Docs from lightpainter

I could not resist ...

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:14:17 +0000

... confronted with so much dignity, power and beauty ... could you ...?

The Triumphal Quadriga or Horses of Saint Mark is a set of Roman or Greek bronze statues of four horses, originally part of a monument depicting a quadriga (a four-horse carriage used for chariot racing).

The sculptures date from late classical antiquity and have been attributed to the

4th century BC Greek sculptor Lysippos,

although this has not been widely accepted. Although called bronze, analysis suggests that as they are at least 96.67% copper, they should be seen as an impure copper rather than bronze. The high copper content increased the casting temperature to 12-1300oC. The high purity copper was chosen to give a more satisfactory mercury gilding. Given current knowledge of ancient technology, this method of manufacture suggests a Roman rather than a Hellenistic origin.

Although their exact origin remains unknown, it is certain that the horses, along with the quadriga they were depicted with were long displayed at the Hippodrome of Constantinople. They were still there in 1204, when they were looted by Venetian forces as part of the sack of the capital of the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade.

What happened the quadriga after the Fourth Crusade is unknown.
Doge Enrico Dandolo sent the horses to Venice, where they were installed on the terrace of the façade of St Mark's Basilica in 1254.

In 1797, Napoleon had the horses forcibly removed from the basilica and carried off to Paris, where they were used in the design of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel together with a quadriga, although in 1815 the horses were returned. They remained in place over the basilica until the early 1980s, when the ongoing damage from growing air pollution forced their replacement with an exact replica.
Since then, the original quadriga has been on display just inside the basilica.

Moated Baroque Castle Schloss Nordkirchen

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:25:09 +0000

Schloss Nordkirchen is called the "Versailles of Westphalia." The label is not just local braggadocio. Versailles was what Prince- Bishop Count Friedrich Christian von Plettenberg envisioned as a model when, in 1694, he bought the original moated castle of Nordkirchen from a local nobleman and commissioned architect Gottfried Pictorius to turn that modest property into a grand summer residence, replete with landscaped park and canals for pleasure boats.

Money, he said, should be no obstacle, so Pictorious spent what was then a king's ransom--240,000 thalers--to create a vast palace in the style of French chateaus. Neither the bishop nor his builder lived to see completion of the project, and it was Plettenberg's nephew Ferdinand who retained Johann Conrad Schlaun to finish the job.

It is one of Germany's largest, most lavishly appointed palaces: a complex of eight huge wings extending from a central tract in a strikingly harmonious juxtaposition of maroon-colored brick with carved sandstone embellishments. The 430-acre park surrounding the lake and canals is dotted with manicured lawns and flowerbeds, statues of Greco-Roman gods and goddesses, cupids, satyrs, and figures of hunting dogs and charging wild boars. Chestnut trees, 200 years old, line the lanes and paths.

another point of view from a good photographer: www.flickr.com/photos/destinatio/328102260/

Schloss Nordkirchen

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:21:52 +0000

Schloss Nordkirchen

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:02:59 +0000

das Münsterland und sein Licht

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:43:04 +0000

Verona

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:36:16 +0000

spectators

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:24:02 +0000

the audience listening to classic music and enjoying the ballet of light...

enjoyment of all senses

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:56:42 +0000

farmer's market at the cathedral

Turm der Burg...

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:55:58 +0000

Burg Hülshoff

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:37:16 +0000

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff wurde am 10. Januar 1797 auf Burg Hülshoff geboren und verbrachte hier ihre Kindheit und Jugend.

„Du Vaterhaus mit deinen Thürmen,
Vom stillen Weiher eingewiegt,
Wo ich in meines Lebens Stürmen
So oft erlegen und gesiegt, –
Ihr breiten laubgewölbten Hallen,
Wo ewig meine Seufzer wallen
Und meines Fußes Spuren stehen.“

sie ist genau vor 160 Jahren am 24.5. in Meersburg gestorben...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_von_Droste-Hülshoff

Biography
“Die Droste”—as she is often called in German—was born two months prematurely on January 10, 1797 at Hülshoff, her family's castle near Münster in Westphalia. (Official records state Jan. 12, but according to her sister Jenny's diary, the true birthdate was Jan. 10.)
As was suitable for one born into the nobility, she was christened with the amazingly long name of Anna Elisabeth Franzisca Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria von Droste-Hülshoff. Perhaps because of her premature birth, she was a sickly child who suffered from health problems all her life. She and her siblings (a sister and two brothers) were educated in music and literature by private tutors (Hofmeister).

Annette (her nickname) was a bright child and began writing very early. But as a woman of the 19th century, he had problems being accepted as a serious poet and author.
Much to her disappointment, Annette's first book (1838) was met with either scorn or indifference, and a mere 74 copies were sold. Although later editions of her work sold better, at the time of her death she was still virtually unknown.
Today die Droste is regarded as the most significant poet of her era. Her portrait graced the German 20-mark note until the arrival of the euro.
“...aber nach hundert Jahren möcht ich gelesen werden.”
"...but after a time of a hundret years I want to be read..."
- Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, in a letter (1843) to a friend

In 1825 Annette traveled to the Rhine (Bonn, Cologne, Koblenz) to visit relatives and to meet other German writers, including Adele Schopenhauer, Simrock and A.W. Schlegel.
In 1826, following the death of her father, Clemens August von Droste-Hülshoff, Annette, her sister Jenny and her widowed mother (Therese) lived in the Rüschhaus (House of the Rushes) near Münster, although Annette sometimes also revisited the Rhine and traveled to Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Levin Schücking
In 1831 she met the novelist Levin Schücking (1814-1883), with whom she fell in love. However, the 17-years-younger Schücking seemed to regard her only as a good friend. He encouraged her writing and while she was living at the residence of her brother-in-law (Baron von Lassberg) at Meersburg on Lake Constance (Bodensee, 1841-42), where Schücking was librarian, she wrote some of her best poems.
The pair spent time working and going for long walks together. After Schücking left Meersburg to accept another post (1842), an intensive exchange of letters followed, but he married Louise von Gall in October 1843. Nevertheless, die Droste and Schücking continued to collaborate on various literary projects.
He and his wife even visited Annette at Meersburg in May 1844. But the Droste-Schücking relationship came to a final end in 1846. (Annette was very displeased with things he had written in his 1846 novel Die Ritterbürtigen.)

Droste-Hülshoff continued to write, but her health deteriorated further. Yet somehow she managed to travel to Bonn and Rüschhaus in the year before her death. On May 24, 1848 she died in Meersburg. Two days later she was laid to rest in the local cemetery.

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff left behind a sizable body of work that includes over 250 poems, more than 30 ballads, a novella and other (mostly fragmentary) prose works, plus almost 400 personal letters.

<untitled>

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:25:09 +0000

Burg Hülshoff ist eine typische münsterländische Wasserburg zwischen Havixbeck und dem münsterschen Vorort Roxel sowie Geburtshaus der Dichterin Annette von Droste-Hülshoff

post mill

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:23:09 +0000

Rüschhaus

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:05:55 +0000

mit Barockgarten

Rüschhaus

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:03:14 +0000

Rüschhaus

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:54:51 +0000

Himmel über Münster

nobody@ipernity.com (lightpainter) — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:11:50 +0000