PAINTED HOUSES IN A POLISH VILLAGE. Annalisa called my attention to this article by Jessica Stewart on the My Modern Met website (here). Meg Van Huygen has an article on the Mental Floss website about the village of Zalipie. Both articles are illustrated with charming photographs.
All the buildings in the village are decorated with paintings of flowers.The tradition of decoration goes back over a hundred years.The story behind the tradition is persuasive to me. “Village women would commonly whitewash the area around their chimneys and wood-burning stoves to hide soot.”
We tend to forget the environmental and health problems caused by soot in years past and in poorer countries today.