Survival of the fittest … two long-horned buck Alpine or Capra ibexes or mountain goats go head-to-head as they fight to be their herd’s dominant male, in this square detail of a modern painted sgraffito design on the rendered facade of a house in Ardez, an historic village in the Lower Engadine Valley in Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland. The Alpine ibex is the canton’s heraldic symbol.
Ardez, Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland: two long-horned mountain goats, Alpine or Capra ibex bucks, square up to each other in a head-to-head confrontation to win female favours as the dominant male in their herd, in a detail of a modern painted sgraffito design on the rendered facade of a house in this historic Romansh-speaking village in the Lower Engadine Valley. Ardez, part of the municipality of Scuol, is renowned for carefully restored 16th and 17th century houses decorated with heraldic symbols, Romansh inscriptions and artworks, either scratched in sgraffito or painted. The Alpine ibex, the heraldic symbol of the Graubünden or Grisons canton, often appears on both ancient and modern dwellings in Scuol itself and in neighbouring villages such as Ardez, Guarda and Sent. Sgraffito is the ancient artistic technique of scratching or cutting away parts of a surface layer of plaster, stucco or paint to expose a different colour or texture. Its heyday in Graubünden was in the 1600s and 1700s, but the craft was revived in the early 1900s amid fresh appreciation of traditional regional artistic styles. Iachen Ulrich Könz, from nearby Guarda, was responsible in the early 20th century for compiling an inventory of historic sgraffito facades in the Lower Engadine, and for restoring them. His sons, Constant and Steivan Liun Könz took the craft to a new level by moving away from traditional forms and motifs. They enriched more than 100 historic Engadine facades with dragons, fish, mermaids or other creatures, and added decorative sgraffito to more modern buildings. Today, Graubünden artists and craftsmen use sgraffito both in restoration work and new build projects, with knowledge of their craft passed on via courses and seminars.
Size: 2763px × 2763px
Location: Ardez, Graubünden or Grisons canton, eastern Switzerland
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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