Ateneum

For similarly named entities, see Athenaeum (disambiguation).

Ateneum

Ateneum art museum
The location of the museum in Helsinki
Established	1887 (1887)
Location	Helsinki, Finland
Coordinates	60°10′12″N 024°56′39″E
Type	Art museum
Key holdings	The Wounded Angel, Lemminkäinen's Mother, Aino triptych, Raatajat rahanalaiset (Kaski), Street in Auvers-sur-Oise
Collection size	4,300+ paintings, 750+ sculptures
Visitors	400 000 (2012)
Director	Susanna Pettersson (Oct. 2014 - )
Website	ateneum.fi

Ateneum is an art museum in Helsinki, Finland and one of the three museums forming the Finnish National Gallery. It is located in the centre of Helsinki on the south side of Rautatientori square close to Helsinki Central railway station. It has the biggest collections of classical art in Finland. Previously the Ateneum building also housed the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and University of Art and Design Helsinki, but has solely been a museums since 1991. The Ateneum building is owned by Senate Properties (Finnish: Senaatti-kiinteistöt), the government real estate provider.

Collections

The collections of Ateneum include extensively Finnish art all the way from 18th-century rococo portraiture to the experimental art movements of the 20th century. The collections also include some 650 international works of art. One of them is Vincent van Gogh's Street in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890): when the painting was deposited in 1903 Ateneum became the first museum in the world to own a Vincent van Gogh. Other notable works include Albert Edelfelt’s The Luxembourg Garden (1887), Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Aino Triptych (1891), Eero Järnefelt’s Under the Yoke (Burning the Brushwood) (1893) and Hugo Simberg’s Wounded Angel (1903).

Notable works

• 
  The Road Bridge at L'Estaque, Paul Cézanne, 1879/1882
• 
  The Fighting Capercaillies, Ferdinand von Wright, 1886
• 
  Women Outside the Church at Ruokolahti, Albert Edelfelt, 1887
• 
  Street in Auvers-sur-Oise, Vincent Van Gogh, 1890
• 
  Aino Myth, Triptych, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1891
• 
  Under the Yoke (Burning the Brushwood), Eero Järnefelt, 1893
• 
  The Wounded Angel, Hugo Simberg, 1903
• 
  Portrait of the Artist Léopold Survage, Amedeo Modigliani, 1918

Architecture

Busts of Raphael, Phidias, and Bramante

The Ateneum building was designed by Theodor Höijer and completed in 1887.

The facade of Ateneum is decorated with statues and reliefs which contain a lot of symbols. Above the main entrance, in the second floor, are busts of three famous classical artists: architect Bramante, painter Raphael and sculptor Phidias. Above the busts, in the third floor, four caryatids support the pediment. These symbolize the four classical art forms: sculpture, painting, geometry, and architecture. The facade culminates in a collage of sculptures in which the Goddess of Art, Pallas Athene, blesses the products of the different art forms. All the statues were by Carl Eneas Sjöstrand. In between the second floor windows are 16 medallion-style reliefs by Ville Vallgren representing some of Finland's most well known creative people of his day, including painter Aleksander Lauréus, Werner Holmberg and the architect Carl Ludvig Engel.

Below the pediment's collage is a phrase in Latin: Concordia res parvae crescunt. It translates to With concord small things increase and usually understood in Helsinki to refer to the long-lasting battle of the Finnish art circles in order to establish the museum.

See also

• Finnish National Gallery
• Kiasma
• Sinebrychoff Art Museum

External links

• Ateneum Art Museum website
• Ateneum Art Museum on Google Cultural Institute