Church frescos in Denmark

Denmark's churches preserve a rich tradition of medieval wall painting (Danish: kalkmalerier), made by itinerant workshops that covered vaults, walls and pillars with lime plaster and pigment. Romanesque examples survive from the twelfth century, but the great flowering came in the late Gothic period of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, when painters such as the Elmelunde Master decorated the churches of the island of Møn. Subjects were chosen to teach and delight: scenes from the Bible and the lives of saints, angels, dragons and grotesque beasts filling the vault webs. After the Reformation the paintings were whitewashed over and remained hidden for centuries; nineteenth-century restorations brought them back to light, and today they rank among the most vivid survivals of Scandinavian medieval art.

Defining characteristics

• Painted in lime plaster on church vaults, walls and pillars
• Biblical narrative cycles and saints' legends told in picture
• Gothic grotesques: dragons, hybrid beasts and foliage filling vault webs
• Strong outlines and flat local color, built to read from the floor below
• Workshop hands traceable across clusters of village churches

Key figures

• Elmelunde Master (active c. 1470-1500) — Anonymous late-Gothic workshop leader who painted churches on the island of Møn

Example works

• Frescos of Elmelunde Church — Elmelunde Master (c. 1480)
• Frescos of Keldby Church (late 15th century)

Sources

• Church frescos in Denmark - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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