Himlens fröjd eller helvetets fasa : perspektiv på västsvenska kyrkomålningar från 1700-talet

During the18th century, the Swedish orthodox Church faced considerable problems with dissension and indifference. One important means of coping with the situation was the decision to have the ceilings of the churches painted in brilliant oil-paint. The appropriate theme for the didactic purpose was Time’s End, Christ’s second coming in order to judge mankind. Almost every church in the South-west of Sweden was henceforward decorated in the manner of a warning and a threat. The Last Judgement had been a frequent theme in earlier periods, what was new and most remarkable was the vast extension of Hell and Hell’s torment in the western part of the churches. On behalf of reward, punishment was emphasised, according to all kinds of nonconformist behaviour. Thus, the visualisation of the Doom, with Heaven and Hell is logically interpreted as a rhetorical reinforcement of verbal Doomsday preaching. The departure of the study is the paintings that are still to be seen in 42 churches in the west of Sweden, out of approximately 100. The investigation focuses the theme on a micro level, followed by generalisation into main tendencies. Depictions are examined to give evidence of inconsistent attitudes and signs of change. Initially a small-scale depiction, the emphasis on Hell during the period 1730-60 is remarkable. It develops into a vast and blood-curling report of the horror of Hell. By sketching, on a macro level, a dynamic social frame-work for the pictorial representation, it becomes obvious that the eschatological proposals were part of an ineluctable symbolic universe which was implemented and taken for granted by the members of the initially collectively structured society. It is argued that the structural changes within society could be interpreted as both cause and effect of changed attitudes to religion. By the end of the century, the manifest functions of the eschatological theme have lapsed into blurred dysfunctions. The pictorial narrative of Time’s End, initially giving evidence of a tragic conception of the universe, was transformed into something ludicrous or comically burlesque. The unified world-view formerly inherited by way of socialisation met the competition from alternatives. Henceforth a growing aestheticism prescribed the whitewashing of the interior of the churches.