1700 words Q. How have political and cultural influences shaped the architecture, landscape art and gardens of the Italian Renaissance OR French Classicism? Introduction The what, where, when, who ,why and how. Introduce the topic, highlight key points, example artworks etc. Background Provide historical, religious/philosophical and conceptual background to the topic. What information is most relevant to your argument and your examples? Analysis Analyse the examples in support of the argument. Describe the visual and technical features. What is the subject or theme? How does the work relate to the historical context in which it emerged? Explain the work in relation to relevant socio- cultural and philosophical concepts Conclusion. -------------------- What examples (architectural, landscape art, gardens) to use? What is French Classicism? Source material Kleiner, Fred S. 2009. Gardner’s Art through the Ages: A Global History. 13th ed. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.
Transcript
1700 wordsQ. How have political and cultural influences shaped the architecture, landscape art and gardens of the Italian Renaissance OR French Classicism?
Introduction
The what, where, when, who ,why and how.
Introduce the topic, highlight key points, example artworks etc.
Background
Provide historical, religious/philosophical and conceptual background to the topic.
What information is most relevant to your argument and your examples?
Analysis
Analyse the examples in support of the argument. Describe the visual and technical
features. What is the subject or theme? How does the work relate to the historical
context in which it emerged? Explain the work in relation to relevant socio-cultural and
philosophical concepts
Conclusion.
--------------------
What examples (architectural, landscape art, gardens) to use?
What is French Classicism?
Source material
Kleiner, Fred S. 2009. Gardner’s Art through the Ages: A Global History. 13th ed. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.
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Harrison, Charles, Wood, Paul and Jason Gaiger. 2000. Art in Theory 1648-1815: an
anthology of changing ideas. Blackwell
p. 11
Violent upheavals in the first half of the seventeenth century – an ‘age of crisis’
p.12
“The expansion of absolutism seems to have been both a consequence and a condition of
the instability. The policy of increasing centralization and the extension of
administrative control pursued by the monarchs [of Europe]… was fiercely resisted by
the older aristocratic families…”
“… the damage inflicted by internal conflict and the risk of a complete breakdown of
social order also seemed to provide justification for absolutist control. Throughout the
second half of the seventeenth century most of Europe saw the growth of monarchical
power and the ever more efficient employment of the apparatus of the state.”
p.14
“The second half of the seventeenth century was marked by a shift in the cultural
leadership of Europe from Italy to France… the rise of France as a continental power
enabled Louis XIV and his ministers to provide unrivalled conditions for the expansion
of the arts. The Academie Royale was a crucial instrument of this expansion.”
Key figure in this transition was Nicolas Poussin
His standing as the ‘learned painter’ par excellence was a powerful motivating force to
the new school of French painting.
He assimilated the achievements of the Italian Renaissance and developed a new style of
austere classicism.
p.15
The Academy had originally been founded in the name of artistic freedom in opposition
to the restrictive practices of the guilds. But under the guiding hand of Jean-Baptiste
Colbert it was indeed incorporated into the absolutist project. As an efficiently
administered medium of regulation and royal patronage, it served increasingly to extend
state control over the arts.
p. 16
All of the participants agreed that the goal of art was the ideal imitation of nature, that
great art transcended time and that it was underpinned by universal values.
At the heart of the doctrine classique lay the conviction that reason was the instrument
both of artistic creativity and of rational reflection. The true imitation of nature
demanded that the artist not merely copy the external features presented by the natural
world, but to penetrate through to the essential.
In France, the dominance of rationalism and classicism resulted in a significant counter-
tendency which emphasized the importance of those features of the work of art which
seemed to escape determination by rules: the je ne sais quoi and the quality of ‘grace’.
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Gardner’s Art through the Ages
Use for the political situation in Europe background
p. 673
During the 17th and early 18th centuries, numerous geopolitical shifts occurred in
Europe as the fortunes of the individual countries waxed and waned. Pronounced
political and religious frictions resulted in widespread unrest and warfare.
The Thirty Years’ War
Among the political entities vying for expanded power and authority in Europe were the
Bourbon dynasty of France and the Habsburg dynasties of Spain and the Holy Roman
Empire.
The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) “marked the abandonment of a united Christian
Europe and accepted the practical realties of secular political systems. The building of
today’s nation-states was emphatically underway.”
p. 691
“In France, monarchical authority had been increasing for centuries, culminating in the
reign of Louis XIV (r. 1661-1715), who sought to determine the direction of French
society and culture. Although its economy was not as expansive as that of the Dutch
Republic, France became Europe’s largest and most powerful country in the 17th
century. Against this backdrop the arts flourished.”
