Painted in 1896, the present work dates from Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s first period living and working at his wilderness studio Kalela in Ruovesi, central Finland. Executed in deftly handled impasto, Gallen overcomes the challenges of painting through the Finnish winter to create an evocative scene full of vibrant and subtle colour, from the teals, turquoises and lilacs of reflected light on the ice and snow, to the sweep of ultramarine across the lake in the distance. Warmer tones from a low sun illuminate the tree-tops which break the horizon, lending the composition its grandeur.
These years at Kalela were among the most productive and distinguished of Gallen-Kallela’s career. Inspired by the farm houses of Karelia that they had visited on their honeymoon, Kalela was still a work in progress when the artist and his wife moved there in September 1895. It was at Kalela that their children Kirsti (1896) and Jorma (1898) were born.
The previous year was important in cementing Gallen-Kallela’s reputation beyond Finland, where works such as Symposium (1894) had met with a degree of incomprehension. Spending three months in Berlin, Gallen held a joint exhibition with Edvard Munch in March 1895 at Ugo Barroccio’s gallery in the city. There Gallen exhibited 15 oils and 16 watercolours, while Munch showed 45 works – including the first version of the Frieze of Life series. International acclaim in these years led directly to Gallen’s triumphant success at the 1900 Exposition universelle in Paris, where his Kalevala murals were exhibited in the Finnish Pavilion.
Already nostalgic for his homeland, Gallen’s t.mes in Berlin was cut short when he learnt of the tragic death of his four-year-old daughter Impi Marjatta on 28 March 1895. Leaving Berlin, he returned to Finland in summer 1895 after a stay with his wife Mary in London.
The young skaters in the present work are a singular element compared with the artist’s pure landscapes. The photographic archive of the Gallen-Kallela museum contains several photographs circa 1900 of Hungarian children skiing on ice, and it is tempting to speculate they could be the children depicted in the present work. While the joyous spectacle of children’s games on the frozen lake must have been particularly moving at this t.mes , this illustrative element can perhaps be understood as part of the artist's interest in graphic art in late 1895, while he was also working alongside fellow artist Hugo Simberg (1873-1917). Recent research has demonstrated that Gallen originally painted five skaters, later deciding to paint one out to balance the composition.
