Church murals in Sweden
Around 1250, there was a stylistic shift towards Gothic that saw lighter and more airy compositions and the rising popularity of Marian and Christian mystic motifs.
Most of the murals date from the 15th and early 16th centuries, when many churches were built or rebuilt, in particular in the provinces around Lake Mälaren.
The workshops typically consisted of three people, including the master; painting work was performed only during the summer months.
[2] No set of Romanesque murals has been preserved intact; some have been altered or restored at later dates, while some have faded significantly.
Their style is Italo-Byzantine, similar to other European murals from the first half of the 12th century, particularly those in Sigwardskirche [de] near Hanover in north-western Germany.
[19] During the 14th century, a greater interest in Christian mysticism can also be seen in the choice of subject matter (e.g. the Mass of Saint Gregory), paired with a shift in focus from representing Christ as triumphant to representations of his suffering during the Passion.
The paintings no longer cover entire surfaces, as in the Romaneqsue period, but instead stand out against the white background of the walls.
[2] In many murals on Gotland, e.g. those in Vamlingbo Church, a particularly strong influence from Westphalian contemporary art, Byzantinesque in style, has been noted.
[24] Although both Early and High Gothic murals in Scania remained conservative and stylistically close to Romanesque art, some new subjects, such as the Wheel of Fortune, were introduced.
Humans are represented as elongated and swaying, with gently flowing folds in their dress, in contrast to the earlier, more hieratic Romanesque figures.
[27] The vast majority, perhaps as many as 75 percent, of the medieval church murals in Sweden date from the 15th and early 16th centuries.
These murals were probably painted during the later decades of the 14th century and display both stylistic and iconographic influences from northern Germany, particularly from the painter Master Bertram.
[29] It is however mainly the area around Lake Mälaren, particularly Uppland and Västmanland, which sees a dramatic increase in production of church murals between c. 1435 and 1500.
Late Gothic murals which are similar to those from the Mälaren region can also be found in Dalarna, Norrland, and also in Finland.
[35] During this period, Marian themes became more popular than ever, and also more varied (including representations of the Woman of the Apocalypse and the Hunt for the Unicorn).
[36] The pictorial programme of the church became more fragmented, and subjects and motifs were more often mixed without a strong overarching principle.
The nave was often decorated with illustrations from the Old Testament, and the often spacious church porches usually contained more profane subjects.
Humans are depicted more linearly, with sharper contours and more solid volumes, and the ornamentation is more varied, detailed and richer.
[33] On the whole, however, church murals continued to follow a vernacular, decorative style with few elements emerging from the nascent Renaissance in the rest of Europe.
It has been suggested that a growing emphasis on Protestant Orthodoxy within the Church of Sweden led to a less tolerant attitude towards the murals.
[39][49] Only a fragmentary number of church murals in Sweden have survived untouched until today; most of them were at some point covered with whitewash.
[46] The oldest church murals, from the Romanesque period, were painted using a combination of affresco and a secco techniques.
[56] Decorating a Romanesque church with murals was nonetheless a costly undertaking due to the expensive materials used as pigments.
[57] Throughout the Middle Ages, lime was used as binding medium for the paint, but occasionally casein, erucic acid and drying oils were used.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the technique changed again: now the contours were typically drawn using charcoal or sometimes a pigment based on iron oxide.
[18] After the outlines had been made, the paints were applied, and lastly text (in the form of speech scrolls) and stenciled details and patterns were added.
[55] Albertus Pictor, working at the end of the 15th and early 16th century, for example, used lead-tin-yellow, orpiment and Naples yellow in addition to pigments already mentioned.
The names of several of these artists have been preserved, either by signatures and inscriptions in the churches, or in city archives such as those in Stockholm and Arboga.
[70] The artists who were active during the late Middle Ages typically belonged to workshops consisting of a master and one or two journeymen and/or apprentices.