Painting – NICOLAS POUSSIN (1594-1665)
Rome’s ancient and Renaissance monuments enticed many French artists to study there.
Poussin spent most of his life in Rome, where he produced grandly severe paintings
modelled on those of Titian and Raphael. He also carefully worked out a theoretical
explanation of his method and was ultimately responsible for establishing classical
painting as an important ingredient of 17th century French art.” (see Poussin’s notes on
painting also available in Harrison and Wood)
Possible painting to use is Burial of Phocion, 1648. Oil on canvas, 119cm x 178cm,
monuments to the king’s absolute power. Louis and Colbert sought to regularize taste
and establish the classical style as the preferred French manner. The founding of the
Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648 served to advance this goal.
p. 698
Versailles
The conversion of a simple lodge into the palace of Versailles became the greatest
architectural project of the age – a defining statement of French Baroque style and an
undeniable symbol of Louis XIV’s power and ambition.
---------------------------
Clark, Kenneth. 1971. Civilization. London: BBC.
p. 223
For sixty years France had dominated Europe, and this had meant a rigidly centralised,
authoritarian government and a classic style. The classic discipline which the taste of
Versailles applied to all the arts can be represented as one of the summits of European
civilization – le grand siecle.
It produced a great and noble painter, Nicolas Poussin… It isn’t only that Poussin was a
learned artist who had studied and assimilated the poses of antique sculpture and the
pictorial inventions of Raphael; it was that he brought to the profession of picture-
making a mind stored with ancient literature and formed by stoic philosophy.
French Classicism also produced magnificent architecture… it expresses an ideal –
grandeur achieved through the authoritarian state
[For example the façade of the Louvre] reflects the triumph of an authoritarian state,
and of those logical solutions that Colbert, the greatest administrator of the seventeenth
century, was imposing on politics, economics and every department of contemporary
life, including, above all, the arts. This gives French Classical architecture a certain
inhumanity. It was the work not of craftsmen, but of wonderfully gifted civil servants…
French Classicism was eminently not exportable.
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Clark, Kenneth. Year. Landscape Into Art. Publisher info.
On Poussin:
p. 67-68
The paintings of Poussin in which these principles are most explicitly worked out are
the heroic landscapes of about 1650, in particular those which illustrate the story of
Phocion. They show the intimate connection, in ideal landscape, between form and
content, for the stem Plutarchian fable has produced the most rigorous of all Poussin's
compositions [Pi. 64]. They are intended to symbolise the dangerous fickleness of the
mob, which had condemned to death a great leader simply because he had not courted
their favours and had the irritating faculty of being right; and Poussin conceived that the
setting of this story must be of the utmost austerity. No beauties of light or charming
distances, but a full closely knit design, presented with uncompromising frontality.
The firmness of these great masses and the certainty with which the
eye is led back into the distance until it is arrested by the Euchdian
finality of the Temple, combine to give an impression of irresistible
logic.
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Wickham, Louise. 2012. Gardens in History: A Political Perspective. Oxford: Windgather
Press.
p. 1
[Wickham looks at gardens] in relation to not only how they are influenced by the
political ideas of their creators but also how the gardens themselves provide support
and legitimacy to those in government, either overtly or indirectly.
p. 4There has been some interesting analysisof the use of the Versailles gardens7 both as a statement by Louis XIV of his(and thereby French) power but also his relationship with the diplomatic world.Louis took power back into the hands of the monarchy in 1661, following aperiod where powerful commoners, as First Ministers, had run the state. Thiscoincided almost exactly with his construction of the gardens at Versailles thatMukerji says was a demonstration not only of French military engineering andstyle but also Louis’ control over the land and his people. Louis used the gardensas an indicator of the importance (or otherwise!) of his foreign visitors. Thegreatest honour was for the King himself to show you round, although manywere with official guides but with directions from the king on the prescribedroute. However if no tour at all was offered, as happened to the delegation fromMoscow in 1687 (Berger and Hedin 2008, 71) this was seen as a snub.
