<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > preface</h1>
Seventeen years ago, Zhang Guorong, a unique man, left a suicide note and drifted away, until the last moment of his life, he still asked the world so gently: "I have not done anything bad in my life, why did I do this to me." His departure has made countless fans sigh and grieve.
Did you know that more than a hundred years ago in Germany, there was also such a dancing prince, as the king of a country, but he indulged in art all his life, in the green mountains and green valleys, sketched the blueprint of Neuschwanstein Castle, the "most beautiful castle in Europe", but in the end he was regarded as a madman and mysteriously drowned in the lake.
He was the romantic prince of the fairy tale world and a lonely king like a "madman", he was Ludwig II.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the growth of the Dancing Prince</h1>
In 1845, in the royal residence of Bavaria, Ludwig II was born. At this time, Germany and Germany had not yet been unified, and the various city-states were fighting each other, and the war was constant.
Dozens of large and small states were independent, with Prussia and Austria, with their own relatively strong power, looking at the other city-states, and the two countries were constantly fighting for the position of hegemon, while the other states were reduced to vassals, bavaria was one of them.
Although Bavaria has a developed economy, a long history, and a thriving cultural soft power, only its military strength is not satisfactory, so it has long had to survive in the gap between Prussia and Austria.
Ludwig was the eldest son of the king and was made crown prince at the age of three. King Maximilian II, who gave him a strict court education from an early age, had high hopes for him, allowing him to sleep on a hard-boarded wooden bed, eat simple and light food, and learn intricate courses such as Latin, mathematics, and geometry every day, requiring him to have a sense of responsibility for the country.
But Ludwig the Younger had no interest in these courses or in governing the country; he was naturally sensitive and withdrawn, emotionally rich, fond of literature and music, and full of artistic talent.
"Ludwig likes to dress up, he likes to act, he likes things like pictures, he likes to give gifts with his possessions, like money and other things," his mother said.
In 1864, the old king died and was succeeded by The 18-year-old Ludwig, Ludwig II. Ludwig did not have the slightest life experience or governing experience.
However, at this time, the international situation was turbulent and strange, and Prussia's power was becoming more and more powerful, and it was constantly expanding outward. In 1862, the new Prime Minister of Prussia, Bismarck, proposed the famous "Iron Policy", vowing to unify Germany by annexing many German city-states through diplomacy and war, thereby realizing the unification of Germany.
In 1866, the expanding Prussia defeated Austria and Bavaria in the war. From then on, Bavaria could only submit to Prussia in foreign policy and no longer had autonomy, and the status of King Ludwig II of Bavaria was not regarded at all as the king of a country, he was only a servant of the Prussian uncle.
The capture of the state, the reality of unsatisfactory, made Ludwig even more dislike court life. He gradually became less and less silent, spending all day at the Lindhof palace on the outskirts of Munich, not even allowing his attendants to follow him during meals.
He even lived in his own imaginary world, preparing tableware for the dead Kings of France, treating them as imaginary guests and eating with them. He becomes lonely and lonely, in a nervous fantasy of a beautiful and elegant castle that can carry his dreams.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the birth of Neuschwanstein Castle</h1>
Ludwig's father, Maximilian II, was a very artistic man, who believed that Bavaria was the art center of Germany and the cultural heart of Germany, and he wanted to establish his country as a fantasy knight kingdom that combined romance and faith, and showed it to the world and made people worship it.
So when he was still the crown prince, he spent a huge amount of money to buy a ruin, collected and integrated the heroic legends and fairy tales of the ancient German people, and built a top dream castle in his heart-—— Goswanstein Castle.
Ludwig spent his childhood in The Hohenschwangau Castle, where he loved to listen to fairy tales and then fantasize that he was in fairy tales. From the age of 15, ever since watching Ron green at the Opera House, Prince Ludwig has been obsessed with musicals and the works of Richard Wagner, and he often lingers on the Bavarian State Opera.
The performance of the music master Wagner, an old drama, turned the 15-year-old Ludwig from reverence to devout faith. He wanted to summon the artist to Munich as soon as he ascended the throne and invited him to co-found an "art kingdom" with him. As soon as Ludwig ascended the throne, he could not wait to summon Wagner and have dinner with him.
