Akseli Gallen-Kallela, a Swede by birth, was a Finnish artist primarily known for his illustrations made for The Kalevala. He painted monumental panels dedicated to the heroes of the Karelian and Finnish epic. The artist combines the symbolic interpretation of images and clarity of details with distinctive colorful and compositional rhythms. Landscape backgrounds play an important role in his narrative compositions. Gallen-Kallela also painted pure landscapes, where he often presented the generalized cycle of human life and death in parallel with the birth and the death of nature.

In 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to a wooden house that he built in Kalela by Lake Ruovesi in central Finland. The depicted fragment of a wooden building in the painting “Moonlit Night” is very similar to the terrace of the artist’s house.  It may be supposed that the view is of Lake Ruovesi. Gallen-Kallela often painted landscapes from the terrace of his house.

This painting is a typical example of the northern symbolism features, where the new principles of artistic language did not contradict the traditional realistic manner but could actually be easily combined with it in a single artwork.