MP30 – Old Rauma reflected in art

Old Rauma, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2021. Old Rauma was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1991 as a unique example of a living and well-preserved old Nordic tree city.

The 11th part of the 30 Years of Old Rauma as a World Heritage Site series explains how Old Rauma has been portrayed in art over the years.

Old Rauma is visible in art

The Rauma Art Museum was founded in the late 1960s. Its first exhibition opened in the Pinnala building in Old Rauma on Lucia Day, 13 December 1970. As with the Rauma Art Museum, the key to the work of museums is the accumulation of collections.

According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the basic tasks of museums include the acquisition, study and preservation of material. A museum must continually build up its collection. One of the main tasks of the Rauma Art Museum has been to build up the so-called Rauma Picture Collection.

For five decades, the collections managed by the museum have been supplemented by the acquisition of some 400-600 works each decade. More than half of these acquisitions have been made by artists from Satakunta. It is clear that the themes of the works are very much representative of Satakunta and Rauma in particular. The visual arts collections managed or owned by the City of Rauma already include more than 3000 works. Of these works, almost 600 have been attributed to Rauma.

The recurring subjects of the works have often been the town hall, the market, the Raumanjoki River and the Church of the Holy Cross.

An example of the Church of the Holy Cross is one of the earliest works in the city’s collection – a work painted by the artist Victor Westerholm (b. 1860 Turku, d. 1919 Turku) as a young man in 1878. The cityscape of Old Rauma has been the subject of paintings for decades and continues to appear frequently in new works.

Many of the gates of Old Rauma and the sailing ships that sailed from Rauma to the world are also well represented in the works. Surprisingly, the harbour is a rather rare subject, as most of the time sailing ships are depicted as vessels ploughing the sea.

In terms of detail, the church bridge on Isokirkkokatu and the arched gateway to the church in the vicinity have been favourite subjects for many artists. The arched gate of the church was also chosen as a subject by artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela (b. 1865 Pori, d. 1931 Stockholm) in 1905. Over the years, the same subject has been depicted by Jalmari Karhula (b. 1878 Eura, d. 1942 Rauma), Kosti Koskinen (b. 1905 Rauma, d. 1983 Rauma), who is currently on display in the Town Hall, and many other artists.

It is quite probable that every building in Old Rauma in the early 20th century has been the subject of visual art, either through a street view or a courtyard scene. The Naulamäki and its various details have also been frequently depicted. An attractive feature of Naulamäki is the variation in the ground level in an otherwise relatively flat town. However, the most common subject when browsing through the collections seems to be the Church of the Holy Cross in Rauma, either photographed in its entirety, or a small detail of the church or the church steeple glimpsed in the landscape.

Risto Kupari, Museum and Culture Director of the City of Rauma