As seen in the mountain and hill scenery above, the depiction of geological formations does not constitute the only motif in the artworks; in many cas-es an cas-essential part of the landscape is comprised of the vegetation, and especially different kinds of trees or, on a larger scale, forests. In Germany, forests have played an essential role both in historical and political events across the centuries.563 Since the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of urbanisation, they have also offered a retreat from hectic city life. As a token of their importance today, German beech forests have been de-clared world cultural heritage sites in some parts of the country.564 More-over, the oak forests of the north have been defined as the birthplace of German culture,565 and later in the 1830s the oak would become a national symbol.566 Along with the oak, the lime tree has competed for the nomi-nation as nomi-national tree. A decisive factor in this contest has been the age of the tree, since no other tree on German ground can reach one thousand years of age, apart from the oak or the lime.567 Accordingly, one of the most studied trees in Düsseldorf was the monumental and gnarled oak which consequently achieved a special role as a particularly German tree in land-scape art.568 For the same reason, in the summer of 1836, Lessing travelled to Solling, which was famous for its old oaks, to study the old trees there.569 As an example of Lessing’s interest in these ancient trees, there are two paintings in his œuvre which, more or less, represent the same view from the Bode valley in the Harz, with an massive old oak by a small river: Forest Landscape (Waldlandschaft, 1836), and The Thousandyearold Oak (Die Tau
561 Compare with von Wright’s painting Suopeltovuori in Haminalahti, 1867, No. A I 28, FNG. While in Düsseldorf, Magnus von Wright visited the Eifel too. At the beginning of August 1858, he travelled with Gude and a Ger-man genre painter, Adolf Schlesinger, to Andernach near Koblenz. They stayed there for about two weeks and visited, among other things, the Benedictine abbey of Laach (nowa-days Maria Laach Abbey) by the lake, Laacher See. The lake, round in shape, is one of the maars in the Eifel region, and thus formed in an old crater of a volcano. In his diary, von Wright tells how they started with making stud-ies outdoors of the abbey ruins, and painted from morning till evening.
He mentions especially a ‘study with sunlight’ (‘studie med solbelysning’).
In addition, the constructions made for vine growing on the mountain cliffs caught his attention. Wright 2001, 28.7. and 13.8.1857 (327−328); A II 818:1/12, FNG; see also Pennonen 2017, 53.
562 For the artworks, see Carl Friedrich Lessing. Romantiker und Rebell (2000), 59 and 105.
563 See Bernhard 2011, 130–137.
564 In his diary, von Wright also writes about ‘most lovely beech forests and groves’ which are situated by Laacher See (‘[…] vid Laacher som ligger uti de herrligaste bokskogar och lunder’). Von Wright 2001 [1850–62], 327; Breymayer
& Ulrich 2011, 15.
565 Mitchell 1993, 154; Demandt 2008, 166−168.
566 Bernhard 2011, 134.
567 Demandt 2008, 166−168, 186.
568 Mitchell 1993, 36, footnote 60.
569 Küster 2000, 133.
153 T H E P r O M I S E D l A N D O f l A N D S c A P E PA I N T I N G
41 w E r N E r H O l M b E r G Sketch of an Old Oak No. A I 98:1, undated wash ink drawing finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Hannu Aaltonen
42 w E r N E r H O l M b E r G Sketch of an Old Oak No. A I 472:5/44, undated pencil on paper
finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Tero Suvilammi
sendjährige Eiche, 1837).570 There we can see a man and a woman kneeling down in front of an imposing old oak, the thick roots of which reach down to the river, and the trunk of which has started to split due to old age. The girth of the tree indicates its great age, because it must be several times a man’s size. The tree seems to be rather tall, but it is not completely visible.
Some of its branches have no leaves, exposing their twisting structures, whereas most of the trunk is hidden behind green foliage.
