Visiting the churches with Albertus Pictor painting is quite complicated because they tend to be closed most of the times. Around Västerås, we realised that most of these churches are no longer holding Sunday mass. They are just used on few occasions for baptism, wedding or funerals. All saints celebration is one of the few period of the year when the churches may be opened to public.
The Dingtuna church is located few kilometres from Västerås (see map
here). It is one of the 35 churches painted by Albertus Pictor.
We visited the church late afternoon so it was too dark for a nice picture of the church. The picture below is extracted fro Google street view!
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| Dingtuna church, from Google map! |
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| The organ, from the pulpit |
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| On the top, John the Baptist and Saint Antonius |
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| God the Father holding the cross |
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| Mary's glorification |
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| Mary's funeral |
Saint Olaf alias King Olaf II is a Norwegian hero. He was the one converting Vikings to christianity, including Sweden where he travelled extensively. He was baptised in the Rouen Cathedral as this part of Normandy was under the control of the Vikings and their descendants.
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| Saint Olaf travels |
The depiction of the local inhabitant of the areas visited by St Olaf are representing pagans, if not devils if you can judge on the short tails they have. The barfing sailor does it upwind rather than downwind! Not a good sailing practice!
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| Local Baltic indigenes? |
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| Seasick sailor |
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Below is the story of Cain killing Abel. On the top left, Cain is presenting an offrande to God, along with Abel. But God prefersAbel's offrande and Cain kills Abel for this. On the right, he uses a jaw bone to kill Abel. Cain and Abel were the two sons of Adam and Eve. Having been chased from heaven, the family had to work hard to survive. Abel was a shepherd and Cain a farmer. The fight between farmers and shepherds has occurred in many places in periods, from the conquest of the West in the US to the civil war in Soudan more recently.
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| Cain's offrande, Cain confronting God |
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| Cain killing Abel |
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| Saint Luke |
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| Saint Marc |
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| Saint Matthew |
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| Saint John |
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| Samson carrying the doors of the city of Gaza |
The myth of Samson is central in many of the churches with Albertus Pictor frescoes. The picture above shows Samson tearing apart the doors of the city of Gaza and the one below shows Delilah cutting his hairs while sleeping sleeping. Samson is a fearless strong guy, not hesitating to break law and lie, visit prostitutes, as described in the Bible. To the extent that a professor of psychology wrote an
article in 2001 in JAMA suspecting that Samson suffered from an antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) according to the criteria used nowadays in psychiatry. It is therefore not clear whether Delilah cut his air in an attempt to control his personality disorder or for money as written in the bible. Delilah sings "
Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix"(Maria Callas), a moving call for love in Camille Saint Saëns opera. How could a woman singing so well be bad?
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| Delila cutting the hairs of Samson |
Below is the story of David killing Goliath. Each scene is on one side of the arch of the church. David, on the left uses his sling to throw a stone at Goliath on the right, who falls aground. There is some blood dripping from the right part of Goliath skull in the painting.
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| David |
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| Goliath |
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| Hosea and Zephaniah prophets |
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| Isaiah prophet |
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| Angels |
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The pulpit, as usual with its hourglass to control the priest time!
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