That evocative
phrase shock and awe, coined by the writers of America’s doctrine of
“rapid dominance” in the Iraq war, could have been applied to Louis
XIV’s reign in France — twice over. Not only did the 17th-century French
king consolidate state power into absolute personal rule, ramping up
the state’s treasury after reforms by his brilliant minister of finance
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, he fought endless wars to expand France’s
territory and ensure defensible borders.
Scarred
in his youth by the rebellion known as the Fronde, when the entire
national treasury was dedicated to the royal army, he also prioritised
domestic security, establishing it with brute force and effective PR.
Massive spending alternated between military acquisitions during times
of war and burnishing the image of the king — and so the state — with
cultural commissions in times of peace. He poured money into
architecture, painting, sculpture, the decorative arts, music, and
dance. Into science too, which served a dual role: modernising his war
machine and producing hydraulic, explosive and mechanised marvels for
public entertainments.
The most extreme
example of this double focus was the furniture, including chairs, and
decorative objects crafted for Louis XIV from solid silver. Over-the-top
luxury, the chairs were also uncomfortable: suitable, perhaps, for
objects that were actually part of France’s treasury. Louis had them
melted down in 1689 to fund his next war. So restricted were the arts
and crafts in favour of military spending in the following years that
the even famous Gobelins tapestry factory was closed from 1694 to 1699.
Louis XIV adopted two Greek gods as his
avatars: Apollo, the god of knowledge and art; and Mars, the god of war.
Apollo’s emblem, the face of the sun, became his emblem.
And
the epicentre of all this was Versailles, the palace he transformed
from his father’s simple hunting lodge into a small city that housed
thousands, including his entire court and administration. It came to
define taste and etiquette across Europe.
On
Friday, a rare exhibition of 130 objets d’art from Versailles opens at
the National Gallery in Canberra. It follows a chance remark last year
by the Australian ambassador to France, Stephen Brady, to former Le Point
editor and Nicolas Sarkozy adviser Catherine Pegard, who is the (often
controversial) president of the Public Establishment of the Palace,
Museum and National Estate of Versailles.
After
seeing a dazzling exhibition from Versailles in Arras, Brady said he
thought a similar exhibition would go down very well in Australia, where
ties with France are strong. Hundreds of thousands of Australians visit
Paris every year; more young Australian men, per capita, than any other
nationality lost their lives defending Arras in World War I; and the
Australian government was talking submarine contracts with a French
company at the time.
To his surprise,
Brady says, Pegard agreed. “Are you serious?” he recalls saying. She
was, and after a “dance of the seven veils”, as Brady puts it — several
meetings to nail down the details — the exhibition was agreed upon. The
only venue could have been the NGA, Brady says, because he represents
Australia, not any particular state. As it happens, this period of art
history is also the specialty of the NGA’s director, Gerard Vaughan.
Beatrix Saule is the grande dame
of Versailles. A graduate of the Ecole du Louvre, she studied economics
and law as well as art history, and has worked at the palace for 40
years. The display in Canberra and an exhibition of Marie Antoinette
memorabilia going to Japan will be her last major project before
retirement.
The NGA exhibition is
Saule’s vision of Versailles. She is so intimate with the place, she has
instant recall of any names and dates she is asked about.
The French art world still remembers fabulous shows she curated over the years, including Les table royales
in 1993, which displayed tables and tables full of extravagant china. A
comment that she has been married to the palace all her life prompts a
wry aside to her aide about her husband’s opinion on that.
“I
like to say that Versailles was a product of peace,” she notes,
referring to the spending that was possible only when the country was
not at war. “That’s why Versailles took so long to be built: it was
always starting and stopping.”
Her show
spans the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV and the ill-fated Louis XVI,
the last absolute monarch of France who was so unceremoniously
dispatched during the French Revolution. The exhibition demonstrates the
shifts in taste and fashion over that time, particularly the shift from
aesthetic shock and awe to the more domesticated personal rooms of the
later kings and queens.
While anyone
could view Louis XIV rise from his bed and make his toilette, small
daily state occasions in themselves, Louis XV and XVI demanded privacy.
Their rooms were smaller, more warmly decorated. The change in decor
mirrored the shift in state power. No later building projects would
rival the stunning Hall of Mirrors, for example: that explosion of
light, a first in interiors, bookended by salons dedicated to Mars and
Apollo.
“Louis XV hated to be on show. He was
shy,” Saule says. “He wanted to be with friends, in good company.” The
“small apartments”, as his rooms were called, may have been less grand,
but they were “very refined and always at the latest fashion”.
Saule
compares the ambience of the different eras. “So Louis XIV, with all
its marble and gilded objects, its silver objects, was brilliant, but it
was a little cold,” she observes. “The second atmosphere, more
intimate, of the reigns of Louis XV and XVI, with wood replacing the
marble, was more comfortable. Comfort became more important than
prestige.”
Not that the later kings
embraced the workaday. A 58cm perfume “fountain” from the wardrobe of
Louis XV, which we will see in Australia, is an example. Made of glazed
porcelain in the then-new cracked Chinese style, its stand and lid are
made of elaborate gilded bronze. The decorations have a marine theme:
waves, shells and a little lobster on top.
Also
coming to Canberra are the boudoir chairs of Marie Antoinette and
Madame de Pompadour, Louis XVI’s queen and Louis XV’s chief mistress,
respectively. The former, an armchair from the queen’s private
bedchamber, still has its original upholstery. The latter, a favourite
of Saule’s, is one of the masterpieces of the exhibition. It was made by
the most expensive cabinetmaker of the day, she says, and is “a marvel
of equilibre”, of balance or poise. Its upholstery has been replaced.
