Visitors approaching Bruchsal Palace quickly notice that representation, illusion, and presentation determine the architecture. When the foundation was laid in 1722, the Baroque period was already in its last phase. It was only a few decades later that the Rococo style became dominant.
View of the main building from the west side.
On the highest point of a long, gently rising axis soars the palace: an intentional conceptual design that lends the royal building a special presence. Balthasar Neumann's staircase in the interior is also cleverly staged. It plays with the light: From the "earthly" ground floor with its dark grottoes, the visitor ascends up to the bright, "godly" world.
Illusion painting on the facade of the former Orangery.
On the exterior facade of Bruchsal Palace, colorful paintings imitate three-dimensional decorations. The "brick buildings" around the main courtyard also are not what they appear. The brickwork is only painted. Inside the palace, other illusionistic paintings can be seen in the intrada, which is to say the front hall, and in the adjacent grottoes, for example, seemingly three-dimensional stone benches on the wall. The edges of all ceiling frescoes are architecture painted to look like frames; a typical motif during the Baroque period.
The ceremonial halls on the upper story were built between 1751 and 1754. The Royal Hall and the Marble Hall are significantly different: both are decorated with stucco work in the Rococo style, called rocailles. Yet the strict patterns of the Royal Hall, with a clearly delineated ceiling, does not fit with the Baroque style. The Marble Hall is quite different: Luxurious stucco work covers the space and hides the transition between ceiling and walls. A playful, energetic work of art composed in stucco and paint!
Clearly identifiable: there was considerable stylistic development between the Royal Hall and the Marble Hall.
Rococo stucco in the destroyed red room.
In the former apartments, once reached from the side of the ceremonial halls, Rococo was in full bloom: in stucco, paintings, and carvings on wall paneling, console tables, and mirrors. The decorations in the Chamber Music Hall in the chamber wing were made in 1776 in the Louis Seize style and thus are examples of early Classicism. A certain playfulness beloved by Rococo remains, yet geometries and symmetries determine the design as a whole, and the ornamentation makes references to antiquity.
Symmetrical stucco in the Chamber Music Hall.
