lunedì 8 ottobre 2007

Medieval Denmark

Medieval Denmark
Denmark probably has the largest amount of medieval wall paintings in Europe. In Danish they are called Kalkmalerier = Chalk paintings, as they are painted on a layer of limewash.
Denmark has about 1700 preserved medieval churches. Most of them has probably been decorated with wall paintings. Today we have about 600 churches with visible paintings and there are probably many undiscovered paintings behind the many layers of limewash which was used during the 18th and 19th centuries to cover the paintings. The oldest paintings from 1100-1300 are of Romanesque type and were painted by painters imported from south Europe, but during 1300 - 1600 it changed to a Gothic style and Danish painters took over and developed their own style.
During the Protestant Reformation in the 16th and 17th century, some of the pintings were destroyed but fortunatelly most of them was just covered with a layer of whitewash
During the 19th and 20th century these cultural treasures has been rediscovered. Some of them as late as during the last centuries.

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