Fårö
— — the island the filmmaker would not leave.
Not only on a wall.
“A small limestone island off the north end of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. Ingmar Bergman first filmed here in 1960 and built a house at Hammars on the western shore; he lived on the island for most of the rest of his life and died there in 2007. The northern beaches at Langhammars and Digerhuvud are lined with raukar, wind-shaped sea stacks. The ferry crossing from Fårösund takes about six minutes.
Fårö, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Fårö is a flat limestone island of about 113 square kilometres, separated from Gotland by a narrow sound and reached by a short cable ferry from Fårösund. The permanent population is around 500. The bedrock is Silurian limestone of the same Baltic platform that built Gotland itself, laid down roughly 420 million years ago. Sheep farming, fishing, and a short summer tourist season carry the year. The Swedish state designated the surrounding waters and shoreline as a nature reserve to protect the raukar fields and seal colonies along the north coast.
The raukar are the island's signature: free-standing limestone sea stacks left behind as softer rock around them eroded into the Baltic. The largest fields are at Langhammars and Digerhuvud on the north-west coast, where the tallest stacks rise about eight metres. The stone is grey-white in low light and the same warm yellow as old paper at sunset. The shore is loose limestone shingle that clicks under each wave. There are no cliffs of any height; the island reads as horizon, stone, and sky.
Ingmar Bergman shot Through a Glass Darkly here in 1960, then Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Shame, and several others, and built a house at Hammars on the western shore. He moved to the island permanently in 1979 and died there on 30 July 2007. The Bergman Center at Fårö, opened in 2012, runs a summer programme of screenings, talks, and a yearly Bergman Week. His grave is at Fårö Church, near the old fishing chapel on the south shore.