Orchard at La Louvière

The English-Belgian artist A.W. Finch, who settled permanently in Finland in 1897, played a significant role in the development of the Finnish art scene and helped usher in new European art movements. It was largely due to Finch's connections that contemporary Neo-Impressionism was introduced in Finland at an exhibition of French and Belgian art held in Ateneum in 1904. Finch was personally familiar with some of the most important Neo-Impressionists such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, and he was among the first to adopt the new colour theory developed by Seurat. It involved placing unmixed colours side by side, mixing them optically. This theory quickly gained followers in Finland, leading to what is known as the period of the "clean palette".