Onni Okkonen entered the university in 1905 and started his studies in Aesthetics, the Finnish language and literature. He finished his Bachelor’s degree in 1908 and then travelled on a scholarship around Europe. While travelling, he was inspired to study the arts; in large part after meeting and being encouraged by the Renaissance researchers Henry Biaudet, Kaarlo Karttunen and Liisa Karttunen in Italy.

Okkonen’s research focused on topics in Italian art and general art theory which had been studied by his teacher J. J. Tikkanen, Finland’s first art historian, and Yrjö Hirn, a Professor of Aesthetics and Contemporary Literature. Okkonen defended his dissertation on the art of Melozzo da Forlì in 1914. Two years later he published his research on art theory in a work called Taiteen alku (‘The origin of art’) and he was named docent in art history and art theory at the University of Helsinki.

‘The origin of art’ had similarities to a movement at the end of the 1800s which discussed the origins of art, but it differed from the mainstream relationship between art and art history of Okkonen’s time. Okkonen used an interdisciplinary approach and tried to tie together the subjects of art history, aesthetics, psychology, archaeology and ethnography to explain the birth and development of art. His ambitious work, however, did not convince his critics, who saw it as too meandering and too empirical a way of looking at a problem.

In 1927, Okkonen was appointed Professor of Art History and he differed theoretically from his predecessor, Tikkanen, who supported systematic research and positivism in art. Okkonen’s points of departure were instead in aesthetics and art scholarship which seeks to judge art based on the history of styles, artistic creations, and the psychology of artistic enjoyment. An artist was considered to transfer their emotional state into their work, after which it would then come across to the viewer.

Okkonen’s thinking was governed by the evolutionism of the 1910s. He tried to prove that art was developing toward a firm form and harmonious relationships. He held that the abstract and expressionistic art which developed in the early 1900s had caused art to relapse into primitivism by surrendering to instincts and emotions. As an art critic, Okkonen tried to weed expressionism out of the Finnish art scene because he considered it ugly and impure. He considered the classic ancient Greece period and the Italian Renaissance as the best eras of art.

After the 1910s, Okkonen focused mainly on studying the life works of important Finnish artists. He wrote books about the sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen (‘Väinö Aaltonen’, 1926), the painter Juho Rissanen (‘Juho Rissanen’, 1927), and Akseli Gallen-Kallela (‘Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Kalevala art’, 1935; ‘Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s art’, 1936; A. Gallen-Kallela: life and art, 1949’). Gallen-Kallela was Okkonen’s favourite artist and he considered Helene Schjerfbeck to be a master. He was diligent in popularising art and he wrote a number of general works about the world of art, such as Suomen taiteen historian (‘The history of Finnish art’, 1945). His last work was written during the Second World War and it shows a strong emphasis on Finnish originality.

Okkonen was a controversial figure in the history of Finnish art, but his life’s work in popularising art is indisputable.