Maisemakuvaston idylli ja edistys. Saimaan kanavan ympäristön metsäluonto 1800-luvun puolivälistä 1900-luvun alkuun

Vuonna 1856 valmistunutta Saimaan kanavaa kutsuttiin aikoinaan Suomen siniseksi kunnianauhaksi. Rakennelmana kanava edusti teknistä osaamista ja uurastusta, jossa myös maisemalla oli keskeinen merkitys. Kanavanvarren istutukset ja suojeltu luonto loivat kansallisromanttisia mielikuvia metsäisestä Suomesta samaan aikaan, kun viranomaislähteet kertoivat kanavan läpäisemällä alueella vallinneesta metsäpulasta.Artikkelissa tutkitaan Saimaan kanavan The idyll and progress of landscape imagery. Forest nature around the Saimaa Canal from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the 20th century The Saimaa Canal, which was completed in 1856 and described as Finland's blue ribbon of honour, represented technical expertise and toil as a structure, in which the landscape also had a focal direct and indirect significance. Although canal-side plantings and protected nature created even national romantic mental images of a forested Finland, there was an actual forest shortage in the area permeated by the canal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to official sources. The article explores the contradiction created by the visuality and ‘reality’ of the Saimaa Canal in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The research focuses on the visual effects of the canal on the forest landscape and how they have been reflected in the canal area and its surroundings as various represented, verbalized and concrete consequences. Through materials and research methods, the article combines art historical visual analysis and empirical historical research. Complementary to each other, they form a social-historical-visual approach to research. By analysing the relationship between images and maps of the canal environment, as well as various historical documents and a contemporary debate in the press, we create a research setting, which produces new information about the landscape and the forest situation shaped by the Saimaa canal route that emerges from behind the facade-like landscape imagery and the sources of authorities.