Old cottages from various folk museums in Poland and the colour blue.
In the oldest of Polish folk traditions the colour blue was symbolizing purity, virginity and representing feminine aspects. When a girl was grown up enough to get married (panna na wydaniu - marriageable girl), her family’s cottage would be decorated in blue to let the community know that a “recruitment” is on and the possible candidates can visit to be “interviewed”. That tradition was slowly fading with time, but still being kept alive in some Polish villages even in the first half of 20th century.
Different regions were maintaining different styles - for example many villages in southern Poland were noted for painting only the vertical stripes of insulation between the logs, some areas e.g. in central Poland had the whole outer walls painted blue (sometimes only 1-2 sides of a cottage, e.g. the frontal part), while in some regions only the frames around the doors and windows were painted. In the old days the colour, although not as vibrant as in the pictures above, could have been easily obtained with natural dyes like e.g. red cabbage, woad or larkspur.
Many regions were replacing the colour blue with white over time and the regions remembering the old meaning the longest were located mostly in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Lots of people would be still painting parts (especially windows and doors) of their cottages blue even if the original meaning of the custom was forgotten, as the colour blue was also believed to keep the flies and mosquitoes away from the building.
On pictures:
- One of the cottages in the famous “Painted Village” of Zalipie, southern Poland, fot. BonVoyage
- Cottage in Wygiełzów Ethnographic Museum, southern Poland, fot. Artur de Sousa Rocha
- Cottage in the skansen in Maurzyce, central Poland, fot. Mariusz Banaszczyk
- Cottage in the skansen located in Olsztynek, northern Poland, fot. Dariusz Domagała
- Blue wall of a cottage in Sierpc, central Poland, fot. Bożena B.
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