Ateneum
Encyclopedia
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. It is located in the centre of Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
at the Rautatientori
Rautatientori
Rautatientori is an open square in central Helsinki, immediately to the east of the Helsinki Central railway station. The square mostly serves as Helsinki's secondary bus station...
square opposite Helsinki Central Railway Station
Helsinki Central railway station
Helsinki Central railway station is a widely recognised landmark in central Helsinki, Finland, and the focal point of public transport in the Greater Helsinki area. The station is used by approximately 200,000 passengers per day, making it Finland's most-visited building...
. It has the biggest collections of classical art in Finland. Previously the Ateneum building also housed the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts
Academy of Fine Arts (Finland)
The Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Finland provides the highest university-level theoretical and practical training in the country in fine arts....
and University of Art and Design Helsinki
University of Art and Design Helsinki
Aalto University School of Art and Design , known commonly as TaiK, is the largest art university in the Nordic countries, and was founded in 1871. Media Centre Lume – the National Research and Development Center of audiovisual media – is also located in the university...
. The Ateneum building is owned by Senate Properties
Senate Properties
Senate Properties is a Finnish unincorporated state-owned enterprise, which manages a major part of the real estate assets owned by the Republic of Finland.-History:...
(Senaatti-kiinteistöt), the government real estate provider.
Architecture
The Ateneum building was designed by Theodor Höijer and it was 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
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
and sculptor Phidias
Phidias
Phidias or the great Pheidias , was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece: Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...
. Above the busts, in the third floor, four caryatid
Caryatid
A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town of Peloponnese...
s support the pediment. These symbolize the four classical art forms: architecture, painting, sculpting, and music. The facade culminates in a collage of sculptures in which the Goddess of Art blesses the products of the different art forms. All the statues were by Carl Sjöstrand. In between the second floor windows are several reliefs by Ville Vallgren representing Finnish and international artists.
Below the pediment's collage is a phrase in Latin: Concordia res parvae crescunt, It is usually understood to refer to the long-lasting battle of the Finnish art circles in order to establish the museum.