The Style Louis XIV, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) and the Académie royale d’architecture (Royal Academy of Architecture). It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major architects of the period included François Mansart, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Pierre Le Muet, Charles Perrault, and Louis Le Vau. Major monuments included the Palace of Versailles, the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and the Church of Les Invalides (1675–91).

The Louis XIV style had three periods. During the first period, which coincided with the youth of the King (1643-1660) and the regency of Anne of Austria, architecture and art were strongly influenced by the earlier style of Louis XIII and by the Baroque style imported from Italy. The early period saw the beginning of French classicism, particularly in the early works of Francois Mansart, such as the Chateau de Maisons (1630–51). During the second period (1660-1690), under the personal rule of the King, the style of architecture and decoration became more classical, triumphant and ostentatious, expressed in the building of the Chateau of Versailles, first by Louis Le Vau and then Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Until 1680, furniture was massive, decorated with a profusion of sculpture and gilding. In the later period, thanks to the development of the craft of marquetry, the furniture was decorated with different colors and different woods. The most prominent creator of furniture in the later period was André Charles Boulle. The final period of Louis XIV style, from about 1690 to 1715, is called the period of transition; it was influenced by Hardouin-Mansart and by the King’s designer of fetes and ceremonies, Jean Bérain the Elder. The new style was lighter in form, and featured greater fantasy and freedom of line, thanks in part to the use of wrought iron decoration, and greater use of arabesque, grotesque and coquille designs, which continued into the style of Louis XV.

Period
The Louis XIV style follows the style Louis XIII . The style emerges at the advent of the reign of Louis XIV in 1661 and continues until the late seventeenth century . After the death of Le Brun in 1690, the style declines and is gradually replaced by the Regency Style .

Political and cultural situation
Policy
Louis XIV acceded to the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but during his childhood the Regency was shared by Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin . During this period, he is very marked by the revolt of the Fronde ( 1648 – 1653 ). Once at the head of the country, He will try to contain with an iron fist the nobility of the country. It removes the post of prime minister to exercise absolutist power. He dismisses Fouquet from the post of Superintendent of Finance . At the beginning of his reign, Louis XIV initiated major administrative reforms (creation of the Royal Council of Finance, a modern police service, Ordonnance civile of Saint-Germain-en-Laye). Foreign policy made many wars results in the conquest of a large number of provinces ( Upper Alsace , Metz , Toul , Verdun , Roussillon , Artois , French Flanders , Cambrai , Franche-Comté , the Saarland , Hainaut and Lower Alsace ).

Culture
Louis XIV intends to demonstrate the power and grandeur of the kingdom. he wants to control the artistic milieu so that he is at his service 1 . He entrusted Louis Le Vau and André Le Nôtre with the restoration of the palace and the Tuileries garden . During his reign, he instructed Le Vau and Orbay to build the Palace of Versailles , a centralizing palace of power. Charles Le Brun , the King’s first painter, has a great influence on the arts. He is at the origin of the pronounced taste for the antique style. He is also appointed by the king director of the Manufacture des Gobelins . In 1662, Le Brun created the “Royal Manufacture of Crown Furniture”, where furniture and decorations were made for the royal houses.

Civil architecture
The model of civic architecture in the early part of the reign was Vaux le Vicomte (1658), by Louis Le Vau, built for the King’s chief of finance Nicolas Fouquet and completed in 1658. Louis XIV charged Fouquet with theft, put him prison, and took the building for himself. The design was strongly influenced by the classicism of François Mansart. It combined a facade dominated and rhymed by colossal classical columns, beneath a dome, imported from the Italian Baroque architecture, along with a number of original features, such as a semicircular salon which looked out on the vast French formal garden created by André Le Nôtre.

Based on the success of Vaux le Vicomte, Louis XIV selected Le Vau to construct an immense new palace at Versailles, to augment a smaller palace transformed from a hunting lodge by Louis XIII. This gradually became, over the decades, the master work of the Louis XIV style. Following the death of Le Vau in 1680, Jules Hardouin-Mansart took over the Versailles project; he broke away from the picturesque projections and dome and made a more sober and uniform facade of columns, with a flat roof topped by a balustrade and row of columns (1681). He used the same style to harmonize the other new buildings he created at Versailles, including the Orangerie and the Stables. Hardouin-Mansart constructed the Grand Trianon (completed 1687), single-story royal retreat with arched windows alternating with pairs of columns, and a flat roof and balustrade.

