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Wall hanging
Unknown1821
Nordiska Museet
Stockholm, Sweden
The three wise men, the ten wise and foolish virgins, Zacchaeus in the mulberry tree, etc.
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Details
- Title: Wall hanging
- Creator: Unknown
- Date Created: 1821
- Use: Sweden (SE), Sunnerbo
- Subject: Wall hanging
- Physical Dimensions: w185 x h120 cm
- More Information: The southern Swedish painted wall hanging crept into global literature when Nils Holgersson, on his wonderful journey through Sweden, woke up in the hay in a cottage in Sunnerbo in Småland. There, the walls of the cottage consisted of just a few rows of logs before the roof began, and there were no interior ceilings. In one gable end, there was a low, wide window, in the other the door. When Nils Holgersson looks around, he sees horse riders painted on fabric strips around the entire cottage all the way up to the rafters. It was Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, the three wise men on their way to the baby Jesus, who also appears in this wall hanging. This was a favourite subject when farmers made Christmas decorations and hung painted wall hangings as decoration in their cottages. The Swedish word for homely or cosy, 'ombonad', shares the same derivation as the word for wall hanging, reflecting the latter's importance to the notion of interior design. The custom came from the Scandinavian upper-classes of the sixteenth century, where it was very fashionable to borrow sheets and tablecloths for weddings and other celebrations to decorate the banquet hall and the bedrooms of distinguished visitors. Then came woven tapestries, but they never reached farmers, who instead had painters paint their biblical subjects onto homespun linen cloths. In the past, people were able to see such displays of colour and exotic imagery in churches, but they had been whitewashed over during the Enlightenment. Wall hanging paintings in cottages reached their peak from 1750 to 1850. Initially, only the wealthiest farmers could afford to order hangings, but once paper hangings arrived, they became cheaper and smaller in size. Once fabric hangings became unfashionable, they often ended up in floors as insulation.
- Type: Folk art
- External Link: http://www.digitaltmuseum.se/things/bonad/S-NM/NM.0051968
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