By stark contrast, by the time you climb, panting, up the forest trail to Göttweig, it is clear that decay has set in. The Abbey Church is no less grand than St Florian, and equally engaging, until it becomes clear that the painters have reached an unacceptable level of silliness: a painting of Babel which makes it look like a high-end holiday-camp, another of the Last Supper which has the air of a gala meal among friends. The last straw is a picture of the touching little scene in the gospel where Mary Magdalene in her panic assumes that a figure she sees by Christ’s empty tomb must be a
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