Pilgrimage Church of Wies, interior

1745–54

Stucco, fresco and gilding. Steingaden, Bavaria

The style of the boudoir becomes a vision of heaven: white, gold and pastel stucco under a ceiling painted to open to the sky.

Look at

White piers and walls carry gold ornament. The strongest light enters through the tall side windows.
The chancel narrows between paired red-marbled columns, so the colour deepens as the eye moves from the white nave to the altar.
Gilt scrolls spill over the straight edges of the white piers and arches.

Built 1745–54 by Dominikus Zimmermann for the Premonstratensian abbot at Steingaden, with his brother Johann Baptist doing the decoration; the choir was consecrated in 1749.
The church grew up around a wooden Christ said to have wept in 1738; UNESCO lists it as a World Heritage site.

Stucco: a fine plaster modelled on walls and ceilings; in Rococo churches it carries the gilded ornament.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, from Flickr · CC0 (photographer’s public-domain dedication)