Luftmalerei (literally ‘air paintings’) are a local Bavarian version of trompe l’oeil painting which became popular in the eighteenth century. The whole subject of illusion, artificiality, deceiving the eye, was a major intellectual pre-occupation across Europe in the eighteenth century, but these intellectual concerns about the ethics of illusionism are a world away from the Luftmalerei painted as frescoes decorating the walls of houses in the alpine and sub-alpine region of Germany known as the Werdenfelser Land. They appear to be a manifestation of sheer creative exuberance.

Trompe ‘oeil paintings aim to deceive the eye into mistaking a painted image for reality. In the example of Luftmalerei shown opposite, painted mouldings around a window attempt to look like part of the architecture. The Pilatus House in Oberammergau (below right) takes this idea rather further. The walls of the house are in fact completely smooth. As in these examples, it is the relation of the painting to its surroundings that deceives the eye by making the boundary between a painting and its background unclear. These paintings are generally on outside walls but one does occasionally see them on inside walls as well. We saw one example in Mittenwald where a window looking onto an outside scene was painted onto an inside wall, attempting to look like a real window.

The term ‘Luftmalerei’ is derived from the name of the house, ‘Zum Lüftl’, owned by Franz Seraph Zwink (1748 – 92) of Oberammergau, who pioneered the practice. Images often have a religious theme, though not invariably so, and they are often whimsical in character. The colour lasts for about three generations so some Luftmalerei are quite old.