Gretl Stonborough, older sister of Paul and Ludwig, was the subject of one of Gustav Klimt's richly brocaded paintings, and in the mid-1920s, commissioned Ludwig (not known as an architect) to design a stark modernist mansion for her in Vienna, an architectural masterpiece that is now the home of the Bulgarian Embassy. The Wittgensteins were one of the wealthiest families in Europe in the early 20th century, and their home in Vienna was a ferment of cultural activity, amassing extraordinary collections of art, musical manuscripts and objets d'art. The House of Wittgenstein is very much the tale of two remarkable brothers but as with the James family (Henry and William, not Jesse and Frank), the other siblings have more than a walk-on part. In his satchel he was carrying the manuscript of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), perhaps the most explosive philosophical treatise of the 20th century. Volunteering for military action against his former British allies, he was decorated several times for valour before his eventual capture in Italy.
On release, he was transferred to the communications office in army command, where fellow officers were astounded to discover he could type faster with one hand than they could with two.Īt the outbreak of the Great War, Ludwig had already established his reputation as a wayward genius in the rarefied philosophical circles of Cambridge that revolved around Bertrand Russell. In Siberia, he marked out a piano keyboard with charcoal on an empty crate and began perfecting the left-handed technique that transformed him into the most famous one-armed pianist of the 20th century. Destined for a career as a virtuoso, his future was blasted by an explosion in military action, which shattered his right arm. An outstanding concert pianist, he had made his concert debut in 1913, taking the daring risk of featuring works by "the inebriate Irish composer John Field". Paul had more than Arctic wastes to contend with. In his absorbing account of the troubled dynasty, Alexander Waugh relates how Ludwig's older brother, Paul, was captured on the Russian front in the first World War, and incarcerated in the notorious Krepost in Siberia, the dungeon that had previously housed the exiled Dostoyevsky. It was not the first time members of the Wittgenstein family sought to come in from the cold. ONE OF THE lonelier exhibits in the greenhouse of the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin is a small metal plaque: "Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Viennese philosopher, stayed in Dublin in the winter of 1948-1949, and liked to sit and write on these steps." The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at WarBy Alexander Waugh Bloomsbury, 366pp. BIOGRAPHYThe philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who found refuge in Ireland, came from a dynasty that was wealthy, talented and tragic
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