p. 87
The gardens at Versailles became the model that other aspiring politicalleaders in Western Europe, including non-royals, would use when planningtheir estates,
p. 88
It was not just about the sheer size and the overall design, it was how Louisused these gardens politically, which is interesting. In addition to the diplomatictours, it is the use of the garden as a place of symbolism and spectacle that is also
important. As Mukerji (1997, 2) points out: ‘Versailles was a model of materialdomination of nature that fairly shouted its excessive claims about the strengthof France … [and was] testimony to the greatness of the monarch who built[it]’
p. 90
Louis XIV was to take all these strands of thegarden as theatre or spectacle, as territorial power, as symbol and as centre fordiplomacy in his master creation at Versailles a hundred years later.
p. 96
The rise of Richelieu marked a trend that was to continue throughoutthe first half of the seventeenth century, where the kings relied on ministersrather than the traditional nobility. The long civil wars of the sixteenth andearly seventeenth centuries had weakened the latter’s position as successivekings mistrusted them and their motives. With the ministers and officials in control of state policy, it was they who became powerful and rich throughsales of hereditary offices and the collection of taxes
p. 101
Until 1680, the king’s principal residence was Saint-Germain-en-Laye.Versailles, then under construction, occasionally welcomed the Court. Theoccasions of these visits and the fêtes meant that continual novelty wasdemanded. The pace of change increased once Louis and the court lived therepermanently. As a showcase for the le Roi Soleil (The Sun King), the iconographicprogramme was as important as the overall size and design. This encompassednot only the key architectural features including the statues but also the use ofplant material particularly flowers. The honoured guests to the garden wouldunderstand the illusions made. Whereas many parts of interior of the château ofVersailles were specifically dedicated to the glory of Louis XIV and the Frenchmonarchy, there are only ever two images of him9 in the gardens. Insteadhe was alluded to through mythology and allegory. Berger (1985, 64) thinksthat by doing ‘this, the creators of Versailles simply followed the traditionsof Renaissance Baroque residences, in which the park was conceived of as an idyllic, pastoral setting for the eternal Antique presences: the pagan deities, thepersonified forces of nature, and the personae of ancient mythology’.
p. 102
Botanic gardens or a collection of particular plants was a way of demonstratingpower and wealth of the sovereign and Louis XIV was no exception. Asimportant as the hard landscaping were the flowers in the gardens of both thesecondary palaces of Marly and the Trianon within the wider Versailles estate.He ‘maintained the most spectacular displays of flowers that early modernEurope had yet seen, and he did so during the years when flowers were at thezenith of their popularity and fashionability in elite circles’ (Hyde 2005, 169).These were mainly not for general view and the most precious flowers were inprivate areas reserved exclusively for the king and those he chose to invite there.Just as the statues and fountains had symbolic value, so too did these flowerswhich represented not only the obvious abundance and fertility, but also the
nature of his reign as a time of peace and prosperity.
p. 103
Mukerji (2001) looks at another political aspect of the gardens of Versaillesin the use of parterres de broderie. She believes (2001, 249) that ‘to dress theland in [this] French style … [gave] it a political identity. This “dressing” ofthe countryside was a form of political “address”, which claimed France to be anatural as well as cultural unit, designed both for political unity and greatness’.Olivier de Serres in his book of 1611, Le Theatre d’agriculture et mesnages dechamps, recommended that by landowners maximising the productive ability oftheir land, the economic and political well-being of the whole population wouldbenefit. One way he advocated was the cultivation of mulberry trees for theraising of silkworms for the silk industry. Thus early on, there was a connectionbetween textiles and gardening as the complex designs of the parterres mirroredthe woven textiles that were providing a significant part to the growth of Frenchnational wealth. By the time the parterres were being installed at Versailles, theyhad taken on a greater role. Using large collections of imported bulbs and otherrare flowering plants, they showed not only superior (that is French) taste andthe latest trends in design but also French strength in international trade andhorticultural practice (Mukerji 2001, 253). France (and by implication Louis asabsolute ruler) was pre-eminent and the gardens were re-enforcing this point.
p. 105
Louis XIV started work on thegardens, despite the opposition of Colbert, his Finance Minister, who thoughtthat he should concentrate on the existing royal residences. Louis thoughwanted Versailles as it had resonance as a purely Bourbon creation
As Mukerji (1997, 2) points out: ‘the gardens [of Versailles] were notjust marvels to transfix the viewer; they were laboratories for and demonstrationsof French capacities to use the countryside as a political resource for power’.Representing France itself (and by implication, Louis as absolute monarch),the gardens at Versailles therefore had to keep changing to show that Francewas still the pre-eminent nation.
