In which I finally get to photograph inside a Baroque palace and go a little nuts, part III

23.05.13

Continuing past the ballroom, we entered a room filled with paintings.  This manner of displaying paintings was common.  All wall space was used to house as many paintings as possible.  The idea of isolating a painting to contemplate it alone is a more recent development.

This is a stove.  Rooms did not contain open fireplaces for heat.  This stove has a door accessible from a separate hallway.  Servants could then add wood to the fire to keep the rooms heated without disturbing the nobles and without producing smoke in the room.  While the ceilings were done in the Baroque style, the lower portions of the rooms were later redecorated according to Rococo tastes, hence the frilly stoves. 

The ceiling frescoes in this room represent the twelve months of the year and show people engaged in seasonally appropriate activities.

The center fresco depicts the Judgement of Solomon.

Here and there there are rooms dedicated to Eastern art and objects.  This is the porcelain room.

This bedroom is noteworthy because Maria Theresa slept here when she came visiting with some family members.  They brought paintings of Hapsburg family members as gifts, which are still on display.

Here's a bust of Maria Theresa.

Here's another East Asia themed room.

More Baroque ceiling, Rococo silk wall covering combinations.

This is the ceiling of the upstairs altar nook that overlooks a Baroque chapel.

The chapel below.  If I understand correctly, this room can be rented out for weddings.

Goldwork above the altar.

I'm not sure how a priest would actually get into this thing to deliver a homily if that was done anymore.

This is the upstairs altar.

This little chapel also marks the day/night axis.  We're now entering the night side of the building.  The doors to night are painted blue, and the woodwork in the following rooms is now brown.

Looking back into day, we can see that the doors and the legs of the furniture are painted white.

In which I finally get to photograph inside a Baroque palace and go a little nuts, part II

23.05.13

After the playground, I told the students about a planet-themed garden closer to the castle that we had just enough time to see before we were supposed to meet out front to take a guided tour.

The palace itself is full of astronomical symbolism.  This garden was originally an herb garden but has since been replanted to fit the astronomy theme.

There is a fountain surrounded by a hedge that represents the moon and its reflection.

This is from the Venus garden.

This was just a type of tree I didn't recognize and thought was neat.

This arbor was a part of the Jupiter garden.

After the garden, we hurried back to the entrance, which was flanked by statues.

Above the entrance.

Ironwork detail above the entrance.

The front gate from the inside where we waited for our tour guide.

This is a tower on the back part of the palace viewed from the opposite side of the courtyard.  This part of the building contains parts of the original building the palace was built over.

The sides of the courtyard are lined with arches.

The second floor of the palace is now a museum and the third contained the "Prunkräume" or impressively decorated rooms designed impress visitors.  Schloss Eggenberg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to it's intact Baroque interior design.

A view of the courtyard from the third floor.

A group of schoolchildren got there right before us, so here our tour guide is explaining a bit about the history of the palace while we wait for them to move on out of the main room.  The palace has 365 external windows and there are 12 rooms on either side of the ballroom and the chapel on this floor symbolizing the hours of the day.  The colors in the rooms also reflect this theme.

This window is part of the original Gothic chapel.

The first room was huge.  All the ceilings in all the rooms are decorated with paintings.

The chandeliers contain real candles.  There is no electric light on this floor.

The paintings in this room represent the known planets of the time and their associated gods.

Between the paintings, the ceiling is decorated with reliefs of flowers, fruit, people, etc.

Here's the whole room.

In which I finally get to photograph inside a Baroque palace and go a little nuts, part I

23.05.13

On Thursday we had short class periods to accommodate a trip to Schloss Eggenberg, a very impressive Baroque palace in Graz.  This palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We traveled together by tram to get to the palace, which is surrounded by gardens.  The plan was to spend some time exploring the gardens before taking a tour of the castle.  Here, Rex and Volker are paying for entrance to the grounds for the group.

This is the gate to the palace grounds looking from the inside out.

Beyond the gate is a road that leads straight to the entrance.

Obligatory catalpa tree photo for Austin as a thank you for lending me the camera.

So, did I mention the flock of peafowl that wander about the grounds?

Here's the front of the palace.  The third floor, which has the shutters open, is where the rooms which have been kept in their original condition are.   This floor was never wired for electricity, so all the chandeliers have real candles.  Towards the end of June there's a tour available at night where they actually light the candles which I'm thinking of doing.

I saw just enough peahens around to make the males act silly, as this fellow is demonstrating below.

Alas, she was unimpressed.

It wasn't too hard to find a peacock willing to shake his feathers at us.

The palace grounds feature several gardens, one of which is a rose garden situated on a hill with a little pavilion on top.  The roses are labeled for variety, year or century of origin, and the name of the person who cultivated it if known.

And then we'd come around a corner and find another peacock.

Here we are at the top of the rose hill.

The way down on the other side was a pretty little staircase.

I'm really not sure how they're capable of grooming all that tail.

Some of the students were headed in one direction and I tagged along to try to get everyone back to the castle at the right time.  Here's a pond I saw along the way.

The students found a playground and I gained favor by giving them a push.  This thing seemed like a lot of fun, though we couldn't figure out if it always required someone to set it in motion or if there was something they could do to self-propel it.

After the playground, we visited a planet-themed garden then began the tour.  That will have to wait for another post.