Route en Häme

Werner Holmberg painted this Finnish country road in 1860, the same year he died in Düsseldorf, only 30 years old. He had gone to Germany in 1853, the first Finnish artist to train in Düsseldorf, then a leading centre for landscape painting, and there he learned to join a careful studio finish with a fresher feeling for real outdoor light. A horse and cart move along a sandy mail road that climbs gently through pine woods in the region of Häme. There is no event and no drama, only the country as it looked under a bright sky, which is why the picture also goes by the name A Hot Summer Day.