Otso,
Everlasting will the food be,
And the drink be never wanting.
Helsinki is famous for its numerous Art Nouveau (Jugend in Finnish) influenced buildings of the romantic nationalism, designed in the early 1900s and strongly influenced by the Kalevala, which is a very popular theme in the national romantic art of that era. Helsinki's Art Nouveau style is also featured in large residential areas.
The Art-Nouveau movement at the turn of the 20th century coincided with a time when Helsinki was being built up and modernised. The style has become so ingrained in national consciousness that it has even influenced modern Scandinavian design.
theculturetrip.com/europe/finland/articles/an-art-nouveau...
The Pohjola Insurance building is the former headquarters of the Pohjola Insurance Company at Aleksanterinkatu 44 and Mikonkatu 3 in central Helsinki. Primarily designed by Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen and constructed in 1899–1901, it is a prominent example of Finnish national romantic architecture. It was acquired in 1972 by Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, now succeeded by Nordea.
The Pohjola Insurance Company (precursor of OP Financial Group) was founded in 1891 and specialised in fire insurance.
They held a competition for the design of their headquarters, which would also house another Fennomane insurance company, Kullervo, with the specification that the building must be of fire-resistant stone.
Based on the submissions, they commissioned Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen to design the exteriors and major interior spaces, but Ines and Ernst A. Törnvall were responsible for the plans. It was the first commercial building by Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen.
The building is national romantic in style, with façades of rough-hewn soapstone, red granite and serpentine decorated with sculptures of vegetation, squirrels, and figures from Kalevala, and on the street corner a tower with a pinecone-shaped roof.
When it was built, a reviewer dwelt on its "Finnish-naturalistic" style, but in form the exterior may have been influenced by contemporary American buildings: Henry Hobson Richardson's Cheney Building similarly uses a corner tower, and the use of windows resembles that in Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building.
Another Finnish architect, Bertel Jung, criticised the romantic elements as embodying "primitive, partially crude and untamed force".
Other reviewers praised it for its comparability to buildings in other countries and to their use of ornament.
Lindgren, the member of the firm who appears to have been most attached to national romanticism, greatly influenced the ornamentation of this building.
The main entrance, designed by Hilda Flodin, a pupil of Rodin, is flanked by the names of the two insurance companies, both from Kalevala, and by devils, monsters or trolls; bears, the symbol of the insurance company, top the pilasters and also appear in the interior decoration.
The door itself is deeply recessed under an arch, and the vestibule continues the allusion to medieval architecture, with vaulting and with carved animals topping pillars.
The rest of the interior also used rustic and folklore motifs, with doorways by Erik O. W. Ehrström, iron wheel chandeliers by G. W. Sohlberg, and a circular main stairway with a cast-iron banister with pine-tree motifs; the newel posts and the benches on the landings were carved wood depicting fern leaves and, again, trolls, and the stained glass featured ferns and owls.
The service hall on the first floor was given red pine panelling and a central pillar styled to resemble a tree trunk.
However, it has a steel core;behind the façades the building is brick with structural steel and from the start had Swedish-made lifts as well as an electrical generator.
The structural engineer was Elia Heikel, who was also working at the time on the Lundqvist Building opposite, which is seen as the first modern commercial building in Finland.
The building originally had flats on the upper three floors.
It was acquired in 1972 by Kansallis-Osake-Pankki, a bank which has subsequently been merged to form Nordea, but until 1987 Pohjola Insurance still had some customer service operations in the building. The customer service hall has since then been used as banqueting space. The tobacconist's Havanna-Aitta has been in the ground-floor commercial space for decades.
Mythical northern realm of Kalevala is a home to many heroes: wise artists, skilled craftsmen and famous wanderers.
In the Finnish epic of Kalevala, Wainamoinen is a wise bard, known to possess a musical instrument made of the pike's skull.
Mainly based on Tino's Supersonic Scuttler.
Les vierges de Vellamo flânent
A la pointe du cap brumeux,
Au bout de l'île nébuleuse,
Au-dessous des vagues profondes,
Au-dessus de la vase noire.
Mais elle [Aino] ne se montra plus
Pendant le cours de cette vie ;
Elle disparut prestement,
Quitta la surface de l'eau
Pour gagner le roc bigarré,
Une fente de couleur de foie.
The human-shaped reliefs on the façade are made of granite from the Nunnalahti quarry in Juuka, North Karelia. The Kalevala sculpture decoration was created by the artist Hilda Flodin.
