A bit of colour

One of the more impressive things about Italy is the urge to decorate. The  Italians seem to feel an innate urge to make things look good. So in the hotel the wooden beams in the verandah area were carved with flowers. The plain plaster walls of the restaurant had flowers burgeoning in paint.

Houses throughout the village were not simply painted one colour. They had murals of all sorts painted on, trompe d’œil effects abounded. Windows were framed with paint. Frescoes abounded. All to beautify otherwise non-descript walls & ceilings.

 

In the centre of the village of Molveno

See the painted decoration on the curve of the balcony & around the windows framing them, and the intricate woodwork under the eaves

Sometimes these frescoes would be making a point. Sometimes they could be disturbing as in the case of the cemetery church of San Vigilio at Pinzolo. There the church has an eerie “Danse Macabre”, painted originally in 1539, in which skeletons conduct all, princes & popes, soldiers & ordinary folk, to their end.

Cemetery churcch of San vigilio. Note the frescoes just below the eaves

Deatils of the Danse Macabre

Further details of the Danse Macabre

 

In other places it is simply beautiful as in this bank building in Rovereto. All that colour is paint, not alternatively coloured brick/stonework. It really is art for the masses.

Bank at Rovereto

 

More detail of the bank