Albert Edelfelt

Edelfelt was born 1854 in Porvoo, son of the Swedish architect (1818–1869), who had lived in Finland since his early youth, and Alexandra Edelfeldt (née Brandt 1833–1901). His father died when he was still young, and his mother had to raise him and his younger siblings alone compounded by financial difficulties. He remained very close to his mother throughout his life. He began his formal studies of art in 1869 at the Drawing School of the Finnish Art Society in Helsinki and continued as a student of Adolf von Becker (1871–73). He then received a scholarship from the Finnish government to study history painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. He studied under Nicaise de Keyser for several months in 1873–74, and won an award for excellence for his painting of Alexander the Great on his deathbed. He also began a long-lasting friendship with the Belgian artist Émile Claus. == Career ==

Arrival in Paris – History Painting In the autumn of 1874, at the age of nineteen, following the advice of his teacher Adolf von Becker, With that judgement, he almost entirely abandoned history painting and concentrated on painting in the open air. He returned to Finland for a time, then returned to Paris in 1881 and rented a new studio at 147, avenue des Villiers. Impressionism and Painting in Open Air In the early 1880s, Edelfelt began to adapt some of the characteristics of the new Impressionist movement; natural settings, particularly parks and gardens and the seashore; intimate domestic settings; the play of light on the figures; and rapid execution, to capture the sensation of the moment. At the same time, he never became entirely an impressionist, following his realist training to concentrate on precise details and using a broad and complex palette of colors. File:Albert Edelfelt - Conveying a Child's Coffin - Google Art Project.jpg|''Conveying a Child's Coffin'' (1879) File:Albert Edelfelt - Summer Life in the Islets (1880).jpg|Summer Life in the Islets (1880) File:Albert Edelfelt - Boys Playing on the Shore.jpg|Boys Playing Upon the Shore (1884) File:Albert Edelfelt - Shipbuilders.jpg|Shipbuilders (1886) Throughout the 1880s, Edelfelt continued to paint outdoor scenes of life in Paris, displaying his talent for capturing the effects of light, combined with his precision of detail. During the same period he created wide variety of intimate domestic scenes, capturing the details of Parisian life. File:Albert Edelfelt - Reading Parisienne.jpg|A Parisienne reading (1880) File:Albert Edelfelt - The Parisienne (Virginie) 1883.jpg|The Parisienne (Virginie) (1883) File:Albert Edelfelt - The Luxembourg Gardens, Paris.jpg|Luxembourg Gardens, Paris (1887) Portrait of Louis Pasteur In 1880, Edelfelt became a friend of Jean-Baptiste Pasteur, the son of the famous chemist Louis Pasteur, who introduced him to Pasteur the following year. He became a close friend of the family and painted many of their portraits over the years that followed. Pasteur had a good sense of public relations and participated with Edelfelt in the planning of his own portrait. Edelfeld's portrait of Pasteur in his laboratory, painted in 1885, had a great success at the Paris Salon of 1886 and became one of the most familiar images of the scientist. It gained the painter the award of the Legion of Honor when he was only thirty-five years old. In February 1899, Tsar Nicholas II issued a decree suppressing the political liberties of the Finns. Edelfelt mobilised a network of Finnish artists and cultural figures with a petition to the Russian government, called "Pro Finlandia", seeking recognition of the independence of the arts in Finland. He also took on the role of a cultural diplomat as the commissioner of the Finnish participation in the Paris Exposition Universelle (1900). File:Albert Edelfelt - The Grand Dukes Boris and Kirill Vladimirovich as Children (1881).jpg|Children of The Grand Duke Vladimir, brother of the Russian Emperor (1881) File:Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna by Edelfelt.jpeg|Children of Emperor Alexander III of Russia (1882) File:Nicholas II by Edelfelt.jpg|Portrait of Nicholas II (1896) The Finnish Countryside Edelfelt spent his summers in Finland exploring and painting. While his French paintings were almost all of Paris scenes, his paintings in Finland captured the scenery, people, and particular light of the Finnish countryside. He presented them regularly at the Paris Salon. For his painting of an outdoor church service on the coast at Haikko, near Porvoo, he made a series of oil sketches, to capture exactly the tonalities of the water and the sky. In 1880, his family purchased a summer house at the coastal manor of Haikko, located in the southwest part of the country, and he established a studio there in 1883. He frequently used his family and local residents as models. His pictures possess a spontaneity and naturalness that result from his careful observation and empathy for the subjects. File:Albert Edelfelt - Divine Service in the Uusimaa Archipelago.jpg|Church service by the sea in the Uusimaa Archipelago (1881) Edelfelt Koivujen alla 1881.jpg|Under the Birches, 1881 Albert Edelfelt - Summer.jpg|Summer, 1883 Portrait painting Edelfelt, very early in his career, became a master of portrait painting, which provided the major part of his income. "Portraits for the soup, paintings for the glory", he wrote in 1878, citing the Belgian artist Antoine Wiertz. From 1880 onwards, he participated in the Paris Salon, and portraits were his major source of income. Each portrait he painted involved a lengthy process. He created a series of preparatory drawings using pencil and crayon, followed by pastel colors, before completing the final oil painting. Besides paying close attention to the expression of the model and the pose, he also focused on the surroundings of the subject, including books, pets, or objects that could reveal the personality of the subject. In the 1890s, he became interested in illustrating poetry. Edelfelt also later dabbled in religious painting, and in his 1890 Christ and Mary Magdalene he set a biblical scene in the Finnish landscape, influenced by Kanteletar. File:Albert Edelfelt - Gitana Dancing I.jpg|Gitana Dancing I, 1881 File:Albert Edelfelt - Christ and Mary Magdalene, a Finnish Legend - Google Art Project.jpg|Christ and Mary Magdalene, a Finnish Legend, 1890 (fi) File:Björneborgarnas marsch, akvarell av Albert Edelfelt från 1900.jpg|March of the Björneborg Regiment, 1892 File:Jesus Washing the Feet of his Disciples (Albert Edelfelt) - Nationalmuseum - 18677.tif|Jesus Washing the Feet of his Disciples, 1898 File:Albert Edelfelt - Virgin Mary in the Rose Garden.jpg|Virgin Mary in the Rose Garden, 1898 == Personal life ==

He sent his mother hundreds of letters when he was away. In Paris, he shared a studio with the American Julian Alden Weir, who introduced him to John Singer Sargent. He had romantic relationships with numerous women, including Antonia Bonjean and Virginie in Paris. He married Baroness Anna Elise "Ellan" de la Chapelle in 1888, and the same year they had one child, Erik. They had known each other since childhood, but their marriage did not have a lot of warmth. The death of his mother in 1901 affected him greatly. == Death and legacy ==

setting a wreath by his statue of Edelfelt in 1930 He died abruptly from heart failure in 1905 at the age of fifty-one. His funeral was attended by a large number of notable Finns. In 2013, Boys Playing on the Shore (1884) was selected by Nordic Moneta as Finland's most significant painting. In Finland, he was one of the founders of the Realist art movement. He influenced several younger Finnish painters and helped fellow Finnish artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Gunnar Berndtson to make their breakthrough in Paris. Among his students was Léon Bakst. Edelfelt was one of the first Finnish artists to achieve international fame. Albert Edelfelt is considered one of the most notable artists of the Golden Age of Finnish Art. A museum under his name operates in Porvoo. He was selected as the main motif on a Finnish commemorative coin celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth, the €100 Albert Edelfelt and painting commemorative coin, minted in 2004. The reverse shows an embossed face of the artist. ==See also==