Schloss Nymphenburg: Magdalenenklause

If you’re looking for something totally different, Magdalenenklause is it.

Most of Nymphenburg’s aesthetic is very much centered around courtly life, folklore, and fairy tales. It’s very much in keeping with the popular Rococo style and is built, as any palace ought be, to express power and wealth when foreign powers and wealth deign to make a visit.

Magdalenenklause seems to me an odd interpretation on that whole principal. Religion is also a very easy way to promote and hold power, and most European royal families were religions if not outright all Christians. Divine right to rule, and whatnot. Naturally, this means religion plays an important part of their daily life. Queue the Magdalenenklause.

This building was designed to look like a ruin, though apparently this only applies to the outside. The cracks in the plaster and brick are intentional, and as soon as you enter the building it is very evident that a ruin it is not. The entire chapel is covered nearly floor to ceiling with shells, corals, and stones in mimicry of an Italian hermitage. Think The Shell Grotto in Margate but warmer tones and of less mysterious origins.

The point of the Magdalenenklause is supposed to be one of contemplation, presumably, as is the usual in such spaces, towards abandoning one’s earthly pleasures in pursuit of a more divine goal; the passage into heaven.

If one had grown up being brought to the Magdalenenklause perhaps that might be possible, but as a visitor, the stunning display of Mary Magdalene within the grotto detracts from contemplation. To say that it’s a beautiful piece of artwork is to detract from it, somehow. It’s not supposed to be beautiful in the style that Nymphenburg is. This grotto is a darker, rougher, more visceral beauty, and she stands out all the more for being within Nymphenburg.

When we left Forest and I followed the path from the Magdalenenklause and, if memory serves me, we spent a bit of time wandering the outer ‘fields’ of Nymphenburg. In our travels we found a pond with some ducks and swans, and some park benches for visitors to sit and enjoy the tranquility. Ever the photographer, and lover of all things fairy tale, especially swans, Forest stopped to snap at the edge for some pictures. She remarked that she wished the swans were closer for a better shot, so I knelt and held out my hand to them as though I was offering a treat.

Forest didn’t appreciate my methods, and if this photo is anything to go by, neither did the swan.