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Your galleryAd Astra
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Compare the figure’s spreading hair with the branching patterns in the open side panels. Follow the raised arms toward the curve of the frame.
Gallen-Kallela designed and made the elaborate frame as part of this work, whose title means “To the Stars.” He associated the raised arms with the Crucifixion and the floating hair with resurrection. The painting also served as an altarpiece at his daughter’s baptism. Image and carved surround therefore belong to the same symbolic object.
Oil on canvas, in artist's painted and gilded wood shrine · Canvas: 76 × 85 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Symbolism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Ad Astra
- Artist
- Akseli Gallen-Kallela (Finnish, 1865–1931)
- Date
- 1894–96
- Medium
- Oil on canvas, in artist's painted and gilded wood shrine
- Dimensions
- Canvas: 76 × 85 cm (29 15/16 × 33 7/16 in.); Framed: 129.6 × 116.9 × 14.7 cm (51 1/16 × 46 1/16 × 5 13/16 in.)
- Credit line
- The Lacy Armour Fund; Old Masters Society; European Painting General Sales Proceeds, Charles H. and Mary F. Worcester, Josephine and John Louis funds, through prior gift of Mrs. Gilbert Chapman; European Painting Acquisition, Carol Rosenthal-Groeling, and Irving Lauf funds.
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.