Beautiful Bavaria in Bloom

Yey, my window painting of a Bavarian painted window is finished (unusually quickly for me!) and here it is

Bavaria has always had a very strong folkart tradition, not only painting murals on houses but also decorating furniture, if you google "Bauernmöbel" you can see alot of the amazing painted cupboards or trunks. Very often brides were given a painted trunk as a wedding gift or as part of her dowry. When courting Bavarian men gave their girlfriend a handpainted bandbox decorated with hearts and flowers and special hidden messages, I saw a wonderful collection of these in the Germanic National Museum (unfortunately too gobsmacked to take a piccy!). The decorations on the furniture are usually floral and differ greatly in style from one area to another, as do the ceramics and traditional Bavarian costumes. The bright pink on my painting is exactly as it was on the house wall and the painted elements known as "Luftlmalerei" sometimes contain three dimensional sections too. These trompe l'oeil decorative elements are believed to have been brought by traders over the Alps from Italy, and are still very popular. I find it amazing to see these Alpine chalets painted like Italian palazzi in all their splendour. "Fusion architecture", and as for the window boxes, this one below is a very modest example, they are often totally spectacular as is the one in my painting.