View from Turku

Otto Mäkilä's "View from Turku" presents an interesting historical puzzle. Born in 1904, Mäkilä would have been only 11 years old in 1915, the attributed year of this painting. While it's possible for a child prodigy to create such a work, it's more likely that the date is either a misattribution or the work of a different artist, as Mäkilä is primarily known for his later modernist and surrealist works. His documented oeuvre, as seen in collections like the Art Institute of Chicago, typically includes drypoints, lithographs, and woodcuts from the 1920s onwards, often exploring themes of war, urban life, and existential figures, as exemplified by works like "Murder" and "Dead Soldier" from his "Death and Resurrection" series (1922) or "Pimp and Whore" (1921). Without further information on "View from Turku," it's difficult to place it within the established context of Mäkilä's mature artistic development, which leaned towards expressionistic and symbolic representations rather than traditional landscapes. If the attribution is correct, this piece would represent an extremely early and atypical work from an artist who would later become a significant figure in Finnish modernism.