Admiring the scenery from the steamships
Fanny Churberg (1845-1892): Autumn Landscape, 1878 (32.5 x 52.5 cm), Collection: A Gift from Arvid Sourander, Ateneum Art Museum. Photo: Finnish National Gallery
Nowadays Fanny Churberg is considered one of the most important landscape painters in Finnish art. Motifs in her many paintings are typical patriotic Finnish landscapes. Churberg’s Autumn Landscape painting shows a steamship running on a lake.
Steamship tourism on inland waters was popular among civilized people, and with it the iconic “Finnish landscape” was created from the lake landscape, which has been featured in several tourist advertisements. Finland’s first travel poster was made by Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1893. It depicts the sights of Imatra and the surrounding area. The poster is decorated with eg. Vallinkoski and Imatra rapids and the Saimaa Canal.
In addition to tourists, the steamships carried goods. Puumala’s S/S Wenno was built in 1907 to handle timber transportation for the Puumala Miettula sawmill. It is one of the surviving iron-hulled steamers of the Saimaa’s large tar steamer fleet. Today, you can take a cruise on a Wenno in the summertime.
