Last weekend we visited Schloss Clemenswerth. What a wonderful castle we found there. Whoever thought this up and designed it must have been completely obsessed with symmetry.
The castle stands in the middle, with eight smaller pavilions around it. Between them, long, straight avenues lead into the woods. Even the trees stand neatly in line. If you look back from the end of one of those avenues, the castle is right in the middle. Very little was left to chance.
Johann Conrad Schlaun was the architect, and Clemens August commissioned it as a hunting lodge. The information board says construction took from 1737 to 1749. Quite a project, then.
What I like is the combination of the red brick and the green roof. And those pale shutters. The photos also show just how much decoration there is on the façade. There is plenty to look at between the windows.
There are sculptures in the grounds too. One figure cups his hands around his mouth to call out louder and make his voice carry further. By one of the outbuildings, someone is sitting quietly against the wall. Also a sculpture. His posture is a little less grand than the buildings around him.
Further on, the trees line broad stretches of grass. There were already some leaves on the paths, while overhead it was still mostly green. In the photo I took there, the castle suddenly looks very small at the end of the avenue.
I have now started making a drawing of it in Procreate, using my own photo as a starting point. You look at a building differently when you draw it. How exactly does that roof go, and what is there between those windows?
I am mostly trying not to get lost in the details. There is plenty to draw, but I want to keep an eye on the whole thing too. I am still working on the greenery. The trees need more depth and there needs to be more variation in the greens.
So I will be busy with this castle for a while yet.