I had come across some work from a Finnish artist, Eero Jarnefelt (1863-1937), whose work I had not seen before, It was being shown in a list and as I scrolled down the group I was impressed with his style and the quality of the colors and light in his work. It was beautiful work, thoughtful and filled with a tranquil quality. But the final image was a hard veer away from the rest of the body of his work, a smoke and fire filled image of people beating the ground with sticks and in the midst of it , a young girl standing still among the smoldering ashes, staring into the eyes of the viewer as the fire blazes over her left shoulder.
It was a striking image and the girl’s face was haunting with her cheeks and brow smudged with ash. She looks exhausted and mournful which is obviously the look that struck the artist Jarnefelt in 1893 when this was painted and prompted him to title this painting Under the Yoke. These words are taken from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic which is said to have been the main inspiration for much of JRR Tolkien‘s work. Finland had long been under yoke of Swedish and Russian domination and the mood from it is captured in this little girl’s forlorn look.
It’s became jarnefelt’s most famous work, understandably. It only serves to underscore the impression his other work made on me.
Redtree Times 
That’s an interesting painting and might give one the impression that the family is recovering from some natural (or man-made) disaster when, in fact, they’re engaged in making forested land suitable for agriculture by a practice known as “slash-and-burn” (a fact made more apparent by the title the painting was first exhibited under, Burning the Brushwood or Wage Slaves/Burn Beating). More information on the tradition of Finnish forest painting can be found here. It seems somewhat analogous to our own Hudson River School of painting.
Thanks for the added info, Al. I realized after I had posted this that I hadn’t given the whole context of the image, as far as the traditional brush burning aspect, but didn’t have the time to go back and add it. Thanks for taking care of that!
One thing to note, only the lowest of the low did this particular work, which he emphasizes by their apparel including bark covered shoes. He was using social realism to call attention to the very poor in Finland.
Thanks for adding a little more context.