Painted cottages in Poland

A painted house in the village of Zalipie, southern Poland. Source: Małopolska.pl Fb Page

Many of you might’ve already heard about Zalipie, a small village in southern Poland where an old custom still survives nowadays: houses are decorated in rich flowery patterns both on the inside and outside. Today I want to describe a short history of that custom for you, and also to show a few examples of similar decorative folk art in the other regions of Poland from the past. Painting the interiors of cottages – and in rarer cases the exteriors as well – is an old tradition known from many rural regions of the Eastern and Central European countries, including Poland. In a lot of documented historical cases from around 100 years ago the painted patterns were rather simple in form and their meaning was connected to the forgotten protective rites.

19th-century Polish countryside in art (warning: picture-heavy)

What’s a better inlook inside the past world than the art? Today I want to take you back to the 19th-century Polish countryside (mostly the 2nd half of that century) and therefore I prepared a short selection of old Polish pantings created at that time. They are showing a range of scenes: the rural people at work and during their free time, their houses and travels, the agriculture, the inns, taverns or road houses, the beautiful nature. This gallery of paintings comes without my further description: you can just scroll down and look at the world the artists immortalized in that form. It can be amazingly inspirational to have such an inlook into the past, and many of the artworks provide a great range of references: the countryside’s daily fashion, the rural architecture against the landscape, the means of transport, the ways of interactions, activities and plays, and many other details.

The paintings are sorted only by the names of the artists, and you will see various artworks painted from around the mid- to the late 19th century so pay a closer attention to the captions under each picture for more details. Enjoy!

[pictures after the cut]