Gustaf Werner Holmberg (1 November 1830 – 24 September 1860) was a Finnish

landscape painter Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

Biography

Early life

Holmberg was born in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

. His father was Olof Henrik Holmberg (1799–1863) and mother Josefina Gustava Federley (1806–1840). His mother passed away from a lung disease and Olof raised his six surviving children with the help of his sisters. Werner was interested in painting from a young age, taking private lessons from and later

Magnus von Wright Magnus von Wright (13 June 1805 – 5 July 1868) was a Swedish-speaking population of Finland, Swedish-Finnish painter and educator. In addition to bird illustrations, he was also known for his landscapes. He was one of the four sibling Von Wri ...

. He also learned

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

from Johan Erik Lindh. In 1848 he became a student at the just-formed

Academy of Fine Arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute ...

. However his father Olof wanted his son to study law, so in his first year of university studies he also worked part-time at the National Board of Customs. At the university he learned painting from

Berndt Godenhjelm Berndt Abraham Godenhjelm (March 30, 1799 - 14 December 1881) was a Finnish people, Finnish painter. Personal life Godenhjelm was born in Mäntyharju. His parents were the county surveyor Adolf Fredrik Godenhjelm and Maria Elizabeth Argillander. ...

and von Wright again. In 1850 he helped

Robert Wilhelm Ekman Robert Wilhelm Ekman (August 13, 1808 – February 19, 1873), R. W. Ekman, was a significant teacher and painter of the Finnish romantic portraits and early national romanticism. Childhood and Arts Education Robert Ekman was born in Uusikaupun ...

paint frescoes in the

Turku cathedral Turku Cathedral (, ) is the only medieval basilica in Finland and the Mother Church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. It is the central church of the Lutheran Archdiocese of Turku and the seat of the Lutheran Archbishop of Turku, Arch ...

. In 1853 he finished his studies.

Study at Düsseldorf

In July 1853 he moved to

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

as the first Finnish art student, after many Norwegian and Swedish art students had already gone there to study. He studied there under

Hans Gude Hans Fredrik Gude (March 13, 1825August 17, 1903) was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters. He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Ro ...

Erik Bodom Erik Bodom (September 28, 1829 – 16 April 1879) was a Norwegian landscape painter. Biography Erik Bodom was born in Vestby in Akershus, Norway. He was a pupil at the Oslo Cathedral School, but shortly left school to educate himself as a pain ...

was also recruited to help him with his work. Nordic topics were popular in Germany, and he first focused on them with works such as ''The Kyrö Rapids''. His breakthrough was in 1856 with ''Autumn Morning'', and with the new-found fame he was able to quickly sell all of his paintings. By this point Gude recognized Holmberg as fully trained and ended his tutorship, although they still kept close contact. As he ran out sketches of Finland, he began painting German landscapes.

After the study at Düsseldorf

In 1857, after four years of being away, he returned to Finland, spending time with relatives. In the summer of 1858 he spent time in Norway and married Norwegian Anna Glad (1834–1909), a painter and daughter of the commander of

Akershus Fortress Akershus Fortress (, ) or Akershus Castle ( ) is a medieval castle in the Norwegian capital Oslo that was built to protect and provide a royal residence for the city. Since the Middle Ages the fortress has been the namesake and centre of the ...

, Christian Glad. Gude also spent some time with Holmberg in Norway, painting watercolor sketches together near Christiania. Holmberg had settled to live in Düsseldorf where he spent the winter with Anna. They visited Finland in the summer of 1859 and spent time in Kuru.

Death

But by early 1860 he was having considerable difficulties with his lungs, relating to

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

that he had already struggled with for years. In the spring they had a daughter, Betzy (who later became a composer) but the couple also ran into some financial troubles as they had a harder time selling paintings. The situation looked brighter again when he was invited to be a professor of landscape art in a new art school in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

. However, the invitation was cancelled and Werner was now bedridden with his sickness. As he died in September, many of his paintings were left unfinished. One of his sisters and an older brother had also died from the same sickness.

Legacy

Holmberg is the first Finnish painter to have received international recognition. His effect especially to Finnish landscape painting was large.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmberg, Werner 1830 births 1860 deaths Artists from Helsinki People from the Grand Duchy of Finland 19th-century Finnish painters Finnish landscape painters Painters from the Russian Empire Emigrants from the Russian Empire Finnish emigrants to Germany