KALEVALA / for my Finnish readers

Iroi

Kalevala narrated to children, Vladislav Stanovský, illustrations by Stanislav Kolíbal, graphic design by Oldřich Hlavsa, published in Praha 1962.

Lemminkäinen

It's mostly illustrations that intrigue me in this book, but the graphic design itself makes the book a precious piece as well. Stanislav Kolíbal, yet quite a well known sculptor in this country, was quite experimental with these drawings for that time, nothing like that seen here before. The book he had illustrated earlier (Strom pohádek / The Fairy Tale Tree, Praha 1957) was even more progressive, his pictures were composed of cut-outs and some found it offensive. See a page from his catalogue:

I like how the illustrations for Kalevala correspond with his sculptures, the way their surfaces are structured.

Anyway, the book, since it is narrated to children, is written as a prose, not like the original Kalevala, only some parts rhymes, they are on a brown paper of different size in the book and they make its design special.

I haven't read it so far, but I have known something about it, since I have learned about painting of Akselli Gallen-Kallela. So, what does this magic grinder Sampo represent in the poem? What are the theories? (I heard one daring one that it is actually a magic mushroom, amanita muscaria, but I doubt it..)


And here we have a paper collage by Kolíbal as a bonus to those who scrolled all the way to here: