During his lifetime, sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen completed several public sculpture commissions of major national significance. These include the five sculptures in the plenary chamber of the Parliament Building, which were created following a competition. The figures in the series Work and the Future symbolise the building of the young nation and the ideals that shaped it at the time.

Settler gazes towards Finland’s most remote regions, symbolising the spirit of building the country and creating something new. Rural life and the traditional Finnish way of life were idealised in the nationalistic cultural climate, in art as well as in literature and film.

Settler is therefore an idealised image of the determined, resilient and hard-working Finnish man.