The building was designed to house the Pohjola fire insurance company and many of the decorative elements allude to fire (bears holding torches etc.) Bears, squirrels and other animals adorn the facades, along with various mythological forest inhabitants from Nordic folklore. Pohjola, in the Kalevala, is the evil land of the North. Symbolically, the ornaments on the facade represent the bad luck that could befall clients should they fail to take out insurance from the company.
Facade decorations of the Pohjola building include 2 rising suns, 25 bears, 20 foxes, 17 eagles, 30 pine trees and over 800 pine cones.
Helsinki, Finland
youtu.be/kh-ut5zpkB0
youtu.be/HkcIZaxL1HI
youtu.be/M7WMGdJUr0Q
PAVEL FILONOV ( Avant - garde Painter )
Russian painter, graphic artist and poet. He came from a working-class background; orphaned in childhood, he moved to St Petersburg, where he earned money through embroidery, house painting, restoring buildings and icons, and other tasks such as retouching photographs and making posters and wrappers for goods (a practical apprenticeship he never forgot). His interest in drawing and painting developed through copying, making portraits and the close study of human and animal anatomy. He entered the Academy of Arts, St Petersburg (1908) with difficulty but he left without graduating; his only important teacher was L. E. Dmitriyev-Kavkazsky (1849–1916), with whom he studied privately. Largely self-taught, he was a man of considerable intellectual powers.
Filonov’s earliest mature work dates from 1909–10, notably A Hero and his Fate (oil on canvas; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Subsequently, partly for financial reasons, he generally painted in watercolour or oil on paper. He wandered extensively through Russia, the Near East and western Europe. From 1910 to 1914 he exhibited regularly with the Union of youth and he met and collaborated with the leaders of Russian literary Futurism, including Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksey Kruchonykh, but Filonov’s modernism was essentially his own. It was rooted in Russian folk and primitive art, in medieval Russian wall painting, in the linear manner of Dürer, the teeming imaginations of Bosch and Bruegel, the heightened, crowded realism of works by Vasily Surikov and Konstantin Savitsky and in the fragmented textures of the work of the Symbolist Mikhail Vrubel’.
In 1913 Filonov came to public attention as co-designer with I. Shkol’nik (1882–1926) of Mayakovsky’s play Vladimir Mayakovsky: Tragediya. During the four years until he was called up into the army (1916) Filonov was at the height of his powers, involved in a wide range of activities. His paintings were executed according to his principle of sdelannost’ (a neologism: ‘madeness’ or ‘craftedness’), which involved unremitting hard work on the art object leading to an extraordinarily detailed, crystalline, iridescent, apparently unstructured painterly texture (e.g. Workers, 1925); inspiration was discounted, craftsmanship exalted and the aim was the cognition of all qualities of the object, visible and invisible, down to its last atom. Filonov proclaimed his ideas in many manifestos, of which Sdelannyye kartiny (‘Made paintings’; 1914) was an early example. A second major principle, mirovoy rastsvet (‘universal flowering’), signalled a shift from his earlier apocalyptic, haunted manner, with its agonizingly flayed human figures, towards images of organic growth and radiance. In 1915 he published a long and extraordinarily obscure poetic work, Propeven’ o prorosli mirovoy (‘The chant of universal flowering’), with his own illustrations. This was highly praised by Khlebnikov, who incorporated Filonov memorably into his own prose work Ka (1916) as an artist ‘already at war, only a war to conquer time, not space’, and whose Izbornik stikhov, 1907–14 (‘Selected poems, 1907–14’; St Petersburg, 1914) was designed by Filonov. This is a landmark in modern book illustration, in which Filonov turned individual letters into pictograms and fused word and image into a primitive and modern synthesis. In the same year his austere drawings for the Futurist miscellany Rykayushchiy Parnas (‘Roaring Parnassus’) supposedly caused almost the entire edition to be confiscated for indecency.
Filonov welcomed the Revolution of 1917 and he was for a short time in charge of the ideological section of Ginkhuk. His lectures and proclamations became bellicose, as he battled equally against both academic and ‘proletarian’ art in support of his method, ‘analytic art’, which was to operate through ‘madeness’ in any of several modes (the primitive, the abstract, the hyper-real, often disconcertingly juxtaposed). Believing true art belonged to the people, Filonov no longer sold nor even signed his works and would not allow a one-man exhibition abroad nor the writing of a monograph about him; he lived a life of ascetic self-denial. Pupils began spontaneously to seek him out, and in 1925 he formalized the situation by establishing his ‘Collective of Masters of Analytic Art’, the Filonov school (Rus. Filonovtsy). This loosely knit group exhibited in 1927 and was commissioned to illustrate an ambitious edition of the Finnish epic Kalevala (pubd 1933), a complex undertaking by a team of 14 artists working collectively. Among them were Alisa Poret, M. D. Tsibasov and Tatyana Glebova. The Filonov school was a formative experience even for artists who subsequently reacted against it and was a significant phenomenon in Leningrad cultural life, influencing, among others, the poet N. Zabolotsky (1903–58).