Another major new project undertaken by Louis was the construction of a new facade for the east side of the Louvre. Louis invited the most famous sculptor architect of the Italian Baroque, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, to submit a design, but rejected it in favor of a more sober and classical colonnade by Perrault (1668).

Religious architecture
In the early period of his reign, Louis began building the church of Val-de-Grâce (1645-1710), the chapel of the Val-de-Grace hospital. The design was worked on successively by Mansart, Jacques Lemercier and Pierre Le Muet before being completed by Gabriel Leduc. Its picturesque tripartite facade, peristyle, detached columns, statues, and tondi, make it the most Italianate and Baroque of Paris churches. It served as the prototype for the later domes of Les Invalides and the Pantheon.

The next major church built under Louis XIV was the church of Les Invalides (1680-1706). The nave of the church, by Libéral Bruant, was comparable to those of other churches of the period, with ionic pilasters and penetratining vaults, and an interior that resembled the high baroque style. The dome, by Hardouin-Mansart, was more revolutionary, sitting upon a structure with the plan of a Greek Cross. The design used superimposed orders of columns, in the classical style, but the dome achieved greater height, by resting on a double tambouror drum, and the facade and dome itself were richly decorated with sculptures, entablements in niches, and ornaments of gilded bronze alternating with the nervures, or ribs of the dome.

The finest church interior of the late Louis XIV period is the chapel of the Chateau of Versailles, created between 1697 and 1710 by Hardouin-Mansart and his successor as court architect, Robert de Cotte. The decor was carefully restrained, with light colors and sculptural detail in slight relief on the columns. The interior of the chapel opened up and lightened by the use of classical columns placed on the tribune, one level above the ground floor, to support the weight of the vaulted ceiling.

The Grand Style: Paris
Though Louis XIV was later accused of having ignored Paris, his reign saw several massive architectural projects which opened up space and ornamented the center of the city. The idea of monumental urban squares surrounded by uniform architecture had begun in Italy, like many architectural ideas of Baroque period. The first such square in Paris was the Place Royal (now Place des Vosges) begun by Henry IV of France, completed with an equestrian statue of Louis XIII; then the Place Dauphine on the Ile de la Cité, which featured an equestrian statue of Henry IV. The initial grand Paris projects of Louis XIV were new facades on the Louvre, one facing the Seine, the other facing to the east. These were showcases of the new monumental style of Louis XIV. The old brick and stone of the Henry IV squares was replaced by the Grand Style of monumental columns, which usually were part of the facade itself, rather than standing separately. All the buildings around the square were connected and built to the same height, in the same style. The ground floor featured a covered arcade for pedestrians.

The first such complex of buildings built under Louis XIV was the Collège des Quatre-Nations (now the Institut de France) (1662–68), facing the Louvre. It was designed by Louis Le Vau and François d’Orbay, and combined the headquarters of the academies founded by the King, a chapel, and the library of Cardinal Mazarin. The Hôtel Royal des Invalides – a complex for war veterans consisting of residences, a hospital, and a chapel – was constructed by Libéral Bruant and Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1671-1679). Louis XIV then commissioned Mansart to construct a separate private royal chapel featuring a striking dome, the Église du Dôme, which was added to complete the complex in 1708.

The next major project was the Place des Victoires (1684-1697), a real estate development of seven large buildings in three segments around an oval square, with an equestrian statue of Louis XIV planned for the centerpiece. This was built by an enterprising entrepreneur and nobleman of the court, Jean-Baptiste Prédot, combined with the architect Jules Haroudin-Mansart. The final urban project became the best-known, the Place Vendôme, also by Harouin-Mansart, between 1699 and 1702. In another innovation, this project was partially financed by the sale of lots around the square. All of these projects featured monumental facades in the Louis XIV style, giving a particular harmony to the squares.

