Havis Amanda
Encyclopedia
Statue
A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...
in 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...
, Finland
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 was sculpted by Ville Vallgren
Ville Vallgren
Carl Wilhelm "Ville" Vallgren was a Finnish sculptor. His best-known work is the statue of Havis Amanda in Helsinki.-External links:...
(1855-1940) in 1906 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, but was not erected at its present location at the Market Square in Kaartinkaupunki
Kaartinkaupunki
Kaartinkaupunki is a neighbourhood in the southern part of Helsinki, Finland.Kaartinkaupunki consists of the area between the Esplanadi park and the Tähtitornin vuori park. Its area was first confirmed in 1812, but the neighbourhood was only named in 1959. It is neighbourhood number 3 in Helsinki,...
until 1908.
Havis Amanda is one of Vallgren's Parisian Art Nouveau works. It is cast in bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
and the fountain it resides in is made of granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
. She is a mermaid who stands on seaweed as she rises from the water, with four fish spouting water at her feet and surrounded by four sea lion
Sea Lion
Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear-flaps, long fore-flippers, the ability to walk on all fours, and short thick hair. Together with the fur seal, they comprise the family Otariidae, or eared seals. There are six extant and one extinct species in five genera...
s. She is depicted leaning backwards as if to say goodbye to her element. Vallgren's intention was to symbolize the rebirth of Helsinki. The height of the statue is 194 centimetres and with the pedestal it stands 5 metres tall. According to Vallgren's letters the model for the statue was a then 19-year-old Parisian lady, Marcelle Delquini.
Vallgren himself simply called the work Merenneito (The Mermaid), but it quickly started to get additional nicknames. The Finland-Swedish
Finland-Swedes
Swedish-speaking Finns constitute a linguistic minority in Finland. They maintain a strong identity and are alternatively seen either as a distinct subgroup of the Finnish people or as a separate ethnic group or even as a distinct nationality...
newspapers dubbed it Havis Amanda and the Finnish Haaviston Manta or simply Manta. Havis Amanda is the common name used in brochures and travel guides.
It was unveiled on September 20, 1908. The work drew a lot of criticism at first, especially from women. Its nakedness and seductiveness were considered inappropriate. Not all groups objected to the nudity per se, but putting it on a pedestal was thought to subjugate women by making them appear weak and create sexual objectification
Sexual objectification
Sexual objectification refers to the practice of regarding or treating another person merely as an instrument towards one's sexual pleasure, and a sex object is a person who is regarded simply as an object of sexual gratification or who is sexually attractive...
and belittling of women (equal and common suffrage was introduced in Finland in 1906). Some women's rights groups criticised the look of the figure as plain and some even as "a common French whore", lacking pristine and innocence. The sea lions, with their human tongues hanging out, were said to represent men lusting after the mademoiselle. Vallgren considered himself a worshipper of women. Many in the cultural elite of Finland considered Vallgren an outsider and had judged his work even before it was finished. A good friend of his, Albert Edelfelt
Albert Edelfelt
Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter.Albert Edelfelt was born in Porvoo, Finland. His father Carl Albert was an architect. Edelfelt admired the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, who was a friend of the family...
, was instrumental through his influence in getting the work ordered. Thanks to a small group of mainly Finland-Swedish supporters, the work gradually started gaining wide acceptance and natives started seeing it as the spirit of the city. Today it has been consistently voted the most important and most beautiful piece of art in Helsinki.
Every year on Vappu, Manta serves as a centrepiece for the celebrations. Students of the local universities put a cap on the statue on an elaborate ceremony. For many it is a "must see" event.
There is also an urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
that Havis Amanda patronizes men's sexual potency. Some men believe that washing face with water from one of Havis Amanda's fountains and shouting thrice "Rakastaa!" (Finnish verb "love") increases men's sexual ability.