The Garden of Death
Skeletons tenderly watering flowers.
Old Pionear — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Brylie Christopher Oxley — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Brylie Christopher Oxley — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Brylie Christopher Oxley — CC BY-SA 4.0
Skeletons, naked boys and a serpent in a Lutheran church in 1907 were called pagan, and removal of the serpent was demanded — all stayed, and today they are the city's pride.
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Finland's finest National Romantic church: Tampere Cathedral (1907) by the architect Lars Sonck is a fortress of grey granite under red roofs at the eastern edge of the centre — and the interior is the surprise: the symbolist murals of the painter Hugo Simberg that scandalised their day: "The Garden of Death" with skeletons watering flowers, a frieze of naked boys carrying the garland of life around the walls, and a winged serpent at the ceiling's peak. The altarpiece "Procession of the Wounded" by Magnus Enckell, the stained glass and the grey silence — a church read like a symbolist novel about life and death, unlike any other in the country. Ten minutes from the station, and a half-hour visit on a rainy day outdoes hours in a museum.
Skeletons tenderly watering flowers.
The frieze of boys around the walls.
At the ceiling's peak — sin or wisdom.
Tuomiokirkonkatu 3, Tampere