Castles In The Air:Bernardo Bellotto and The Fortress of Konigstein.

It makes a bit of a change for me to write about art that traditionalists would like. Sure, I've written blogs about Leonardo, Michelango, Giorgione, and Caravaggio but, more often, I seem to covering something contemporary, something conceptual, or something downright bonkers.

But Bernardo Bellotto's paintings of The Fortress of Konigstein were on show at the National Gallery (for free) and it took my fancy. Not surprising really, the skill of Bellotto's painting is quite incredible and the fortress of Konigstein itself looks like a pretty special place. I'm not going to write much about it but I wanted my visit recorded for prosperity.

The Fortress of Konigstein:Courtyard with the Brunnenhaus (1756-8)

Whatever that's worth (I can't really imagine people trawling through these blogs after I've died - certainly not this one - there's just too much on the Internet). Bellotto was born, in Venice, in 1722, a nephew to the more famous painter Canaletto who taught the younger man perspective and how to master a pinhole camera to help compose his views.

As Bellotto learned his trade, he became more skilled at capturing the light and atmospheric effects of what ever view he found in front of him - and there were quite a lot of them. Bellotto was employed at the courts of Vienna, Munich, Warsaw, and Dresden. It was in the latter city, one in which Bellotto arrived in 1747, he entered the service of Frederick Augustus II and was paid to create views of Dresden and its surroundings for the delight of the elector.

These included, as you have probably guessed, views of the fortress of Konigstein that, either even or not long after Bellotto's own floruit, found their way to the UK. Konigstein, literal meaning - 'king's stone', is one of the largest hilltop fortifications in Europe and has stood over the river Elbe for over eight hundred years. Serving, variously, as a castle, a monastery, a prison, a POW camp, a military hospital, and a safehouse for royal treasures.

As well, of course, as a fortress. Which was when Bellotto painted it. From outside and in though the views The National Gallery are treating us to are all exteriors. The northern aspect is suitably dramatic, all craggy rocks, imposing towers, and steep hillside paths through pleasant greenery. Bellotto has taken a low profile to paint it and this emphasises the imposing nature of the fortress. Shepherds and soldiers mingle in the foreground and their small size, yet again, makes Konigstein look mighty and powerful.

 

The Fortress of Konigstein from the North (1756-8)

The Fortress of Konigstein from the North-West (1756-8)

Propaganda? Well, of course. But it's so well done (and it's a long time ago) so we forgive it. Anyway, a lot of art was propaganda until very recently and some still is. Painted from a hillock some distance away, the north-west view sees Konigstein compete with, or at least stand equal to, a nearby towering mass of rock. Again there is a crowd of figures, and this time livestock too, in the foreground and that gives a sense of history as well as scale.

From the South-West, it's a different story. The buildings are mostly obscured by sandstone walls and trees and, again, you can't help thinking this was not only a measure of fortification but a notice to those ever present peasants on the fortresses perimeter that Konigstein is for the high and mighty and not for them. They can keep on knockin' but they can't come in.

The Fortress of Konigstein from the South-West (1756-8)

I love how the sun plays on the sandstone walls but perhaps my favourite of the entire series is a more modest, more welcoming, depiction of the courtyard with the Renaissance style castle, the Magdalenburg, as its centrepiece. It's not my favourite because I read that the Magdalenburg held a sixty thousand gallon wine cask for courtly festivities (I hope) but because, like the later work of the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, it shows ordinary civilian life being played out against a backdrop of architecture.

I like architecture and I like, most of the time, ordinary life so I was bound to like this painting but, truth be told, I liked all of them. They don't seem revolutionary, they don't have much of a story to tell about the development of art (other artists of the time were doing that), and they are purely geared towards making the establishment, or status quo, looking even bigger and greater than they already were.

But I liked them nonetheless and I'd like, even more, to visit Dresden and Konigstein one day. Which is something I can now thank Bernardo Bellotto and The National Gallery for.

The Fortress of Koningstein:Courtyard with Magdaleneburg (1756-8)