Current issue: 58(4)
In Finnish music national forests and international urban culture meet in an original way. Around the last turn of century, composers believe they had discovered their spiritual roots in nature and especially in the forests. The universal musical language of Jean Sibelius, for example, is based on a deep Finnish identity, the atmosphere of Kalevala. Sibelius’ Tapiola is, thus, among our century’s most powerful musical interpretations of feelings about nature. Nature inspired music is, generally, associated with such positive qualities as beauty, peace, softness, light and joy. A great deal of forest music is based on literature, where natural images have almost always had a positive interpretation.
The paper is based on a lecture given in the seminar ‘The forest as a Finnish cultural entity’, held in Helsinki in 1986. The PDF includes a summary in English.
The Finnish forest was elevated into an appreciated artistic motif by Werner Holmberg with his picture ”The Finnish conifer forest” in 1858. The second significant period was during national romanticism in the 1980’s, when the decorative beauty of the winter forests was discovered. At the turn of the century, the forest obtained a central national symbolic significance, and many leading artists regarded increased cuttings as a rape of the forests. Since that period, individual artists have succeeded in bringing new features in the art history of our forests.
The paper is based on a lecture given in the seminar ‘The forest as a Finnish cultural entity’, held in Helsinki in 1986. The PDF includes a summary in English.
The article compares forest images in provincial and patriotic songs and in forest advertisements by banks and insurance companies. In songs, coniferous forests represent the primaeval nature and broadleaved forests represent culture. Coniferous forest is the real patriotic forest. Forest images in advertisements are twofold: both elevated patriotic forests and profane raw-material forests are found.
The paper is based on a lecture given in the seminar ‘The forest as a Finnish cultural entity’, held in Helsinki in 1986. The PDF includes a summary in English.
This publication consists of 16 papers on importance of forests to Finns, mainly from the viewpoint of various social and humanistic sciences. The articles are based on lectures given to a seminar organized in Helsinki, December 18-19, 1986.
This paper includes preface and list of the speeches in English.