A lake that holds still
Akseli Gallen-Kallela's summer at Lake Keitele.
In the summer of 1904 Akseli Gallen-Kallela and his family stayed by Lake Keitele in central Finland. He was best known for epic scenes from Finnish legend, but that summer he turned to the landscape itself: the lake, the islands and the sky above them.
He returned to the same view several times between 1904 and 1906. In each version a pale zigzag runs across the surface of the lake, a line that could be a breeze, a current, or something older.
One of these paintings now hangs in the National Gallery in London. It contains no people at all, which is exactly why I keep going back to it.
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