SIMBERG, Hugo
(b. 1873, Hamina, d. 1917, Ähtäri)

The Wounded Angel

1903
Oil on canvas, 127 x 154 cm
Ateneumin Taidemuseo, Helsinki

During a period of emotional crisis following a serious illness in 1903, Simberg cultivated the themes of death and eternal life, which characterized his later works. Immediately after his illness, he painted the large canvas Wounded Angel (1903; Ateneumin Taidemuseo, Helsinki), which depicts a blindfolded young angel being carried on a stretcher by two grim-faced boys through a bleak landscape. In a more realistic figure style than he had used in his earlier work, Simberg here meditated on the theme of the expulsion from Paradise. He later re-used the subject in his cathedral murals in Tampere.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.