Interior decoration
In the early Louis XIV style, the principle characteristics of decor were a richness of materials and an effort to achieve a monumental effect. The materials used included marble, often combined with multicolor stones, bronze, paintings, and mirrors. These were inserted into an extremely framework of columns, pilasters, niches, which extended up the walls and up upon the ceiling. The doors were surrounded with medallions, frontons and bas-reliefs. The chimneys were smaller than those during the Louis XIII era, but more ornate, with a marble shelf supporting vases, below a carved frame with a painting or mirrors, all surrounded by a thick border of carved leaves or flowers.

Decrative elements on the walls of the early Louis XIV style were usually intended to celebrate the military success, majesty and cultural achievements of the King. They often featured military trophies, with helmets, oak leaves symbolizing victory, and masses of weapons, usually made of glided bronze or sculpted wood, in relief surrounded by marble. Other decorative elements celebrated the King personally: the head of the King was often represented as the sun god Apollo, surrounded by palm leaves or gilded rays of light. An eagle usually represented Jupiter. Other ornamental details included gilded numbers, royal batons, and crowns.

The Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles (1678-1684) was the summit of the early Louis XIV style. Designed by Charles Le Brun, it combined a richness of materials (marble, gold, and bronze) which reflected in the mirrors.

In the late Louis XIV period, after 1690, new elements began to appear, that were less militaristic and more fantastic; particularly seashells, surrounded by elaborate sinuous lines and curves; and exotic designs, including arabesques and Chinoiserie.

Furniture
During the first period of the reign of Louis XIV, furniture followed the previous style of Louis XIII, and was massive, and profusely decorated with sculpture and gilding. After 1680, thanks in large part to the furniture designer André Charles Boulle, a more original and delicate style appeared. It was based on the inlay of ebony and other rare woods, a technique first used in Florence in the 15th century, which was refined and developed by Boulle and others working for Louis XIV. Furniture was inlaid with plaques of ebony, copper, and exotic woods of different colors.

New and often enduring types of furniture appeared; the commode, with two to four drawers, replaced the old coffre, or chest. The canapé, or sofa, appeared, in the form of a combination of two or three armchairs. New kinds of armchairs appeared, including the fauteuil en confessionale or “Confessional armchair”, which had padded cushions ions on either side of the back of the chair. The console table also made its first appearance; it was designed to be placed against a wall. Another new type of furniture was the table à gibier, a marble-topped table for holding dishes. Early varieties of the desk appeared; the Mazarin desk had a central section set back, placed between two columns of drawers, with four feet on each column.

Iconic Louis XIV style furniture

The seats
Armchairs : the backs are higher than wide, straight or slightly inclined backwards. They are often separated from the seat and completely covered with precious cloth (brocades of gold or silver, velvet, damask, white satin of China decorated with patterns in stripes or Hungarian point ). The base is more sculpted. The sleepers can be in braces (also called sheep bone), turned or volutes facing. Several forms are in vogue during this period: the “right foot in square baluster “, the “curved foot in console” or the “foot in sheep bone”. These are connected by spacers that gradually move from an H shape to an X shape. The arm or armrest is more wavy. Finished by a volute or a stick, it exceeds the console that supports it. The armrest console is in the extension of the foot. It rarely includes cuffs (padded parts of the arm). We also see the appearance of armchairs called “auricles” or “confessionnals”, ancestors of the shepherdess . Equipped with ears pierced with jealousy, full cheeks and a thick tile or cushion, the ears are gradually left full when its function of confession to priests disappears.
Chairs : The chair is very similar to the chair but does not have an armrest.
Stools : the folding is a folding (folding stool) with X base, executed in often luxurious materials and stretched precious fabrics. The placet is a square or rectangular stool, with four straight feet and spacer in H or X.

Tables and pedestal tables
State table similar to the middle consoles (because of their feet in the form of consoles ). They often become massive, but are not used to take a meal. Their square, rectangular, and sometimes round, plate is made of marble, porphyry, alabaster, marquetry of colored stones surrounded by black marble, or inlaid wood and tin or copper and tortoiseshell. The feet formed of consoles or motifs in braces are assembled by a carved or perforated belt and a spacer in H which becomes an X. The foot turned to the origin is either straight (in the form of sheath with square section or baluster) either in the form of a console, then the curve is accentuated to form a crowbar with forked shoe announcing the Regency style . The background games on gilding are checkered and rhombus. The dining room table does not exist, there are still at that time simple trestles.
Appliance and middle brackets
Pedestals called flares.