At the other extreme of scale is a painting of The Marquis of Sourches and his family
by Francois-Hubert Drouais, also from the time of Louis XV. It measures
3.24m by 2.84m and will be transported to Australia on its own, packed
diagonally to fit, and in foam to protect it against knocks and aircraft
vibrations. Also coming is a 1.5 tonne statue of Latona and her
children from one of the fountains, and a 6m tapestry from the series Life of the King by the master-weavers Gobelins.
Saule
won’t speak about insurance costs — it’s hard to imagine such works are
even insurable — or about details of transport. When I express surprise
that only two planes will be carrying the priceless cargo and that the
risk isn’t spread more widely, she makes a play of signalling devil’s
horns, warding off bad luck.
Louis
XIV’s extravagant pursuit of beauty in the building and decoration of
Versailles was not just a demonstration of the trappings of power or a
personal penchant for extreme luxury. It also had an economic purpose,
which his successors maintained. It was intended to change the trade
balance in France’s favour. Until Louis XIV’s time, all luxury goods
were imported: silver from Italy and Spain, marble from Italy and
Flanders, marquetry from Flanders and Germany, paintings from Italy and
Spain, and so on.
Louis XIV’s idea was
to set up state-owned manufacturing; and the state, of course, was him.
He reorganised the Academy of Painting to make it more entrepreneurial.
He created academies of dance and music. “A lot of academies were
created at that time,” Saule says, “to establish theoretical training
and develop the arts in France.” The great composer Lully was in charge
of music in his time, Rameau in the time of Louis XV.
Gobelins
was among the companies that came under Louis XIV’s patronage. Sevres,
the porcelain manufacturer of fine tableware among other things, was
established with Louis XV’s help. The kings not only bought their
products but encouraged their nobles to do so too. The royal household
was the most prestigious showroom in France. “They were renewed very
quickly because in Versailles the princes and princesses wanted always
to be up to date,” Saule says. Fashion was born.
It
wasn’t only about beauty or power. Under Louis XIV, knowledge for
knowledge’s sake flourished. In the Academy of Science he established,
one of the disciplines was botany. “In the Trianon, there were enormous
glasshouses,” Saule says of the palace in Versailles that Louis XIV
built as a getaway for his mistress, Madame de Montespan, and himself.
“There were 4000 specimens of plants from all over the world.” Explorers
and naval officers had orders to bring back what they found.
Under
Louis XV, the great botanist Bernard de Jussieu classified all the
plants at Versailles. Saule describes him as the most important
classifier after Carl Linnaeus: he catalogued plants according to their
modes of generation, adding to Linnaeus’s charting of physical
characteristics. Botany did not fare so well under Louis XVI Marie
Antoinette had the glasshouses torn down and the plants sent to the
Museum of Natural History in Paris, in order to make way for a
fashionably pretty English garden.
Hydraulics and explosives technology,
important for war, were also used in the dazzling garden entertainments
in Versailles. Water had to be brought there from up to 70km away, and
ways were invented to feed the elaborate machinery of fountains. The
fountains were elaborate not just physically but also symbolically. Many
were based on the Metamorphoses of Ovid. In the bath of the
nymphs, for example, a curtain of water falls in front of the figures to
preserve their modesty. Elsewhere, a high, thin stream of water,
leaving a dying giant’s mouth like a cry, expresses his suffering.
Versailles
shone with fantastical fireworks displays and impossibly expensive
illumination. Brilliant lighting during the king’s receptions allowed
parties to go on into the night. “Only the king with all his wealth
could afford the number of candles for that,” Saule points out.
She
also insists that, contrary to popular opinion, philosophers of the
French Enlightenment were also welcomed to Versailles. They were
particularly friendly with Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s mistress, and
the Encyclopedie was published with the help of the state
publisher. “There was no opposition at all between the Enlightenment and
the court,” she says. Opposition to both court and philosophers came
from the parlements, which, in those daysmeant provincial appellate courts.
“Sure, the hierarchy and institutions like the public levee and couchee
gave the court an appearance of being of the past,” Saule adds. “But
some of the courtiers were important scientists. Louis XIV was
passionate about astronomy, botany, and medicine. Louis XVI was
passionate about geography and languages; he spoke about seven
languages.”
Versailles established the
ascendancy of French taste and luxury, still an important aspect of
French exports today. Other innovations continue to resonate in France.
“It was one of those moments of the highest level of civilisation,”
Saule says.
“There was a new style of
conviviality, of politeness. There was the importance of women. French
gastronomy was created at the time of Louis XVI. The fashions, the
jewellery ... It was the place where you had to be if you were a VIP in
France at that time.”
Canberra, for a brief and glittering moment, will give Australians a glimpse of all that.
By Miriam Cosic
Profile of Louis XIV (c. 1709) by Antoine Benoist
With many thanks to The Australian
Top picture:
Louis XIV (detail, 1701) by Hyacinthe Rigaud; Marie-Antoinette de Lorraine-Habsbourg by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun.
Next:
Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors was conceived at a time when aesthetic excess was the norm.
Next:
Duchesse de Polignac (1782) by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun; bust of Louis XIV.
Next:
The Family of the Duke of Penthievre in 1768, also known as The Cup of Chocolate, by Jean-Baptiste Charpentier.
Top picture:
Louis XIV (detail, 1701) by Hyacinthe Rigaud; Marie-Antoinette de Lorraine-Habsbourg by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun.
Next:
Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors was conceived at a time when aesthetic excess was the norm.
Next:
Duchesse de Polignac (1782) by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun; bust of Louis XIV.
Next:
The Family of the Duke of Penthievre in 1768, also known as The Cup of Chocolate, by Jean-Baptiste Charpentier.
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