Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Page 94

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LE NORD
the artist’s sense of form becomes freer step by step, finally
reaching a masterly sureness and refinement of technique. This
development is not only shown in the sculptural elements of
form but also in the inner personal characterization. The marble
portrait of Danielson-Kalmari (1930) expressed this inner per-
ception in an almost Gothic spirit. In complete agreement with
the difficult task and with masterly control the portrait of Jean
Sibelius is carried out in marble, where the monumental head
rises with almost cosmic power from the unworked block.
Wáinö Aaltonen has almost exclusively concentrated his at-
tention, as regards portraits, upon model heads, because the head
is the focal point of the intellectual life of the intelligence.
Perhaps the most difficult for him in this respect was the Aleksis
Kivi monument. ’While he had to bring out the character of
“the poet head”, he had also to allow the Finnish racial type
to be seen, and besides this the head was to show the features
of the great author as they had been preserved in a drawing of
which the likeness is very uncertain. Aaltonen wrestled long
with this apparently hopeless problem until it was finally solved
for him purely as a vision — we might say as a divine inspir-
ation. For whether the head of the Kivi statue (1932—34) is
“like” him or not in the ordinary meaning of the word is of no
importance: we know instinctively that it is true. This could
also be expressed by saying that a very deep sculptural idea has
here found plastic form.
Already when Altonen was attending the drawing-school, he
dreamed of working in granite, something which, ever since the
beginning of the century, had been part of the great dream of
the art of sculpture all over Europe. But the attainments in this
extremely difficult sphere had in general halted at the archi-
tectonic decorative or realistic sculpture, at least this was the
case with the earlier Finnish works. It therefore aroused general
delight when Aaltonen in the first “The Granite Boy” carried
out his task in a new way, gave it new strength and warmth and
carried the presentation of nature to luxuriant and at the same
time simple perfection. In this work, which in size is still com-
paratively modest, the surface of the granite has a remarkable
freshness and radiance; it may be said that the plastic effect ís
further increased by the colour of the material. A very pro-
mising beginning had been made and it was natural that the
sculptor did not let his thought rest there.