In Finnish art-historical writing, Holmberg has often been described as the master of Finnish pine forests. While travelling in Finland in the summers of 1857 and 1859 in the area of Pirkanmaa and Kuru near Tampere,682 he composed several sketches and studies of pines, especially during his trip in 1857, paying attention to their char-acteristics in the same way he had studied, for instance, oak trees in Germany.683 In order to convey the characteristics of a forest, in some cases he has examined just the outline of the forest by drawing a line of treetops. In these sketches, it is still pos-sible to detect different species of trees. For example, the round form of the top of a pine differs clearly from the sharp form of a spruce; and in the case of broad-leaved trees, it is possible to detect a distinction between the lace-like shaped branches and sharp-edged leaves of a maple tree, and the softer contours of an oak.684 Besides these pencil sketches, he rendered pines and spruces in some of his watercolours, fo-cussing on their slender trunks rising from grey granite rock partly covered with grey lichen or greenish moss. In the depiction of pines, Holmberg has paid attention to the shift in colour on their trunks from grey to brown, which is characteristic of pines in Finland.685 On the back of a study depicting a forest interior, he has drawn a another sketch of spruce branches, and noted typical features of a spruce forest, stating how taller and smaller trees were completely without needles, and there was grey moss on the stones and rock, and the misty grey colour continued on the ground; only in the air could one see more lively colours.686 Another example of his interest in pines is represented in his later œuvre in the picture A Road in Häme, A Hot Summer Day (Tie Hämeessä, Helteinen kesäpäivä, 1860)687, which takes us into a forest where a winding sandy road leads from a hilltop towards a lake. The road is lined with tall pines, some
681 Tiitta 1994, 187, 198.
682 For the route in 1857, see Reitala 1986, 81, and for the route in 1859, see Reitala 1986, 113.
683 In comparison, during the fol-lowing trip in 1859, Holmberg focused mainly on peasant houses and people, compos-ing small vignette-like pic-tures of different details of the houses and other
sa nedantill, grå mossa på ste
nar och berg, deraf en dimmig grå ton utmed marken, först emot luften vidtaga lifligare färger.’ See No. A I 470:106, painted on 16 July 1857 in Kuru, FNG.
687 No. A II 1002, FNG.
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64 w E r N E r H O l M b E r G
A Road in Häme, A Hot Summer Day, 1860 oil on canvas, 88.5 x 103.5 cm
finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum
Photo: Finnish National Gallery / Yehia Eweis
smaller birches and spruces and a few large rocks. Farther along the road, it starts to bend to the left and then disappears, and we can detect some green bush-like trees to the right, which could be juniper. In the mid-foreground of the painting, we can see a carriage, obviously a stagecoach, pulled by two horses going down the hill. A man is sitting at the back of the carriage, the driver is in the front and some female travellers with parasols are in the carriage. The ground is very dry as the carriage is surrounded by a cloud of dust. This gives the impression of heat and refers to the name of the painting which was given by the artist himself. A distant view with fields opens up beyond the lake. In the fields, we can detect a tiny, black-and-white spot, which denotes a medieval stone church. This gives some hint of the actual location of the scene which is somewhere near Tampere, a city some 170 kilometres north of Hel-sinki in the province of Häme. The group travelling here are members of Holmberg’s family, including his wife, the Norwegian-born artist Anna, (née Glad).688
Reitala explains how this painting records Holmberg’s experiences from his last trip to Finland in 1859. Based on the same trip, Holmberg had painted an ear-lier version of the same theme in January 1860, Mail Road in Finland (Postitie Suomes
sa)689. In this painting, he obviously had been practising the composition for the later work, as it is smaller in size (40cm x 58cm). The basic composition in both pictures is the same, with the winding road leading from the foreground through the forest to the right. There are some differences, however. In the earlier version, the beholder is located farther away from the carriages on the road, making the horse carriage less clearly visible than in the later version. The direction of the carriage, moreover, is reversed: it is not going down the road, but coming up towards the observer. The road is not completely visible either, as the artist has left part of it hidden behind a group of trees in the middle ground. The view opening over the lake into the distance is missing, too, and there is a dense forest in its place. As a consequence, the picture lacks reference to any particular place. The only indication of the actual site is given by the milestone on the left side of the road. All in all, both the paintings convey the same impression of a hot summer’s day in a Finnish forest. They depict travelling by carriage in Finland in the summertime. This is what Holmberg did in the summers of 1857 and 1859. The first time he travelled alone, on the second he was accompanied by his wife, Anna.690 Certainly, he made a part of his journey by carriage on both trips, as in those days there were no railways in Finland. However, if we look at his sketches and studies from these trips, it is evident that he needed to go on foot, too, in order to get to the places he depicted. In his pursuit of the Finnish landscape, Holmberg travelled in the area surrounding Tampere, and some 100 kilometres farther north-west to Kuru and Virrat, as we shall see next.
688 Aspelin 1890, 164, 167; Reitala 1986, 123–124; for the popu-larity of road motifs in Holm-berg’s œuvre, see also Lukka-rinen 2015.
689 No. A II 1706, FNG.
690 See also Lukkarinen 2017, 104.
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