Original Finn

Last year I found myself giving a lecture in Helsinki. When I came to the end, I asked the audience if there were any questions. There followed a period of complete silence, after which a man cleared his throat and explained that, being Finnish, it was extremely difficult for them to speak in public; they preferred to come to the podium afterwards, one by one.

The Finns are a quiet people, and Helene Schjerfbeck — who has claims to be the greatest Finnish painter — is a quiet artist. But her pictures, which are on show at the Royal Academy, have qualities that mild-mannered and taciturn individuals sometimes possess: seriousness and intensity. When she does raise her voice, it’s all the more telling.

A good example comes early in the exhibition. ‘The Door’ (1884) was painted when she was 23 and at work in the artist’s colony of Pont-Aven in Brittany. It depicts a shadowy corner of a medieval building, perhaps the nearby chapel of Trémalo.