Not only did he give his villa on the outskirts directly to Wagner, but he also paid off all his debts for him, and then gave Wagner great support in all aspects, staging his work every day in a private theater, ludwig believed that only Wagner could understand himself, and the whole world was the only one who felt sorry for each other.
Before long, being staged in a private theater could not satisfy Ludwig's growing emotions, so he decided to bring the works of his favorite master Wagner to reality.
The beautiful and dreamy Neuschwanstein Castle came into being.
In 1869, construction began on Neuschwanstein Castle. Ludwig personally participated in the design and planning of the castle, and hired at all costs the most outstanding craftsmen in Germany, and at first he was building the castle with his personal assets, because the materials were too luxurious to make ends meet, so he had to start to borrow money from the state treasury.
In order to make the castle have a unique stage visual effect, can present the style of Wagner, Ludwig also specially invited the stage set designer Christian, under the design and construction of Christian, Neuschwanstein Castle will be close and special connection between nature and humanities, the water in the mountain reservoir is a clear spring flowing from the stone cracks, providing water in the entire castle, the castle is also everywhere in the decoration of swans, whether it is interior decoration or decorative frescoes, there is no place that does not reveal luxury.
Ludwig gave this castle all the romance, freedom, mystery, dreaminess and purity he longed for, combining the Roman and Gothic styles, making it sit on the top of a steep and mysterious mountain, and its huge and tough body guarded the holiness in Ludwig's heart.
Neuschwanstein Castle became perfect as the world passed, and Ludwig's treasury debts grew heavier. By 1885, his total debt had reached 14 million marks.
To realize his dream of Swanstein Castle, he began borrowing from other European royal families, which caused resentment in the Bavarian cabinet. They went out to Ludwig, hoping to ask the king to stop building Neuschwanstein Castle because of the crisis of the treasury debt, but Ludwig turned a deaf ear and continued his dream stubbornly, and the contradictions between the two sides became deeper and deeper, so that they were irreconcilable.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the fall of the "madman" king</h1>
Neuschwanstein Castle of Ludwig II was his dream world, a world of exclusive beauty. He lived a lonely life, only willing to devote himself to art but forced to face political conspiracies all day long. In order to build Neuschwanstein Castle, his debts caused the treasury to be depleted day by day, and everyone thought that he was completely crazy, the courtiers were no longer willing to support him, and the cabinet completely lost confidence in him.
Without even informing Ludwig, they called a meeting of psychiatrists and announced to the world that the king was suffering from a serious mental illness, and everyone knew that the king was a "madman."
In 1886, a government council detained Ludwig for mental illness and imprisoned him in a castle next to Lake Starnberg.
One evening, Ludwig asked to go for a walk by the lake with his psychiatrist, and he never returned. By the time it was discovered, the king's body had been floating on the shoals by the lake for hours.
When Ludwig died, his Neuschwanstein Castle was not yet complete, and the cabinet and the new king thought it was a stupid building and opened it for a fee as a semi-finished art building.
Later Germans turned Ludwig II's unfinished dream into reality, spending a lot of money to complete all the works, and Neuschwanstein Castle became one of Germany's iconic buildings.
When Ludwig II was alive, he often came from the High Swanstein Castle built by his father, standing on this bridge and monitoring the progress of the project of Neuschwanstein Castle with a telescope, at that time he must not have thought that the dream castle he built would be praised by tens of millions of people many years later, and he would not have thought that his original decoration of dreams would really build a most real dream kingdom for the world many years later, that is, Disneyland, which carries the fairy tale dreams of adults and children around the world.
People who have seen Neuschwanstein Castle will sigh that the castle at the beginning of the Disney animated movie is real!
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
People live in this world, and true madness is usually difficult to achieve. The "Castle of Dreams" he built for himself decorated the dreams of many people many years later, who is he, he should be a crazy artist.
Maybe he was born for love, and he shouldn't have been reborn into the royal nobility. Or maybe he was born into the royal family and nobility, so that he had more capital to let his dreams show up in the form of luxurious architecture.
He said he wanted to make himself mysterious, so he should have done it, right?
bibliography:
The Biography of Ludwig II