Gen. ‘Vrangel bei Murnau

Even when he abandoned Russia with his eponymous fleet, moved to Serbia and then to Belgium to meet his own dead, Gen. ‘Vrangel (von Wrangel, as a German Baltic) did not set his foot in Murnau. In those same years and before, the peaceful village of southern Bavaria, overlooking the scenic Stauffelsee Lake, the Portofino of Bavaria, hosted the artists of the Blaue Reiter movement (some of their works are displayed in the castle that is featured in this painting). And in those very same years a German actor and director acted in a representation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream held the villa owned by the Bavarian architect von Seidl. This second protagonist of the painting adopted as his own pseudonym the name of the village . Just some time later, as Friedrich Murnau, he directed the movie Nosferatu. Gen. ‘Vrangel ‘s gaunt face, his tall and sleek appearance, are ideal for an aesthetical Vampire. The same noble and somewhat exotic mysterious that had made his first appearance in European literature in the homonymous tale by John Polidori. This is it. Enjoy. PS: the elongated car on the background is an astonishing Mercedes Benz of the early ‘30s. You can try to flee from your ill fate, but – please – do it with elegance. As ‘Vrangel himself had done, leaving from Odessa on his own yacht.