Symposium (Gallen-Kallela)

Symposium (also known as Symposion and Problem, Finnish: Probleemi) is an oil painting created by Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1894.

[1] The pictured gathering party consists of Finnish artists, who regularly had a meeting in the Hotel Kämp in Helsinki, then in the Grand Duchy of Finland.

The finished version is in a private collection, while the sketch is owned by the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation.

The gentlemen on the caricature picture were then and still are well known Finnish intellectuals: from left the painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela himself, at that time Axel Gallén, composers Oskar Merikanto plus Jean Sibelius with Robert Cajanus who was the principal conductor of an orchestra.

[3] The leading figurehead of the society was Kajanus, who was a decade older than the others, and in addition to him, Gallen-Kallela and Sibelius were prime members.