ITALIAN LANDSCAPES – JOHANNES RANTANEN

PRESS RELEASE

The exhibition by Johannes Rantanen features around thirty oil paintings created in Tuscany during the years 1981–82. The artist spent the winter of 1981 working for three months in an atelier house in Grassina, near Florence. From November 1981 to May 1982, he worked for over seven months in the village of Arsina, near Lucca. The exhibited works reflect a deep admiration for these rich landscapes: the ever-changing colors of the mountains and hills, a new kind of blue, the rhythms of vineyards and olive groves, blossoming almond valleys, the unique light, clusters of old farmhouses, pine trees, and cypresses.

Johannes Rantanen was born in Muurame in 1945. Holding a Licentiate of Philosophy degree, Rantanen served as an assistant in art history at the University of Jyväskylä from 1968 to 1974, and as an associate professor from 1974 to 1978. He has been a freelance artist since 1978. Johannes Rantanen has participated in group exhibitions since 1972 and has held solo exhibitions since 1967.

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