Even before the Kalevala, however, the tide had turned against Filonov: a major retrospective exhibition was hung in the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1929–30) but never opened to the public; the press was hostile. From the early 1930s his position became precarious. Few works are datable to the last decade of his life, but neither his craftsmanship nor his sense of mission diminished. He died during the Siege of Leningrad (in which he was a fire-watcher). Despite his stature as a luminary of Russian Modernism, Filonov was reduced to a figure of myth. However, since the mid-1960s his work (mostly in St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.) has been gradually rediscovered and his writings published, and since the mid-1980s his work has been exhibited in Russia and elsewhere.
Built for New Elementary's Flowerfest for a half a year ago - going though a bit of a backlog.
More on Cyclopic Bricks.
Vierge,ce n'est pas pour les autres,
Jeune fille, c'est pour moi seul
Que tu portes au cou des perles,
Qu'une croix orne ta poitrine,
Que tes cheveux sont mis en nattes,
Nouées par un ruban de soie !
La vierge pleura tout le soir,
Se lamenta toute la nuit
Sur une pierre du rivage,
Dans l'anse d'un immense golfe ;
Le lendemain de très bonne heure,
Elle regarda vers le cap,
Vit trois vierges au bord de l'eau,
Elles se baignaient dans la mer,
Aino veut être quatrième,
La frêle tige, la cinquième.
Finally worked out how to make that wretched one-piece mech cockpit element (6166882) work for me rather than against me! Just ignore half the attachment points...
Seriously, that thing has frustrated me since I acquired one in the TLBM Mr Freeze set. But this actually works.
Named after the Finnish mythological epic, because Ice Planet and cold, there's actually not too much I'm really displeased with about it.
Le ferme et vieux Väinämöinen
S'éloignait avec grand fracas
Du fond de l'obscur Pohjola,
Loin du sinistre Sariola ;
Il avança quelques instants,
Parcourut un bout de chemin ;
Il perçut le bruit du fuseau
Dans les cieux au-dessus de lui.
Alors il redressa la tête,
Leva ses regards vers les nues ;
Un bel arc s'ouvrait dans le ciel,
Sur l'arc se tenait une vierge,
Elle tissait un voile d'or,
Brodait une étoffe d'argent.
Le ferme et vieux Väinämöinen
Arrêta vite son cheval,
Puis il commença de parler.
Les jeunes filles s'assemblèrent,
Les beautés voulurent danser
A l'ombre d'un bocage frais,
Dans une clairière fleurie ;
A leur tête était Kyllikki,
L'illustre vierge de Saari.
Survint le florissant farceur,
Notre léger Lemminkäinen,Avec son superbe étalon,
Avec son poulain le meilleur,
Au milieu du terrain de jeu,
Parmi les rondes des beautés ;
Il se jeta sur Kyllikki,
La déposa dans son traineau
sur une fourrure au poil rude,
Sur le tendre tapis d'éclisses.
Il était dans l'air une vierge,
La superbe Luonnotar ...
Elle en descendit à la fin,
Se posa sur les grandes vagues
Sur le dos brillant de la mer,
Au sein des ondes étendues ;
Vint un violent coup de vent,
De l'est un orage puissant
Qui couvrit d'écume la mer,
Souleva des larmes énormes.
Le vent berça la jeune fille,
La vague ballota la vierge
Sur le dos bleuissant des ondes,
A travers les flots écumeux ;
Le vent vint féconder son sein,
La vague la rendit enceinte.
Il alla se poster plus loin,
Au delà de l'autre demeure,
A la pointe du cap ardent,
Dans l'anse du dur promontoire,
Au bord du rapide écumant,
Sur la berge du flot sacré.
Alors au bout de quelques jours,
Une certaine matinée,
Il jeta les yeux au nord-est,
Tourna la tête vers le sud ;
Il vir un point noir sur la mer,
Sur les flots une tache bleue.