Cabinets and dressers
The large cabinets are rectangular in shape and have a projecting cornice.
The dresser is created during this period. This creation is attributed to Boulle.
Bonnetières .
Buffets (low cabinets).

Writing furniture
Cabinets are gradually becoming offices. The best-known example is the “Mazarin Office” (see new furniture)

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beds
The beds are composed of a frame covered with fabric. A bed of heaven rests on four columns. Their names are “duchess beds” or “canopied beds”.
Rest beds , shapes (ancestors of the sofa).
Gradually, the seats will be adorned with a cushion, fabrics, needle tapestries (big dots, small dots or gilded or embossed leather), velvet Genoa, or Damascus, etc., set by small nails hidden by strainers.

New furniture

Mazarin Office
The dresser : it replaces the chest and develops from the late seventeenth century. The dresser is named after 1708.
The chair with auricles or confessionnals.
The office : evolution of the cabinet . One of the best examples is the Mazarin Office . This one consists of eight feet. It is divided into three parts. On the outside of the cabinet, the feet are connected four by four by an X spacer and support three drawers. The central part is set back.

Materials
Woods
The massive wood used is mainly made of walnut , oak and chestnut . Ebony , black pear, fir and fruit are also used.

Other
The chiseled bronze knows a big rise. The development of marquetry sees the use of metals (copper, tin, bronze), scales (including turtle), bone, ivory and precious stones.

Techniques and tools
The marquetry , decor made with veneer cut and glued on the frame of the piece of furniture, is already present under the previous style. We can note the contribution of the Dutch know-how, these, often housed in the Louvres are called “ebony joiner, king cabinet maker”. The marquetry then knows a strong development under the leadership of André-Charles Boulle . He develops an existing technique, the Tarsia incastro or the “party against-part”, which takes the name of “Boulle marquetry”. The tortoiseshell encrustation appears at this time. Joining techniques are the tenon – mortise and the dovetail .

Painting
In the first part of the reign, French painters were largely influenced by the Italians, particularly Caravaggio. Notable French painters included Nicolas Poussin, who was living in Rome; Claude Lorrain, who specialized in landscapes and spent most of his career in Rome; Louis Le Nain, who, along with his brothers, did mostly genre works; Eustache Le Sueur, and Charles Le Brun, who studied with Poussin in Rome and were influenced by him.

With the death in 1661 of Cardinal Mazarin, the King’s prime minister, Louis decided to take personal charge of all aspects of government, including the arts. His chief advisor on the arts was Jean Colbert (1619-1683), who was also his finance minister. In 1663 Colbert reorganized the Royal furniture workshops, which made a wide variety of luxury goods, and added to it the Gobelins tapestry workshops. At the same time, with the assistance of Le Brun, Colbert took charge of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which had been founded by Cardinal Mazarin. Colbert also took a dominant role in architecture, taking the title of Superintendent of buildings in 1664. In 1666, the French Academy in Rome was founded, to take advantage of Rome’s position as the leading art center of Europe, and to assure a stream of well-trained painters. Le Brun became the dean of French painters under Louis XIV, involved in architectural projects and interior design. His notable decorative works included the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles.

The major painters of the later reign of Louis XIV included Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743) who came to Paris in 1681, and attracted the attention of LeBrun. LeBrun oriented him toward portrait painting, and he made a celebrated portrait of Louis XIV in 1701, surrounded by all the attributes of power, from the crown on the table to the red heels of his shoes. Rigaud soon had an elaborate workshop in place for making portraits of the nobility; he employed specialized artists to create the costumes and draperies, and others to paint the backgrounds, ranging from battlefields to gardens to salons, while he concentrated on the composition, colors and especially the faces.

George de la Tour (1593-1652) was another important figure in the Louis XIV style; he was given a title, named court painter of the King, and received high payments for his portraits, though he rarely ever came to Paris, preferring to work in his home town of Lunéville. His paintings, with their unusual light and dark effecs, were unusually somber, the figures barely seen in the darkness, lit by torchlight, evoking meditation and pity. In addition to religious scenes, he did genre paintings, including the famous Tricheur or card cheat, showing a young noble being cheated at cards while others look on passively. The writer and later French culture minister Andre Malraux wrote in 1951, “No other painter, not even Rembrandt, ever suggested such a vast and mysterious silence. La Tour is the only interpreter of the serene aspect of shadows.”

