Thursday, April 4, 2013

D is for Davos, Switzerland and The Magic Mountain

Dover Press Attribution

Winter in Davos is the name of this poster by the artist, Burkhard Mangold (1873-1950).  According to his biography, he was influenced by the Jugendstil movement.  And what was the Jugendstil movement you might ask? (I did).  Jugendstil was another name for Art Nouveau, an art movement which began in the late 19th and early 20th century.  Art Nouveau included all forms of architecture, high and low art, printing, sculpture, crafts, with all of these forms rejecting the traditional art forms of the 19th century. 

Davos is one of Europe's oldest mountain resorts with emphasis on all outdoor winter sports, skiing with 45 ski lifts, sled runs, skating rinks both indoor and outdoor, and in the summer hiking and mountain biking.


Swissinfo.co  attribution
Because of its high altitude and sunny weather, Davos was originally a health resort for wealthy patients with tuberculosis.  Robert Louis Stevenson completed Treasure Island in 1882 while recuperating there, and for you Lit majors -- what famous writer used Davos as the location for his Nobel Prize winning book?    Did you guess?  Thomas Mann used Davos as his setting for The Magic Mountain.  His wife was there in 1911, with a "lung ailment"-- a euphemism for TB.  Mann who stayed nearby taking care of his children, spent three weeks there himself, which gave him first-hand material for his novel.  Writing is the perfect occupation for those whose hospital stays for tuberculosis usually meant months of recuperation.  The daily regimen included, long hours outdoors, lounging bundled up while inhaling the mountain air which was thought to be part of the cure, eating very good food, and this is one of the most unusual treatments,  spending the night in barns with cattle, inhaling their flatulence.

But Davos is not all serious and literary.  It is quite a hip location with clubs, good restaurants and beautiful people.  It was the site for the  2013 World Economic Forum.  There is more to Davos' history than I can cover here, but check out Davos' numerous web-sites.

11 comments:

  1. I have never heard of Davos, but it sounds great!

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  2. Thanks for coming by. I had TB myself and spent a year in a sanatorium, but looking at the post, it might be boring to most.

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  3. very lovely poster and interesting post--i am enjoying your series :)

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  4. never heard of davos love hearing about new places! and its always fascinating to me to find out the locations where people wrote :)

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  5. Your setting has to influence you, doesn't it? And give you ideas for writing.

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  6. what an interesting tidbit. And I really want to be on that ship. Last cruise we went on was the Disney -- I'd trade that one for ice caps in a minute.

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  7. I agree, glad you like the photo. Alaska is one of my favorite places; I like the frontier-like feeling about it, plus the spectacular scenery.

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  8. I'd never heard of Davos either. Fascinating!

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  9. There was so much more to write about the history, but the blog was already too long.

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  10. Hello and thank you for stopping by my blog. Your Alaska photo at the top is quite spectacular!

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  11. Thank you, Armchair Squid! How did you ever come up with that name? My husband took the photo. I do love it and wish I could be there again.

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