Kurbits and rosemaling: vernacular painting

Kurbits is the large, stylised flower that fills the surfaces in dalmålning, the folk painting of Dalarna from the 18th and 19th centuries. The name comes from the gourd plant which, according to the Bible, grew up and gave the prophet Jonah shade. Rosemaling is Norway’s counterpart: stylised flowers and tendrils on chests, cupboards and walls, from the mid-18th century. Both arose when wealthy farmers had their homes decorated on the model of the Baroque and Rococo of the manor houses.

Facts

Farmers who had their homes painted

In the 18th and 19th centuries farmers in parts of Sweden and Norway grew wealthier, and they wanted homes that showed it. Chests, cupboards, beds and clock cases were painted, and the best rooms were given painted walls or wall hangings that were put up for the festivals. The painters were often farmers themselves, who went from farm to farm, and they learned from one another within families and districts.

The models were to be found in the interiors of towns and manor houses: the acanthus tendrils of the Baroque, the shells and flowers of the Rococo and printed pictures in Bibles and broadsheets. The painters made them into something of their own, with strong colours and free forms. It is one of the best-known expressions of vernacular peasant culture.

Kurbits and dalmålning

In dalmålning the kurbits fills the surfaces around the figures: a lush, luxuriant plant with large leaves and flowers, painted with quick, assured brushstrokes. The name goes back to the story of Jonah, in which God caused a plant, called kurbits in the Swedish Bible, to grow up over the prophet and give him shade.

Dalmålningar are often biblical stories in which the figures wear the local dress and the biblical cities have Swedish churches and farmsteads. The pictures were painted on paper or cloth and put up for Christmas and other festivals, or directly on walls and furniture. The painters came above all from the parishes around Lake Siljan, and each painter had a recognisable style of his own.

Hälsingland and the painted farmsteads

In Hälsingland wealthy farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries had whole rooms painted, often in preparation for a wedding. The decoratively painted walls have freehand flower tendrils, stencilled borders and marbling that imitates expensive materials, and the painters took inspiration from the wallpapers of the manor houses.

Seven Hälsingland farmsteads became a World Heritage Site in 2012. The paintings can often be dated from the signatures and dates that the painter wrote on the wall, and from the style and the known years of activity of the painters.

Norwegian rosemaling

In Norway rosemaling emerged from the mid-18th century, particularly in inland districts. The painters decorated chests, cupboards, ale bowls and whole cottages with stylised flowers and C-shaped tendrils, often on the model of Rococo ornament. Different valleys developed styles of their own, and the best known are those of Telemark and Hallingdal.

Rosemaling has a more ornamental character than dalmålning, with fewer figures and more scrolls, but both share the free brushwork and the strong colours. Read more about the period in Norwegian folk art.

From farmhouse to symbol

With industrialisation most of the living tradition of painting disappeared, but around 1900 artists and museums collected it and brought it to attention. The kurbits became a sign of Dalarna and of Sweden, not least on the Dala horse, whose saddle and scrolls are still painted with kurbits in the workshops at Nusnäs. The cases of Mora clocks too were often painted with flowers.

A genuine dalmålning from the 19th century is told apart from later decoration by its material, its wear, its colours and the painter’s hand. Older paints are earth pigments in glue or tempera, and paper and cloth have aged unevenly. Read more under the vernacular era and in the guide to vernacular peasant culture.

How to recognise it

Exercise

What does the word kurbits refer to in dalmålning?