HELSINKI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The official portrait painting of Finnish President Sauli Niinisto published on Friday surprised both the general public and art critics.
Traditionally, the government commissions a portrait to be done when a president is nearing the end of his first term.
The painting of Niinisto unveiled in a ceremony at the Council of State building on Friday, is not a work of one artist, but has input from one hundred selected artists including painters, sculptors and visual artists.
It is a mosaic photograph comprising one hundred smaller blocks, each assigned to one of the artists through a lottery. When the picture is turned around, the name of each artist matches his or her contribution on the other side.
Eyes, nose and mouth are done realistically, but some other parts more artistically. Hard realism is applied to the right eye, with heavy eye bags under it. The president's nose is pink and forehead is gray.
Initial reactions by reporters covering the event included descriptions such as "this is like a grandmother's patchwork quilt".
Art critics then started comparing the portrait with the traditional portraits depicting heads of the state for more than a hundred of years.
Timo Valjakka, a critic working with the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, said the work of art moderately looks like Niinisto, "but lacks the inner dimension".
Besides showing what a head of state looked like, traditional portraits also tried to convey what the head of state was like "as a character". "This is now missing," said Valjakka.
The president himself said the work was exciting. He had chosen the method, but had not seen the completed work earlier.
"Perhaps some people consider this as the Portrait of Dorian Gray", he said, referring to the 1890 novel by Oscar Wilde. The book deals with the relationship between reality and the art of painting.
The contemporary portrait has cost the government 35,000 euros (41,875 U.S. dollars).
