{"id":7479,"date":"2010-07-27T02:59:53","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T01:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=7479"},"modified":"2010-07-27T04:20:31","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T03:20:31","slug":"schloss-linderhof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2010\/07\/27\/schloss-linderhof\/","title":{"rendered":"Schloss Linderhof"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"linderhof1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More Ludwigiana. Schloss Linderhof was Ludwig II of Bavaria’s miniature Versailles at Oberammergau and is a key location in Visconti’s film<\/a> 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<\/a> or browsing the photos at Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"linderhof2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/a> while inside there’s some beautiful stained glass and a splendid Peacock Throne<\/a>. This doesn’t feature in Visconti’s film, unfortunately, but the Venus Grotto does.<\/p>\n

\"linderhof3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Philippe Jullian’s Dreamers of Decadence<\/em> (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:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Schloss Neuschwanstein<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Schloss Linderhof”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,2,4,21,7,12,45],"tags":[120,1576,1572,1574,269,444,158,2373],"class_list":["post-7479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-art","category-design","category-fantasy","category-film","category-photography","category-symbolists","tag-expositions","tag-joseph-kainz","tag-luchino-visconti","tag-ludwig-ii","tag-panoramas","tag-peacocks","tag-philippe-jullian","tag-stained-glass"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-1WD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}