page_title: Kangasala
section_title: Landscapes
hierarchical_section_title: Kangasala / Tourism / Landscapes
context_page_description: Kangasala is a city in Finland, 16 kilometers east of Tampere. It was founded in 1865. The city has a population of 31,743 and covers an area of 870.86 square kilometres of which 212.83 km² is water. The population density is 48.24 inhabitants per square kilometre.
  It is known in Finland for the beauty of its natural environment, as described by Zacharias Topelius in his poem "A Summer's Day in Kangasala". It is also known for its mansions, such as Liuksiala, where the Swedish queen Karin Månsdotter lived as widow, and Wääksy. Kangasala has a long history of tourism.
  The lakes Roine, Längelmävesi and Vesijärvi are located in Kangasala. They are mentioned in the poem by Topelius, and Vesijärvi is the lake where the scenic view described in the lyrics is situated.
  The municipality of Sahalahti was consolidated into Kangasala on 1 January 2005, and the municipality of Kuhmalahti on 1 January 2011.
context_section_description: The landscapes of Kangasala impressed other Finnish authors than Topelius. Even before Topelius the natural environment of the region was admired by poets like Frans Mikael Franzén, Johan Jakob Nervander, Emil von Qvanten and Johan Ludvig Runeberg. The beauty of Finnish nature was described in letters and travel accounts.
  These landscapes were a source for an arising sense of nationality and arts were a way of concretizing the admiration and pride directed at them. In particular, the early 19th-century art of painting with its idyllic portraits of country and nature expresses the intellectual world of Romanticism. Countryside, fields, forests, hills, ridges, lakes and rivers have a central role in them. The average city-dwellers two hundred years ago were probably just as alienated from nature as their modern-day suburban counterparts.
  In the 19th century, Kangasala's landscapes were painted by several famous painters. Finland didn't actually have independent artistic circles in the beginning of the century. The earliest portrayers of the local landscape include Emanuel Thelning, a Swede sent to Kangasala by baron Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt after he himself had visited the healing spring of Kuohu in 1811 and the German Carl von Kügelgen, royal painter of Alexander I, who painted at least three paintings representing Kangasala. His workpiece Vues pittoresques de la Finlande which includes 15 lithographs can be considered the start of Finnish landscape painting. At least the Hermitage in St. Petersburg contains pieces of art by von Kügelgen.
  Other artists who painted Kangasala were Werner Holmberg, Einar Ilmoni, Eero Järnefelt, Hjalmar Munsterhjelm, Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa and Magnus von Wright who painted six paintings on Kangasala in the 1860s.
  The invention of dry plate photography in 1882 made taking photographs easier and cheaper than before. Also landscape photography started to gain popularity. As far as is known, the first actual landscape photographs in Kangasala were taken by Gustin Lojander in 1893. His series of photographs presented the landscapes and sightseeings of Kangasala.
  The increased popularity of landscape photography decreased artists' interest in the province of Tavastia (Häme). The search for the roots of Finnishness now turned towards Karelia (Karjala). Still, Kangasala wasn't forgotten by artists. The number of local artists – who often were landscapists of their home district – kept on growing all the time. Photographs helped in making the whole nation aware of Kangasala's landscapes. At the end of the 19th century, advances in the printing press made it possible to spread the pictures throughout the country in the form of affordable picture postcards.
caption: Landscape from Kangasala by Eero Järnefelt in 1891
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