In his final years, Louis XIV’s tastes changed again, under the influence of his morganic wife, Madame de Montespan, toward more religious and meditative themes. He had all the paintings in his private room removed and replaced by a single canvas, Saint Sebastien being tended by Saint Irene (c. 1649) by Georges de la Tour.

Sculpture
The most influential sculptor of the period was the Italian Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose work in Rome inspired sculptors all over Europe. He traveled to France; his proposal for a new facade of the Louvre was rejected by the King, who wanted a more specifically French style, but the Bernini did make a bust of Louis XIV in 1665 which greatly admired and imitated in France.

One of the most prominent sculptors under Louis XIV was Antoine Coysevox (pronounced “qualzevo”) (1640-1720) from Lyon. He studied sculpture under Louis Lerambert and copied in marble ancient Roman works, including the Venus de Medici. In 1776, his bust of the King’s official painter Charles Le Brun won him admission to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. He was soon producing monumental sculpture to accompany the new buildings constructed by Louis XIV; he made a Charlemagne for the royal chapel at Les Invalides, and then a large number of statues for the new Park at Versailles and then at the Chateau de Marly. He originally made the outdoor statues in weather-resistant stucco, then replaced them with marble works when they were finished in 1705. His work of Neptune from Marly is now in the Louvre, and his statues of Pan and a Flora and Dryad are now found in the Tuileries Gardens. His statue of The King’s Fame riding Pegasus was originally made for the Chateau of Marly. After the Revolution it was moved to the Tuileries Gardens, and is now inside the Louvre. He also made a series of greatly admired portrait sculptures of the leading statesmen and artists of the time; Louis XIV at Versailles, Colbert (for his tomb at the Church of Saint Eustache; Cardinal Mazarin in the Collège des Quatre-Nations (now the Institut de France) in Paris; the playwright Jean Racine; the architect Vauban and the garden designer Andre Le Notre.

Jacques Sarazin was another notable sculptor working on projects for Louis XIV. He made many statues and decorations for the Palace of Versailles, as well as the Caryatids for the eastern facade of the Pavilion du Horloge of the Louvre, facing the Cour Carré, which were based both on a study of the original Greek models, and on the work of Michelangelo.

Another notable sculptor of the Style Louis XV was Pierre Paul Puget (1620-1694), who was a sculptor, painter, engineer and architect. He was born in Marseille, and first sculpted ornaments for ships under construction. He then travelled to Italy, where he worked as an apprentice on the Baroque ceilings of the Palazzo Barberini and Palazzo Pitti. He travelled back and forth between Italy and France, painting, sculpting and wood-carving. He made his celebrated statue of caryatids for the city hall of Toulon in 1665-67, then was employed by Nicolas Fouquet to make a statue of Hercules for his chateau at Vaux-le-Vicomte. He continued to live in th south of France, making notable statues of Milo of Croton, Perseus and Andromeda (now in the Louvre).

Tapestries
In 1662 Jean Baptiste Colbert purchased the tapestry workshop of a family of Flemish artisans and transformed it into a royal workshop for the manufacture of furniture and tapestries, under the name of Gobelins tapestry. Colbert placed the workshop under the direction of the royal court painter, Charles Le Brun, who served in that position from 1663 until 1690. The workshop worked closely with the major painters of the court, who produced the designs. After 1697 the enterprise was reorganized, and thereafter was devoted entirely to the production of tapestries for the King.

The themes and styles of the tapestry were largely similar to the themes in the paintings of the period, celebrating the majesty of the King and triumphal scenes of military victories, mythological and pastoral scenes. While at first they were made only for use of the King and nobility, the factory soon began exporting its products to the other courts of Europe.

