Bad Salzig; the Hostile Brothers

Turner places the “Hostile Brothers” – the castles of Sterrenberg and Liebenstein – on an unnaturally high mountain ridge.  In reality the slopes, as seen from the riverbank in Bad Salzig, appear considerably lower.  The light conditions depicted here may well come very close to the actual atmosphere at the time.  Coming from Boppard, he looks back in order to capture this perspective.  Turner, too, would probably have been familiar with the legend of the two brothers who, due to their profound mutual hatred, erected a “wall of discord” between their castles, producing this unique architectural constellation.  Today Burg Sterrenberg is owned by the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate and is used as a restaurant.