The self-taught, roving Dalarna painters came mainly from Rättvik and Leksand in the county of Dalarna, in central Sweden. Their heyday lasted from circa 1780 to 1870, a period of barely 100 years. The legacy they left for posterity is a unique art treasure, with its naïve, colorful and very individualistic style.
The painters were in great demand as home owners were anxious to display genuine Dal-paintings (dalmålningar), sometimes called folk art (folkliga måleriet), on their chimneys and walls prior to the modern use of wallpaper. Even the ceilings were sometimes decorated.
The Rättvik School was ornamental while the work of the Leksand painters was more sober and well composed. Most of the painters were active in Dalarna, but significant work was done in Hälsingland to the north and in Värmland to the south.

There is information of about 150 Dal-painters, mostly from Rättvik and Leksand, who decorated farmhouses in many parts of the country. Approximately 3500 Dal-paintings from this period are known to exist and can be found in museums, homesteads and private homes. The largest collections are preserved at the Nordiska Museum in Stockholm, Skansen Open Air Museum, Dalarna’s Museum in Falun and the Culture House in Leksand.

Little new work was generated after the 100-year period because affordable wallpapers came into fashion, and interest in Dal-painting was slowly fading away.
In the peasant communities in the 1800s, people lived in small, one- or two-bedroom timber cabins. The greater part they spent indoors, in the stuga (or stuggu in local dialect), the main part of the cabin. This is the place where people of the homestead prepared and ate their food, slept and did all their daily routines. When their open fire hearths were improved with proper chimney facilities, people could decorate their everyday surroundings. They had their walls, cupboards and beds painted with a new technique which came to be known as “rose painting” ("ros-målning").

In Dal-painting, the roses and flowers are known as “kurbits,” a word which means “gourd” ("kalebass"), or in older Biblical Hebrew translations the word for tree and later for ricinbush. Kurbits, as a recognized definition didn’t get established until it was defined in Erik Axel Karlfeldt’s collection of poems called “Hösthorn” from 1927, were we find the poem “Kurbitspainting."

Se min kurbits,
Dess resning och snits!
Allt högre den gror,
Blir kunglig och stor,
En alla gurkornas gurka
Från landen där solen bor.

In English:
See my gourd,
Its stature and style!
More and more it grows,
Becoming royal and large,
An all cucumber's cucumber
From the land where the sun lives.

Thus it was Erik Axel Karlfeldt who introduced the term “kurbits” into significance as the “Dal-painting fantasy flower.” The author Svante Svärdström provided authorization for the term in 1936.
The kurbits is today a very strong trademark and is used by companies showing products of Dalarna, like Dalahorses, clogs and the like.

Dal-painting's foremost purpose was to decorate the home for festival events, mainly with motifs from the Bible, using the kurbits flower as a filler in a scene. Figures were depicted in clothing of the painters' home parish costumes or in military uniform.

(Inset are paintings by Kers Erik Jönsson from an old homestead in Värmland. He was trained by the painters in the village Ullvi, like the well-known Dal-painter Back Erik Andersson.)
Most of the surviving Dal-paintings by the old masters are now in museums where they can be viewed by the public. Some are in private collections or in homesteads where they basically disappeared from the public eye. The consequence is that very few painters are keeping up the tradition, especially here in the United States, where the tradition is more remote in contrast to the Norwegian rosemaling tradition which has many active painters, training and exhibitions of their art. World famous rosemalers (rosmålare) visit the U.S., give seminars and write books. The late Sigmund Aarseth from Oslo made several such trips.
However, there are several enthusiasts on the west coast whose focus is on maintaining the skills and interest for the Swedish Dal-painting tradition — specifically on the strengths of the old masters and their techniques and colors in developing their own compositions.

The most important aspect of maintaining the tradition is to teach the techniques to anyone interested in this old and beautiful art form. Lisa Nelson was an early authority in Dal-painting in Portland, Oregon, but since she returned to Sweden this effort has for the last few years been transferred to GunMarie Rosqvist. Her classes on Dal-painting are always well attended and appreciated.

If you travel to Sweden, or wish to visit online, there are ample opportunities to see this art form at several museums:
Nordiska Museum, Stockholm: http://www.nordiskamuseet.se
Dalarnas Museum, Falun: http://www.dalarnasmuseum.se
Siggebohyttan, Lindesberg: sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siggebohyttan
Skansen Open Air Museum, Stockholm: http://www.skansen.se
Culture House, Leksand: www.leksand.se/.../Culture-house
Some kurbits painting videos are available on YouTube
Books: Svante Svärdström: Dalmålningar, Roland Andersson/Rune Bondjers/Johan Knutsson/Margareta Andersson: Dalmålarna — deras liv och verk (in Swedish)

Many of the most important works are still in private ownership and are not available for viewing by the public.

Information regarding Dal painting classes in Portland:
New Sweden Cultural Heritage Society: http://www.newsweden.org
Nordstjernan, Swedish News in English: http://nordstjernan.com/calendar/

Written by Leif Rosqvist
Editor of the Newsletters of New Sweden Cultural Heritage Society and SRIO in Portland, Oregon.