Traditions & vernacular · 1750–present · Northern Europe
Swedish Painted Wall Hangings (Dalmålning, Bonadsmålning and Kurbits)
Also known as Dalmålning (Dalecarlian painting), Bonadsmålning (South Swedish bonad painting), Kurbits, Rosmålning
Rural Swedish wall hangings painting biblical scenes, figures in local costume, freehand in bright flat colour on cloth or paper. Two distinct schools are merged: Dalarna dalmålning, where swelling kurbits bouquets fill the gaps, and South Swedish bonad painting (Småland, Halland). Motifs came from German and French prints and figure bibles; no atlas style fits as parent. Flourishing c. 1750–1850, it survives as a revived Swedish design motif.
Make something in this style Get advice in this style Mix it with another style
01
How it works
- Paint biblical stories as friezes of stylised figures in local 18th-century dress and farmsteads.
- In Dalarna work, fill the gaps between figures with kurbits, scrolls and flowers.
- Lay bright flat colour freehand on a pale cloth or paper ground, leaving the brush visible.
- Frame scenes in painted borders and panels, and add hand-lettered captions or dates where text is used.
- Copy and adapt figure bibles and cheap prints rather than invent new compositions.
Rural Sweden: dalmålare in Dalarna (Rättvik painting from the 1760s, kurbits from about 1780-90) and bonad painters in Småland, Halland and Västergötland painted wall hangings on cloth and, by the late 1700s, paper for farmhouses
02
Its design choices
From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.
- Layout & composition
- Space & hierarchy
- Typography
- Colour
- Surface & texture
- Ornament
- Medium & production
- Tone & intent
- Avoids
- Modular grid, Generous white space, Grotesque & neo-grotesque, Monochrome, Gloss & highlights, Carved line, Ornament-free, Straight photography, Offset printing, Rational & objective
Palette
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Typefaces
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Painted hand-lettered captions
where present
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Painted hand-lettered dates
where present
Known for
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Back Olof Andersson, Björ Anders Hansson and Mats Persson Stadig, Dalarna wall hangings
late 1700s to early 1800s
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Winter Carl Hansson, kurbits paintings at Danielsgården, Bingsjö
about 1800
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Johannes Nilsson, South Swedish bonad paintings
Gyltige, Halland
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Sven Nilsson of the Sunnerbo school
dated bonad 1875, the youngest recorded
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Bårarydsbonaden, dated 1714
Borås museum
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Bonad collections of Varbergs museum, Smålands museum (Växjö) and Bonadsmuseet, Unnaryd
03
Make something in this style
Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Swedish Painted Wall Hangings (Dalmålning, Bonadsmålning and Kurbits)’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.
04
Where it comes from, and what it’s close to
Before it
The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.
Nothing earlier is recorded: in the atlas it is a starting point.
After it
The styles that grew out of it.
No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.
Alike in its design choices
Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.
05
Often taken for
Swedish Painted Wall Hangings has no real works recorded yet, so these are its nearest styles by its choices alone, with the choices that tell them apart.
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Dhaka Rickshaw Painting
Dhaka Rickshaw Painting is one of Swedish Painted Wall Hangings’s nearest styles by choices; no real work of either fits the other better.
Choices that tell Swedish Painted Wall Hangings and Dhaka Rickshaw Painting apart Choice Swedish Painted Wall Hangings Dhaka Rickshaw Painting Sequential narrative defining — Gloss & highlights avoids occasional Flat fields defining occasional Fluorescent & neon — characteristic Light ground characteristic — No shared descent in the atlas: they reached these choices separately.
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Egyptian Revolutionary Street Art (Mohamed Mahmoud Murals)
Egyptian Revolutionary Street Art is one of Swedish Painted Wall Hangings’s nearest styles by choices; no real work of either fits the other better.
Choices that tell Swedish Painted Wall Hangings and Egyptian Revolutionary Street Art apart Choice Swedish Painted Wall Hangings Egyptian Revolutionary Street Art Floral & vegetal defining — Monochrome avoids occasional Abundant decoration defining occasional Earth & mineral — characteristic Biomorphic curves characteristic — No shared descent in the atlas: they reached these choices separately.
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Mithila (Madhubani) Painting
Mithila Painting is one of Swedish Painted Wall Hangings’s nearest styles by choices; no real work of either fits the other better.
Choices that tell Swedish Painted Wall Hangings and Mithila Painting apart Choice Swedish Painted Wall Hangings Mithila Painting Painterly brushwork defining — Line illustration — defining Sequential narrative defining occasional Flat — defining Flat hierarchy characteristic — No shared descent in the atlas: they reached these choices separately.
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Fileteado Porteño
Fileteado Porteño is one of Swedish Painted Wall Hangings’s nearest styles by choices; no real work of either fits the other better.
Choices that tell Swedish Painted Wall Hangings and Fileteado Porteño apart Choice Swedish Painted Wall Hangings Fileteado Porteño Flat fields defining — Whiplash line — defining Sequential narrative defining — Central symmetry — defining Light ground characteristic — No shared descent in the atlas: they reached these choices separately.
— means the choice isn’t among the style’s recorded choices. Critics recorded each work’s choices with the styles’ descriptions in view, so this shows whether the descriptions hold together, not proof that they are right.
06
Combine it with
Styles Swedish Painted Wall Hangings (Dalmålning, Bonadsmålning and Kurbits) pairs well with or plays against, from the research. Each is worked out as a combination: which style gives the type, the colours and the forms.
- Chinese Paper-Cut (Jianzhi) Pairs well · A looser parallel: domestic wall decoration filled with symbolic flora, though cut paper rather than painted.
- Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism) Contrasts · A learned 1880–1920 revival of ornament versus the peasant painters' own freehand working tradition.
- Lubok Popular Print Pairs well · Both put cheap-print stories into dense, bright, hand-coloured popular images.
07
Sources
- https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmålning
- https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonadsmålning
- https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurbits
How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.