II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

interplay of light and shade as one would with
spotlights on a stage. An imaginary visitor
would start out in full sunlight (weather
permitting) from the little open space near the
wild boar grotto. Before him the overgrown
and shady “berceau en treillage” opens,
widening towards the bathhouse. The ground
rises almost imperceptibly, and the shade
blurs the distance, which is really too small
to allow for a proper respectful approach.
The building itself is in full sunlight again.
On entering the bathhouse and looking back,
the visitor is faced with an effect like that of
a fourth-wall stage with a naturally lighted
background – here, the wild boar grotto,
designed as a point de vue by Pigage. When
the visitor enters the Oval Hall and looks out
the north door, his gaze is directed slightly
downwards by another shady, trumpet-shaped
“berceau en treillage” – which again blurs the
actual distance – towards the bright open area
of the water-spouting birds. Behind that there
is another berceau, another open space and
yet another, longer berceau terminating in
the sunlit diorama which thus appears to be
much further away than it actually is. Pigage
has used the contrast of light and shade in a
manner worthy of the theatre stage, creating a
setting the depth of which cannot be guessed.
His contemporaries appear to have been
deeply impressed by this subtle manipulation
of the senses. In fact, the axes created in
this way – from the wild boar grotto to the
bathhouse, and from the bathhouse to the
Diorama – are reminiscent of the main axes
of the palace and garden that really do lead
off into the distance, terminated by the far-off
hills of Königstuhl and Kalmit. Both are
important landmarks within the Palatinate.
The Baroque system of axes/avenues leading
up to a precisely calculated point, has its
origin in the Absolutist self-image of the ruler.
The Schwetzingen bathhouse, however, adds a
playful and charming variant.
(Ralf Richard Wagner)
II. Schwetzingen – A Prince Elector’s Eighteenth-Century Summer Residence
II.
Fig. 13: Versailles, the so-called
maze (destroyed): water-spouting
birds (From: S. Pincas,
Versailles, Paris 1995, p. 182).
Fig. 14: View towards the
diorama (photo: Förderer).
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