Rhine | ENTER INTO ART

Excerpts from the book “Art Château – vol. 2 – Vernissage with Ice Wine”

The refreshingly sweet ice wine is a very special treat originating in Germany and Austria. Its production process is an interesting story. Only grapes frozen naturally on the vine may be used for the Dionysian drink, forcing growers out to harvest in icy cold weather. Going down the Rhine, you reach a point behind Koblenz where the grapes start feeling uncomfortable. At the steep slopes above Leutesdorf, where the water drains through swiftly, their roots start clawing 15 meters deep into the poor, stony soil. In the vaults of the vineyards around here, 40-year-old wines are kept behind heavy wooden doors. Looking down the vertiginous vineyards, the river and the town come into view. In the background, way up high, squats Hammerstein Castle, while down below, the picturesque landscape of the Rhine Valley with its hoarfrost cover rings in the Christmas season.

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Excerpts from the book “Landscapes for William Turner”

In painting, the term “landscape” did not exist until the 15th / 16th century. While the frescoes of Roman villas featured nature in their depictions of gardens, medieval art neglected it completely. It was the zeitgeist shift during the Renaissance that restored people’s interest in life before death, thus ringing in the radical changes that eventually led to the modern era. As people turned away from the afterlife, they began to explore nature, which led artists to incorporate perspective into their work. The element of landscape that had previously been perceived as dark and hostile was now elevated to a sublime means to express aesthetic beauty.

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