Video: Exotic motifs, a table in the hatch and other oddities of the castle of the Bavarian king Ludwig
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The Bavarian king Ludwig is famous for fairytale castles, which he built for the love of art. However, only Linderhof he saw complete. There, the dreamy monarch gave lavish dinners … for the kings of the past, dined with Marie Antoinette, whom he missed for centuries, and imagined himself either an inhabitant of Versailles of the Bourbon era, or a minstrel Tannhäuser, fascinated by Venus …
Ludwig, as a child, sketched fantastic castles and palaces, at the age of eleven he tried to create drawings of future buildings. He was not the best king - but he probably would have made a good architect. Linderhof is one of the two "Bavarian Versailles" (the second is the later Herrenchiemsee).
Ludwig loved solitude, appreciated the beauty of nature, so his castles are located in the quietest and most picturesque corners. Linderhof was built on the site of a hunting lodge where Ludwig's father, Maximilian II, loved to spend time, eighty-seven kilometers south of Munich. The project was revised many times, but in 1873 the picky king still approved the next version.
The construction took ten years. Unlike his other castles, more fantastic, fabulous, here Ludwig demanded historical accuracy: everything had to remind of Versailles and Trianon. Ludwig studied their decoration in detail, haunted artists and builders, forcing them to study books about French architecture … That is why Linderhof's decoration is everywhere - portraits of Louis XIV and symbols of the French monarchy, for example, a porcelain peacock in the Tapestry Hall.
There are also paintings in the spirit of French Rococo depicting amusing shepherds and shepherdesses. The French queen Marie-Antoinette, who sometimes dreamed of a simple rural life, was especially fond of the images of charming peyzan.
Ludwig of Bavaria built castles for himself, and not for lavish celebrations and receptions. The main room in Linderhof is … the bedroom. Theatrical designer Angelo Kvadlio was responsible for its interior design. The castle has a huge and luxuriously decorated Hall of Mirrors, but, as a rule, Ludwig spent time there alone - he read at night, climbing into a niche and admiring from time to time the reflection of the light of the chandeliers (Bohemian glass and ivory!) In the mirrors. Ludwig wrote about these mystical nights at Castle Linderhof: "The opportunity to delve into reading interesting books gives me solitude from all that cruel and painful that brings with it the sad reality of the 19th century, which I am so disgusted with."
The Hall of Mirrors was designed by Jean de la Pikes, who came up with an unusual technique - the effect of a “mirror corridor” that turns the room into an endless maze of reflections. In the reception hall, Ludwig did not receive anyone: he worked there on his next grandiose projects. There, among the gilded stucco molding and precious furniture, two malachite tables stand out - this is a gift from the wife of the Russian Emperor Alexander II.
Ludwig dined alone, and his castles use a special system of serving dishes - the table was raised to the king through a hatch in the floor. Table served … for four persons. The dreamy king loved to imagine how he shared a meal with his idol Louis, and they were accompanied by beautiful ladies - Madame Pompadour and Marie Antoinette.
But Linderhof is a whole architectural and landscape complex, artsy and romantic. The gardens surrounding the castle are a true masterpiece of park art. They do not copy the Versailles ones at all, they are devoid of their balanced geometry and rather resemble the abode of fairies. Fountains, pools, allegorical sculptures hide among lush greenery and luxurious flower beds … Ludwig wanted both Linderhof and the park around him to be completed at the same time. There was no such thing as “impossible” and “one cannot argue with nature” for the king - do not monarchs command the movement of the luminaries and the change of seasons? Two hundred people worked tirelessly to create a fabulous park, hundreds of carts of fertilizers drove from Bavarian villages … In 1880 the project was completed, only one "but" remained - a huge three-hundred-year-old linden tree did not fit into the general view. But the king ordered to leave it as a symbol of the place - after all, Linderhof literally means "Linden yard".
In the park there is a temple with a statue of the goddess of love Venus and a Moorish pavilion, bought by Ludwig during his visit to the 1876 World Exhibition in Paris. The king was a man on a grand scale - admiring the ghosts of the past, he adored technical innovations and exotic motives. In the Moorish pavilion there was a luxurious peacock throne, colored lamps flickered, and the king, dressed in colorful oriental clothes, watched theatrical performances … skins and depicting the Vikings …
Not without Ludwig's beloved composer Wagner. Here, in the park, the landscape designer August Dirigl built an artificial cave with stalactites, a heated pool and a boat in the form of a shell, where singers were sitting, performing arias from the opera Tannhäuser. The cave was intended to serve as the real embodiment of the Grotto of Venus, where the minstrel Tannhäuser spent many turbulent years.
The Hunding Hermitage, a rugged log building built around an old sprawling beech, stands apart in this Baroque ensemble. However, even here Ludwig remained true to his hobbies: the hut served as a backdrop for the performances of Wagner's operas.
King Ludwig of Bavaria was not successful as a ruler. Concerned about the embezzlement of the treasury and the king's love for solitude, the conspiratorial ministers hastened to remove him from the government, the king was declared insane and died soon after. But its three castles - Herrenchiemsee, Neuschwanstein and Linderhof - made Bavaria incredibly popular with tourists, inspired poets, composers and artists and preserved the name of the "fairy king" for centuries.
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