Aarre Aaltonen's Ilmatar and the Scaup

Aarre Aaltonen's sculpture Ilmatar and the Scaup was unveiled in Helsinki's Sibelius Park in 1946. The artwork is based on Kalevala's creation myth.Jaakko Yrjö-Koskinen, a physician by training, noticed details in Aaltonen's sculpture that seemed to relate to human sexual reproduction. Intrigued by these observations, he set out to unravel the work's mystery. In this booklet, he describes the many surprising discoveries he made while studying it.The booklet includes photographs of the sculpture taken by both Yrjö-Koskinen and Aaltonen. Readers can compare Yrjö-Koskinen's close-up photographs of the sculpture's details with illustrations reproduced from well-known nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century books on human anatomy and embryology, which appear at the end of the booklet.Based on his observations, Yrjö-Koskinen presents a new and fascinating interpretation of Aaltonen's original sculpture.