Medieval Sweden

Runestones, fonts and churches with wall paintings – when Christianity came to Sweden, images came with it.

Viking Age art lived on in runestones with sinuous serpents and animal ornament. As Christianity took hold in the 11th and 12th centuries, stone churches were built, and stonemasters such as Hegvald and Majestatis on Gotland carved fonts with biblical narratives.

In the 15th century church vaults were covered with lime paintings. Albertus Pictor and his workshop painted some thirty churches in the Mälaren Valley with saints, devils and everyday scenes – in Täby a knight plays chess with Death.

Wealthier patrons bought sculptures and altarpieces from Lübeck and Flanders. Bernt Notke’s Saint George and the Dragon in Storkyrkan, commissioned by Sten Sture, is the most magnificent example.

• The stonemasters of Gotland and the first images
• Albertus Pictor and the workshops of the wall painters
• Bernt Notke and the art of Lübeck
• Haaken Gulleson, Vadstena and the textiles
• Reading a medieval church
• Runestones and the new faith
• The cathedrals and Brick Gothic
• From plaster to gilding – technique and materials
• The Middle Ages in the eyes of posterity
• Albertus Pictor
• Bernt Notke