Akseli Gallen-Kallela, “Conceptio Artis”, 1894, Oil Paint and Gouache on Paper, Finnish National Gallery
Akseli Gallen-Kallela 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.
In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to oversee the 
joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Here he became acquainted with the Symbolists. The Paris Exposition secured Gallen-Kallela’s stature as the leading Finnish artist. In 1901 he was commissioned to paint the fresco, “Kullervo Goes to War”, for the concert hall of the Helsinki Student’s Union.
From December 1923 to May 1926, Gallen-Kallela lived in the United States, where an exhibition of his work toured several cities and where he visited the Taos art-colony in New Mexico to study indigenous American art. In 1925 he began the illustrations for his “Great Kalevala”. This was still unfinished when he died of pneumonia in Stockholm on 7 March 1931, while returning from a lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Many to http://cevans75.tumblr.com from whom I reblogged the image. Visit his blog.