Nachtigallental

More information about the history

Listen in. How man has formed and adapted nature in line with his concept of the ideal; and how inseparable legends and romantic experiences of the landscape are – this can be felt here in the Rhine Valley in the many carefully created parks, as well as in poems and artistic tributes.

Image: Emanuel Geibel, approx. 1860, photographed by Franz Hanfstaengl

Emanuel Geibel, the translator, dramatist and poet from Lübeck, was a celebrated bard in his day. Today, virtually no one still remembers one of the most successful representatives of the Late Romantic period. Critics now distance themselves from his patriotic lyrics – he wrote the famous lines “Am deutschen Wesen mag die Welt genesen” [The essence of the German nation Will one day be the world’s salvation] – but he reaped the most success with his aesthetic and emotionally-charged poems. In “Der Mond ist aufgestiegen” [The Moon has Risen], the reflection of the moon in the Rhine becomes an allegory for a yearning for the healing powers of nature.

Romantic landscaping

Image: Rhine landscape with the Siebengebirge, oil on canvas, Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, 1853, B. C. Koekkoek-Haus, Kleve (detail)

The beginnings of the Romantic movement coincided with the start of industrialisation. As a counter reaction to its negatively-viewed repercussions for the people, it was initially primarily painters, poets and musicians who increasingly turned their attention to nature and the past. In the Rhine Valley, they hoped to find a wild, untouched landscape. There, they not only delighted in the beauty of nature but also in “simple people” who lived a “simple life”.

Image: The Drachenfels plateau from the south. Steel engraving, C. Schlickum / H. Emden, Bonn, around 1840. Siebengebirgsmuseum

Many German poets and artists went in search of a national identity during the times of politic upheaval between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. In the cultural landscape of the upper central Rhine Valley, they wanted to return to their roots. And this was no surprise, after all, the region, with its castles, palaces and scenes of serious disputes and wars, had great appeal for the travellers.

Image: “Two men contemplating the moon” Caspar David Friedrich, Dresden State Art Collections

The artists of the Romantic movement put emotions ahead of thoughts and reality. While the painting by Caspar David Friedrich shown above does not have any links to “Nightingale Valley”, it is an effective vehicle for expressing the search for “romantic” nature prevalent at this time. According to Friedrich, the artist should not “just paint what he sees in front of him but also what he sees within himself”. In the same way as landscape paintings showed nature in idealised and optimised natural scenes and vistas, garden design consequently staged these scenes in the actual countryside. The aim was to merge untouched nature with artistic design so that they became inseparably blended together. Today “Nightingale Valley”, with its dramatic incisions, the bewitched root formations and the mellow babbling of the stream, is still the ideal backdrop for depicting romantic motifs.

Practical information

The Nibelungenhalle on the Drachenfels provides insight into the legendary world of the Nibelungen and dragon mythology.
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The history of the landscape, Rhine travel and Rhine romanticism are some of the central subjects at the Siebengebirgsmuseum Königswinter, Kellerstrasse 16:
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