Väinö Alfred Blomstedt was a Finnish artist in the Romantic Nationalist school. He was born in Savolinna in Finland, but grew up in Helsinki, where he played the first violin in his own orchestra, and by the time he was in his twenties was already one of the most important artists in Finland. He visited Paris and studied under Paul Gauguin, and was inspired by symbolism and synthetism. Gaugin’s influence is very strong in the paintingKullervo.
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He seems to have made a number of paintings featuring naked youths, including In Arcadia, in which a naked young man is aiming a bow and arrow at a swan; I've been told that this symbolizes man’s pain over the loss of the Golden Age.
Later, Blomstedt visited Italy, and and he continued to visit other countries, especially France, but appears to have stopped painting.