p. 108Creating a coherent design (Figure4.13) was not easy but ‘the spreading geometry of landscaped circles, squares,and intersecting walks – all centred on the main axis with several transversallines – provided the basic ordering devices which enabled Le Nôtre to maintainunity and continuity in the face of unpredictable expansion
The theme of the Sun King continued with the construction of the Bassin deLatone, which was designed by Le Nôtre and sculpted by Gaspard and BalthazarMarsy (Figure 4.14). Built between 1668 and 1670, the fountain depicts a talefrom Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Latona and her children, Apollo and Diana, are notallowed to drink from a pond belonging to some Lycian peasants and furtherindignity is heaped on the gods as mud is thrown at them. An appeal to Zeus results in the Lycians being turned into frogs. This mythological episode waschosen as a deliberate reference to the civil war known as the ‘Fronde’, in the firstpart of Louis’ reign. The word fronde means slingshot, as this was the favouredweapon of the rebels, who were therefore being compared to the mud-slingingLycians in the statue. The Dragon Fountain, finished in 1668, also referred toLouis’ triumph over the rebellious Frondes (Thompson 2006, 147). It represents
the Python, a large snake killed by Apollo.
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Schama, Simon. 1996. Landscape and memory. New York: Vintage Books.
p. 339The same mathematics that was needed in the perfection of siege artilleryand fortifications was applied to the exact construction of space within a garden.42 Moreover, Etienne Binet, writing in 1629, explicitly compared the creatorof such gardens to a "little god. "43 But it was only absolutist monarchs inthe Baroque who were supposed to describe themselves as earthly deities. So itmay have been for his usurpation of the roles of both landscape marshal andhydraulic muse that Fouquet paid such a heavy price.
Andgiven the king's absolutist temperament, the element of caprice, so stronglyfelt at Vaux, was made strictly subject to the prospects of grandeur. Evenbefore the first chateau was built by Louis Le Vau, the park was made the settingfor entertainments that catered to the king's hunger for self-aggrandizement.Whether they were ostensibly performed in honor of military victories,the Icing's latest mistress, or both, they used bodies of water as theatrical platformson which spectacles that flattered his omnipotence could be performed.
From the outset, the myth of Apollo, as well as the absolutist gaze, determinedmuch of the design of the park and its waters. Where the axis of the alleeat Vaux connected the stone Caesars with the river-gods reclining in the grotto, at Versailles the line of inspection was moved east-west, in keeping with theprogress of the sw1. From the uppermost terrace of the garden side of thepalace Louis could look down a flight of stone steps at a fountain group thatbore immediate witness to the divinely royal power over the waters.
THE FOUNTAIN of LATONA at Versailles
And the fountain of Apollo
p. 340
What is, in any case, an unparalleled moment in amphibian myth was, forLouis XIV, also history: history political and history fanlliiar. For tl1e fountainalluded to tl1e eviction of Anne of Austria and her two children, Louis andPhilippe, at the time of the uprising of the Parisian Fronde. And whether or notthe king actually disliked the capital as much as conventional histories claim,there is no doubt that the sovereign position of tl1e fountain of Latona, directlybeneath the chateau and pointing down tl1e grande allee) was a royal retort, aproclamation of the realm's metamorphosis from anarchy to order.44 At the endof the allee is tl1e equally extraordinary fountain of Apollo, where the gildedsun-god can be seen rising from the waters at the beginning of the day. Thustl1e two fountain groups-Latona and Apollo-were in poetic and historicalcorrespondence with each otl1er, adversity and ascendancy; back and fortl1down tl1e line of light and water.
p. 343
There was a wealth of commercial, as well as military, associations afloat onthe grand canal ofVersailles. At the same time that the great pile of the palacewas growing, royal engineers were cutting their way through ranges of hills tocreate a spectacular network of royal canals in the Midi and in Burgw1dy. Theirpurpose, of course, was to provide the infrastructure necessary for the kind ofcommercial revolution that Colbert had envisioned as necessary if absolutistFrance was to prevail over the greatest canal power of the world: the Dutchrepublic. But the canal, along with the new generation of aqueducts, like the
aqueduct of Maintenton, was the perfect expression of absolutist control overthe waters: linear, obedient, and free from the unpredictable ebbs and flows ofboth history and geography. It was a true highway even if, in the end, it went(like absolutist France) nowhere.
