→搭火車前往Château de Chillon觀光
Lake Geneva as Shelley and Byron Knew It
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Panoramic view of Lake Geneva and the medieval Château de Chillon, which inspired Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon.”
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By TONY PERROTTET
Published: May 27, 2011
SWITZERLAND is rarely thought of as a wild artistic center. Most of us recall the harsh verdict of Harry Lime, the character played by Orson Welles in “The Third Man,” who declared that the country’s most creative achievement was the cuckoo clock.
© Musée du Louvre/A. Dequier - M. Bard
This painting draws on a poem by the great early-nineteenth-century English poet Byron, inspired by the fate of François Bonivard, a sixteenth-century politician from Geneva. Bonivard was imprisoned in Chillon castle on the shores of Lake Geneva for challenging the authorities of the day and was forced to watch his brother die. Delacroix is particularly interested in the violent treatment of the prisoner and his helplessness.
The scene takes place in a prison cell. Your eyes take a while to adjust to the gloom before you can see the contorted body of the captive. Note how the light shines on the diagonal line of his foot pushing against the pillar and the way the muscles of the body and arms are strained with desperation as the prisoner gazes imploringly at the second figure. See the chain set into the rock that holds him prisoner. Lying curled in the dark, forming a striking contrast to the desperately lunging prisoner, is the body of his dying brother – just a few feet away, but forever beyond his reach. Note the gloomy palette of similar browns and ochres which add to the impression of the prisoner’s feral wildness, brought out by such long captivity.
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