Church murals in Sweden

Church murals or church wall paintings are mostly medieval paintings found in several Swedish churches. They usually adorn the vaults or walls of the buildings. In Swedish they are sometimes referred to as kalkmålningar, literally "lime paintings", since they were often painted using lime as the binding medium for the paint. The earliest church murals in Sweden date from the first decades of the 12th century and are Romanesque in style. The majority of these are found in the southern part of Sweden, where they were commissioned by members of the royalty and nobility of the time. They all have certain iconographic similarities, and for the most part, show stylistic influences from contemporary art in what is now Germany. While it is assumed that the artists who painted the murals were well-educated, and the first of them foreigners, virtually nothing is known about their identities. 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. Early and High Gothic murals are preserved, especially on the island of Gotland, where many new churches were built at the time, and in Scania, where many older churches were equipped with new vaults which were then decorated. The earliest known names of the artists date from this time.

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. These Late Gothic murals are more variegated than the earlier Gothic paintings, and decoration was more profuse. They tend to cover the entire wall surface. There is also a shift towards more narrative painting, with more frequent inclusion of didactic and moralising subjects. The iconography, on the whole, is more fragmented and the paintings are often completed with much less of an overarching principle. A number of artists and workshops from the late Middle Ages are known by name, above all Albertus Pictor. The workshops typically consisted of three people, including the master; painting work was performed only during the summer months. They used a variety of pigments, and the palette of the artists expanded as the Middle Ages progressed. After the Reformation, new church murals were occasionally still created, but during the late 17th century and in particular, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, most murals were covered with whitewash. Many of them have later been uncovered and restored, in particular in the 20th century. Today there is a large number of church murals in Sweden, compared to other European countries. The Swedish History Museum describes them as a "unique treasure".