After decades of debate, the building of the National Museum of Finland was completed in 1910. Instead of an outmoded neo-Renaissance style winning the architectural competition, a design at the forefront of the National Romantic movement claimed the day. The National museum, it was decided, would be built using genuinely Finnish material, with the granite and its departments representing different aspects of Finnish life. It was a natural that Akseli Gallen-Kallela should create the frescos, four tales from Kalevala, in the vaulted ceiling of the main hall. The Finnish national animal, the bear, greets visitors on the footsteps to the entrance.

The National Museum of Finland