The royal Gobelins manufactory had competition from two private enterprises, the Beauvais Manufactory and the Aubusson tapestry workshop, which produced works in the same style but with a low-warp process, with slightly lesser quality. Jean Bérain the Elder, the royal draftsman and designer of the King, created a series of grotesque carpets for Aubusson. These tapestries sometimes celebrated contemporary themes, such as a work designed by Aubusson An late 17th to early 18th century tapestry done by the Beauvais Manufactory depicting Chinese astronomers at the Beijing Ancient Observatory using new more accurate instruments brought to them by Europeans (Jesuits) which were installed in 1644.

Design and spectacle
In the early years of the King’s reign, the most important public royal ceremony was the carrousel, a series of exercises and games on horseback. These events were designed to replace the tournament, which had been banned after 1559 when King Henry II was killed in a jousting accident. In the new, less dangerous version, riders usually had to pass their lance through the interior of a ring, or strike mannequins with the heads of Medusa, Moors and Turks. A grand carrousel was held on June 5–6, 1662 to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin, the son of Louis XIV. It was held on the square separating the Louvre from the Tuileries Palace, which afterwards became known as the Place du Carrousel.

The ceremonial entry of the King into Paris also became an occasion for festivities. The return of Louis XIV and Queen Marie-Thérèse to Paris after his coronation in 1660 was celebrated by a grand event on a fairground at the gates of the city, where large thrones were constructed for the new monarchs. After the ceremony the site became known as the Place du Trône, or place of the Throne, until it became the Place de la Nation in 1880.

An office existed in the royal household of Louis XIV called Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, which was responsible the decoration at royal ceremonies and spectacles, including ballets, masques, illuminations, fireworks, theater performances ad other entertainments. This office was held from 1674 to 1711 by Jean Bérain the Elder (1640-1711). He was also designer of the King’s bedchamber and offices, and had an enormous influence upon what became known as the Style Louis XIV; his studio was located in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, along with those of the royal furniture designer André Charles Boulle. He was particularly responsible for introducing the a modified version of the grotesque style of ornament, originally created in Italy by Raphael, into French interior design. He used the grotesque stele not only on wall panels, but also on tapestries made by the Aubusson tapestry workshops. His many varied other designs included the highly-ornate design of transom of the warship Soleil Royal (1670), named for the King.

In addition to interior decoration, he designed the costumes and scenery for the royal theaters, including for the opera Amadis by Jean-Baptiste Lully performed at the Theater of the Palais Royal (1684), and for the opera-ballet Les Saisons by Lully’s successor, Pascal Colasse, in 1695.

The garden a la Française
One of the most enduring and popular forms of the Style Louis XIV is The Jardin à la française or French formal garden, a style based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. The most famous example is the Gardens of Versailles designed by André Le Nôtre, which inspired copies all across Europe. The first important garden à la française was the Chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte, created by Nicolas Fouquet, the superintendent of Finances to Louis XIV, beginning in 1656. Fouquet commissioned Louis Le Vau to design the chateau, Charles Le Brun to design statues for the garden, and André Le Nôtre to create the gardens. For the first time, that garden and the chateau were perfectly integrated. A grand perspective of 1500 meters extended from the foot of the chateau to the statue of the Hercules of Farnese; and the space was filled with parterres of evergreen shrubs in ornamental patterns, bordered by colored sand, and the alleys were decorated at regular intervals by statues, basins, fountains, and carefully sculpted topiaries. “The symmetry attained at Vaux achieved a degee of perfection and unity rarely equalled in the art of classic gardens. The chateau is at the center of this strict spatial organization which symbolizes power and success.”

The Gardens of Versailles, created by André Le Nôtre between 1662 and 1700, were the greatest achievement of the Garden à la francaise. They were the largest gardens in Europe – with an area of 15,000 hectares, and were laid out on an east–west axis followed the course of the sun: the sun rose over the Court of Honor, lit the Marble Court, crossed the Chateau and lit the bedroom of the King, and set at the end of the Grand Canal, reflected in the mirrors of the Hall of Mirrors. In contrast with the grand perspectives, reaching to the horizon, the garden was full of surprises – fountains, small gardens filled with statuary, which provided a more human scale and intimate spaces. The central symbol of the Garden was the sun; the emblem of Louis XIV, illustrated by the statue of Apollo in the central fountain of the garden. “The views and perspectives, to and from the palace, continued to infinity. The king ruled over nature, recreating in the garden not only his domination of his territories, but over the court and his subjects.”

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