Echo

Echo was Ville Vallgren's artistic breakthrough and also his first commissioned sculpture in marble. A gypsum version of it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1886, for which the artist received an honourable mention. Movement is essential in his sculptures, as well as soft, flexible positions and a deep concentration on the subject. Echo is straining his whole body to sharpen his hearing. There is a sense of Rococo grace and a child of nature about this boy figure. Vallgren was at his best when focusing on poetic and sensual subjects. He also loved to combine his human characters with nature and its phenomena, as he has done here with the echo created by nature and the boy's seat, a tall tree stump decorated by ivy.