Many non-German artists were attracted by the old oaks in Ger-many, too. Hans Gude, for instance, mentions painting studies with the German artists Oswald Achenbach and Albert Flamm (1823–1906) in Brück-er Wald, a large oak forest near Cologne, in the summBrück-er of 1844.571 The gnarled oak was also one of the popular motifs that Holmberg, Churberg and Åberg studied carefully in Düsseldorf, and there are several sketches and studies depicting massive oaks standing alone, or in pairs, with their thick twisting branches protruding to the sides or towards the sky.572 The special appeal that the German oak had to them is understandable, be-cause in Finland the artists could see them growing wild in nature only in the south-western part of the country, and especially in the areas along the coast. Besides, in Finland the oak does not grow as big nor does it live as long as it does in Germany due to the climate. Thus, we can imagine how exotic it must have been to see such massive trees in nature, even forming big forests. And it was not only oaks that fascinated them, but German forests in general, with their different kinds of broad-leaved trees, such as the lime, the maple, or the ash.573
Prior to the developments in Düsseldorf, sketching from nature had already reached new dimensions in the 1780s due to the interest in de-picting specific details, as stated by Timothy F. Mitchell. Therefore careful observation of natural phenomena, as well as the value of individual char-acteristics, had started to gain even more importance.574 These individual characteristics became evident in depictions of tree trunks, leaves and flowers and, consequently, there was a shift from mere tree-like shapes into clearly recognisable species. This development follows not only Hackert and Goethe’s ideas, but also Humboldt’s, as discussed earlier in chapters one and two. Furthermore, Mitchell claims that in the earlier Dutch land-scape painting of the seventeenth century, it was only Ruysdael who had depicted trees in a recognisable way.575 The trees started to control the physiognomy of landscape in art in Dresden, and the trend continued in
570 There seems to be two different ver-sions of this motif, since this artwork is called Forest Landscape (Waldland
schaft) and given the inventory num-ber MNP Mo II0I at Muzeum Naro-dowe w Poznaniu, Poznán; for this, see Andree 1979, 393. The other art-work is called The Thousandyearold Oak (Die tausendjährige Eiche, 1837) in Bierende & Sitt 2000, on pp. 59 and 163, and given the inventory num-ber 1011 at Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main.
571 Dietrichson 1899, 18.
572 See Churberg’s Old Oak Tree (Vanha tammi, ca. 1872), No G-2011-17 at Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Founda-tion, Åberg’s Old Oak Tree, No. EAT 105, Emil Aaltonen Foundation, and Holmberg’s sketches Nos. A I 98:1, A I 472:5/44–48, FNG. Churberg’s paint-ing Old Oak Tree is, in fact, unfinished and it turned out to be a copy of Carl Ludwig’s work. Pennonen 2017c, 58.
573 Finland is divided into eight differ-ent zones according to the plants that grow there. The so-called valuable broad-leaved trees, such as oak, lime, ash, or maple, grow and thrive only in the southern-most zone. See, for instance, http://
koivu.luomus.fi/kasviatlas/maps.
php?taxon=40434&year=2014.
574 As an example of this, Mitchell gives the artworks of Carl Wilhelm Kolbe (1759–1835). Mitchell 1993, 29−30, 33.
575 Mitchell 1993, 30, 35; see also Mattos 2004.
155 T H E P r O M I S E D l A N D O f l A N D S c A P E PA I N T I N G
39 fA N N Y c H U r b E r G Old Oak Tree, c. 1872 oil on paper fixed on plywood 66 x 46 cm
Signe and Ane Gyllenberg foundation
Photo: Matias Uusikylä
40 V I c TO r I A Å b E r G Old Oak Trees
oil on canvas fixed on panel 49.5 x 39.2 cm
Emil Aaltonen’s collection, Emil Aaltonen Museum
Photo: Petri Nuutinen
Düsseldorf, where artists started using trees to emphasise the characteris-tics of nature in different countries. Over time, Finnish artists turned their gaze to Finnish nature, and German nature and forests lost their appeal.
As a result, they started using pine, spruce and birch to bring in the typical features of Finnish landscapes, which will be explored in chapter five.