Self-portraits as the Keeper of the Sampo of the Kalevala epic and painting under a parasol, a Masai warrior standing on a rock, a stereoscopic view of a gazelle dying on the savannah. All this is virtual reality captured on film by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. By the turn of the century, Axel Gallén had become one of the leading figures of Finnish art, and, inspired by the national-romanticism of the period, changed his name to Akseli Gallen-Kallela.
Gallén discovered photography in the early 1880s when his portrait by Daniel Nyblin, at the time one of the leading photographers in Helsinki. The self-confident young artist emerged as the real auteur of these cabinet portraits.
In 1885 Axel Gallén was presented to August Strindberg in Paris as "the most radical young Finnish artist." Their first meeting went on for two days. Strindberg, the alchemist of photography, kindled the young artist's flame during his years in Paris. Gallén and Edvard Munch held a joint exhibition in Berlin in 1895, the year when the brothers Lumière astounded the world with the first public presentation of cinematography. Gallén and Munch also experiemented with moving pictures.
In his photographic self-portraits, Gallén seeks himself and his shadow, like his pupil Hugo Simberg. Presenting himself in various roles, Gallén appears skiing in the wilds in Finland or as a miner in America. In one his last photographs he is in the habit of monk in the loggia of his studio-villa of Tarvaspää (present-day Gallen-Kallela Museum).
