Ludwig II – Page 3 – { feuilleton }

Schloss Falkenstein

Proposal for Schloss Falkenstein (c. 1883).

A slight return to Ludwig II. Schloss Falkenstein would have been another beetling edifice in the manner of Schloss Neuschwanstein had it ever been built, and judging by this view it might have been even more grandiose. The painting is one of the proposals by stage designer Christian Jank whose plans had already been used for Neuschwanstein. Philippe Jullian makes some scathing remarks about the Gothic interior of the earlier castle but he may have had more patience for the Byzantine interiors planned for Falkenstein. I’m not sure how these would be reconciled with Jank’s exterior, however, the style being Gothic enough to satisfy Viollet-le-Duc. Ludwig’s untimely death in 1886 drew a line under his architectural schemes but Bavaria’s loss eventually became Walt Disney’s gain as Jank’s fantasias provided the inspiration for the castle in Sleeping Beauty (1959) and all of the Disney theme park castles. What Ludwig would have made of this we can only guess. I suspect he’d be entranced by the fantasy but appalled by the vulgarisation. He was an elitist, after all, and the castles were always for him alone, not hordes of T-shirted proles.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Schloss Linderhof
• Schloss Neuschwanstein
• Pite’s West End folly
• Viollet-le-Duc

Schloss Linderhof

More Ludwigiana. Schloss Linderhof was Ludwig II of Bavaria’s miniature Versailles at Oberammergau and is a key location in Visconti’s film about the King. The house itself is a riot of gilded rococo which isn’t really to my taste but you can make your own judgement by taking a tour at the palace website or browsing the photos at Wikimedia Commons.

Of greater interest is the Moorish Kiosk in the palace grounds, a small pavilion originally created for the Paris exposition of 1867. The outside is a typical piece of Orientalist architecture while inside there’s some beautiful stained glass and a splendid Peacock Throne. This doesn’t feature in Visconti’s film, unfortunately, but the Venus Grotto does.

Philippe Jullian’s Dreamers of Decadence (1971) contains some pages about Ludwig and the inspiration he gave to Symbolist artists and poets. Reports of places like the Venus Grotto were among those inspirations, and Jullian recounts a description by actor Joseph Kainz of his first visit to Linderhof. The scene is played out in Visconti’s film almost to the letter:

All of a sudden the rock moved; an opening appeared through which we entered a long corridor, brightly lit with a red light. Along the walls of the grotto the King’s servants stood in line.

Still following the servants who were leading the way, I walked to the end of the corridor, as far as what appeared to be a natural opening in the rock. Through this opening there poured a sea of blue light. The interior of the grotto looked like a huge, dazzling sapphire, whose flickering brilliance spread over the craggy walls, entered every tiny crack, and cast a sort of magic veil over every object. I had stopped on the threshold, behind an overhanging rock, dumbfounded by the grandiose splendour that surrounded me; I was breathless with amazement. The ceiling of the grotto was vaulted, like that of a cathedral. I was inside the Venusberg.

I took a step forward and stopped again. The rock which had concealed me until then. had prevented me from seeing on my right a lake of astonishingly limpid water, lit by a sky-blue light. On it there glided two snow-white swans, while on the shores stood a tall man, all alone, and apparently deep in thought: this was the King.

For a moment I gazed at his fine head, his broad shoulders, his remarkably white hands which were casually tossing pieces of bread to the two swans; I also noticed the bright star made up of sapphires which was fastened to his hat.

He shook me warmly by the hand, releasing me from the feeling of depression which had affected me till then. Then the King took me up a path leading to the top of a hill in front of us. On the top of this hill there was a table made of sea-shells which stood on a large conch supported by crystal feet. Near this table there was a seat made of the same materials, and the servants brought along another. The King invited me to sit down, and supper was served.

Every quarter of an hour the King gave a signal and the lighting of the grotto changed; it turned red, then green, then blue, then gold, and into my imagination came memories of ancient legends and fabulous fairy-tales.

360 Cities has some panoramas of the Linderhof grounds with a view of the palace and one of the entrance to the Moorish Kiosk. As you’d expect, Flickr has a large collection of Linderhof photos while there’s also a pool of over five hundred images devoted to Ludwig II.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Schloss Neuschwanstein

Schloss Neuschwanstein

This weekend’s film viewing was a DVD of Luchino Visconti’s Ludwig (1972), something I’ve seen in parts before but don’t recall ever having watched all the way through. I enjoyed it on the whole although Visconti’s “hose-piping” camera style and crash zooms are frequently annoying. Helmut Berger was very good as the tragic King of Bavaria and the subject was given additional interest by my reading earlier this year of a number of Philippe Jullian books. Ludwig II was camp enough to have interested Jullian whatever age he lived in but the way his life connects to the Symbolist period lends him a special significance. He can’t quite be described as a Symbolist monarch but his tireless support for Symbolist god Richard Wagner, and his lavish construction projects, made him a hero to Verlaine and others, who saw in the realisation of his fantasies the actions of an artist working on the grandest scale.

Of all the palaces, Schloss Neuschwanstein at Hohenschwangau is easily the most spectacular, and Wikimedia Commons has a great selection of photos of which the two here are examples. The first picture is a 1900 photochrome print originally from the Library of Congress collection and the large version makes a great desktop picture. The helicopter view shows how the apparent isolation of the castle depends on where you place the camera. Visconti’s film makes use of all the King’s buildings although we never see a full exterior shot of Neuschwanstein possibly because the castle was unfinished at the time of Ludwig’s death in 1886. While he was alive Ludwig’s palaces were regarded as outrageous extravagances by a government dismayed by his patronage of Wagner, his scandalous homosexual behaviour, and his lack of interest in the nation’s political squabbles. Over a century later, Wagner’s music receives endless performances around the world while Schloss Neuschwanstein is the most popular tourist destination in Germany. Bavaria’s wars are long forgotten yet it was the King they declared to be “mad”. There’s a moral there.

• The Neuschwanstein pool at Flickr

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Temples for Future Religions by François Garas
• Willy Pogány’s Lohengrin
• Dallamano’s Dorian Gray