16th century art Scandinavian architecture of the 16th century

1. Introduction

The most important Danish estates of the second third of the XVI century with the already mentioned national character are Nakköbelle, Gesselagergor and Ryogor on Funen, Egeskov, Borreby and Gisselfeld elsewhere. These are harsh, brick-built buildings surrounded by water, with polygonal or round corner towers and a tower with a staircase in the middle of the opposite side, with gables on narrow sides and with a particularly characteristic projecting upper half-floor, which stretches under the roof as a loophole with loopholes. Medieval friezes with semicircular arches dividing the floors are in strange contrast to the Renaissance style decorations, which gradually appear and spread through the gables and portals under the stone platbands.

Ryugor (1535) has a simple stepped pediment; in Hesselagergora (1538), rounded pediments with dismemberment in the Renaissance style without particulars in the antique style; in Egeskov (1554), a stepped pediment, the steps of which are filled with quarters of a circle, and a strict Corinthian portico in the Renaissance style; Nakbölle (1559) already has a gable with a volutes, a portal with a gable in a pure Renaissance style, and a fireplace encompassed by semi-columns, Ionic above, and narrowed below like candelabra. Similar estates in Shoonen, then owned by Denmark, do not have a protruding half-floor under the roof.

In the last third of the century, the Danish castles of the old type became little by little transformed into noble castles of more free forms, rebuilt by architects called upon from abroad to rebuild or build. Ways now began to indicate the royal castles. The Renaissance now took possession of the buildings entirely, and together with the Italian forms, the northern weaving of curls and forging also appeared. The most important Danish royal castle of this type is Kronborg near Helsingør. According to the type of construction, with gables on the roof, corner towers, loophole, it was conceived in the medieval spirit, but in its wide proportions, the rounded helmets of tower spiers, the Netherlands Renaissance is reflected in its gable windows and roofs.

In the same style with various particulars, the castle of Vallio appeared. The first domed building of a pure high renaissance with separate parts to the center was the manor of the great astronomer Tycho de Brahe Uraniborg, unfortunately not preserved (1578–1581), whose builder, Antwerp Hans van Steenwinkel Sr., earlier built the town hall in Emden.

During the 16th century, the Swedish court developed an even richer activity than the Danish one. Already the first Gustav Vasa ordered to rebuild the ancient castles in Stockholm, Svartsier and Kalmar and began the construction of castles, which then served as models, in Gripsholm (1537), Wadsten (1545) and Uppsala (1549). Under Erich XIV (1560–1568), who studied Vitruvius, and Johann III (1568–1592), to whom the saying is attributed: “To build is our best joy,” these buildings were finished.

In Stockholm and Uppsala we find the German builder Pavel Schutz (died after 1570); in Stockholm and Kalmar work Jacob Richter from Freiburg (died in 1571). Of the three Par brothers, who arrived from Mecklenburg, the eldest, Johann Baptist Par, returned to Germany in 1578, while architect Francis died in Uppsala in 1580, and Dominic, who worked in Kalmar, died in Sweden in 1602 or 1603 But the main builder of castles in Stockholm and Svartsier, Willem Boi (died in 1592), was again Dutch, like his contemporary Arendt de Roy, who led from 1566–1590. construction of the castle in Wadsten.

These Swedish castles of the XVI century are mostly still an old plan. Outbuildings surrounding the courtyard are usually separated by corner towers. Gradually, a greater correctness appears in the arrangement; On the pediments, portals, window frames and balustrades are forms of the Renaissance. In the palace chapel in Stockholm applied columns in the ancient spirit under the Gothic lancet arch. Roman arcades, antique profiles and rounded gables are found in the grim, medieval-style Gripsholm castle with powerful towers, rebuilt in an irregular outline. In the building of the Svarsier Castle, which burned down in 1686, a round hall with a dome and a round courtyard with arcades were executed according to the ideas of a high Renaissance. The castle in Wadsten is the first palace in the true style of the Swedish Renaissance. The classic spirit imbued with its northern Doric portal, two main gables, and the western one with statues in the niches between the Doric and Ionic pilasters, completed only in 1630, belongs to the most luxurious for its time. The castle in Kalmar was turned by the Par brothers already mentioned into a Renaissance palace with beautiful Doric portals in the courtyard. From the castles of the nobility, mostly heavy and simple, Tünnels, after restructuring in 1584, flaunts his rich dismemberment, magnificent gables in the Renaissance style and the Doric main portal.

From the Stockholm churches of the 16th century, which still preserved the medieval plan and building with rich net and star-shaped arches, capitals of pilasters and gables of the Renaissance-inspired portals, it should be noted, besides the Riddargol church rebuilt in 1568–1575. in the three-nave gothic church of the hall type, the church of sv. Jacob 1588 is also a three-nave and a hall type, the construction of which was interrupted in 1592 and completed in the XVII century in a new style. So, in connection with local changes and with delays in time, there was a change in architecture north of the Alps, everywhere parallel to the ruts. The Scandinavian north followed Germany and the Netherlands only a few decades away.