Lüftlmalerei Facades

Painted house facades — Mittenwald's signature decoration

Walk along Mittenwald's Obermarkt and the side streets and you find house after house painted with elaborate trompe-l'œil scenes — biblical episodes, baroque architectural details, hunting scenes, the patron saint of the family that owned it. This Bavarian tradition, called Lüftlmalerei, flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries and is best preserved in Mittenwald and the neighbouring Oberammergau.

The richest concentration of facades is around the church on Obermarkt. Look up for the dates inscribed on the gables; many of the paintings have been refreshed but the designs are faithful to the originals. A self-guided walking tour leaflet is available from the tourist office.

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A story
Lüftlmalerei takes its name not from the German word for air, as is often assumed, but from a house called the Lüftl in Oberammergau owned by the 18th-century painter Franz Seraph Zwinck — the technique's most prolific practitioner.