17th century French architecture in brief. Classicism in the architecture of France in the XVII century
3.1. General overview of architectural monuments trends, directions, development
In the formation of French architecture in the 17th century. the following principles, directions and tendencies can be distinguished.
1. Closed, fenced-in castles turn into open, unfortified palaces, which are included in the general structure of the city (and palaces outside the city are connected with a vast park). The form of the palace - a closed square - opens and turns into an "U-shaped" or, as later in Versailles, into an even more open one. The separated parts are transformed into elements of the system.
By order of Richelieu, from 1629, it was forbidden to build defensive structures in the castles of the nobility, moats with water became elements of architecture, walls and fences were of a symbolic nature, and did not perform a defensive function.
2. Orientation to the architecture of Italy (where most of the French architects studied), the desire of the nobility to imitate the nobility of Italy - the capital of the world - brings a significant proportion of the Italian Baroque to French architecture.
However, during the formation of the nation, restoration takes place, attention is paid to their national roots, artistic traditions.
French architects often came from building artels, from the families of hereditary masons, they were more practitioners, technicians than theoreticians.
The pavilion system of castles was popular in medieval France, when the pavilion was being built and the gallery was connected to the rest. Initially, the pavilions could be built at different times and even have little to do with each other in appearance and structure.
Materials and construction techniques also left their imprints on the established traditions: well-processed limestone was used in construction - from it they made the nodal points of the building, supporting structures, and the openings between them were laid with bricks or large "French windows" were made. This led to the fact that the building had a clearly visible frame - paired or even triple columns or pilasters (arranged in "bundles").
Excavations in the south of France provided the craftsmen with magnificent examples of antiquity, with the most common motif being a free-standing column (not a pilaster or a column in a wall).
3. By the end of the XVI century. in construction, magnificent Gothic, late Renaissance features and baroque traditions were intertwined.
Gothic was preserved in the verticalism of the main forms, in the complex lines of the horizon of the building (due to the convex roofs, and each volume was covered by its own roof, numerous pipes and turrets broke through the horizon line), in the loading and complexity of the upper part of the building, in the use of individual Gothic forms.
Late Renaissance features were expressed in clear floor divisions of buildings, in analyticity, clear boundaries between parts.
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A representative of the synthesis of different traditions is the "Portico of Delorme" - an architectural element that has been actively used in France since the middle of the 16th century. It is a three-tiered portico with clear horizontal divisions so that the vertical dominates in the total volume, and the horizontal dominates in each of the tiers. The upper tier is heavily loaded with sculpture and decor, the portico is decorated with a pediment. The influence of the Baroque led to the fact that from the end of the 16th century, pediments began to be made curvilinear, with broken lines. The entablature line of the third tier often broke through, creating an upward movement in the upper part of the building. By the middle of the 17th century, the portico of Delorma became more classical, the upper tier was lightened, the lines of the entablature and pediment were aligned.
The Luxembourg Palace in Paris (architect Solomon de Bross, 1611) can be considered a representative of the architecture of the beginning of the century, synthesizing these traditions.
4. Classicism grows on this rich soil of French traditions in architecture.
Classicism of the first half of the century coexists in interaction with Gothic and Baroque features, relies on the specifics of French national culture.
Facades are being freed from decor, becoming more open and clear. The laws, according to which the building is built, are unified: gradually there is one order for all facades, one level of floor divisions for all parts of the building. The upper part of the building becomes lighter, it becomes more constructively constructed - at the bottom there is a heavy basement, covered with large rustication, higher is the lighter main floor (floors), sometimes an attic. The skyline of the building ranges from the almost flat horizontal of the eastern façade of the Louvre to the picturesque line of Maison-Laffitte and Vaux-le-Vicomte.
An example of "pure" classicism, freed from the influences of other styles, is the eastern facade of the Louvre and, after it, the building of the Versailles complex.
However, as a rule, architectural monuments of France of the 17th century. represent an organic living combination of several influences, which allows us to speak of the originality of French classicism of the era in question.
5. Among the secular palaces and castles, two areas can be distinguished:
1) the castles of the nobility, the new bourgeois, they represented freedom, the strength of the human person;
2) the official, representative direction, visualizing the ideas of absolutism.
The second direction was just beginning to emerge in the first half of the century (Palais Royal, the Versailles complex of Louis XIII), but it was formed and fully manifested in the creations of mature absolutism of the second half of the century. It is with this direction that __________________________ Lecture 87________________________________________
the formation of official imperial classicism (this is primarily the eastern facade of the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles).
The first direction was implemented mainly in the first half of the century (which corresponded to a different situation in the state), François Mansart (1598 - 1666) became the leading architect.
6. The most striking example of a group of castles of the first direction is the Maison-Laffitte Palace near Paris (architect François Mansart, 1642-1651). It was built for the President of the Paris Parliament, Rene de Langeuil, near Paris, on the high bank of the Seine. The building is no longer a closed square, but a U-shaped structure in the plan (three pavilions are connected by galleries). The facades have clear floor divisions and are divided into separate volumes. Traditionally, each volume is covered with its own roof, the skyline of the building becomes very picturesque, it is complicated by pipes. The line separating the main volume of the building from the roof is also quite complex and picturesque (while the divisions between the floors of the building are very clear, clear, straight and never break through, not distorted). The facade as a whole has a planar character, however, the depth of the facade of the central and side projections is quite large, the order then leans against the wall with thin pilasters, then recedes from it in columns - depth appears, the facade becomes open.
The building opens up to the outside world and begins to interact with it - it is visually connected with the surrounding space of the “regular park”. However, the interaction between the building and the surrounding space is different from how it was implemented in Italy in the Baroque monuments. In French castles, a space arose around the building, subordinated to architecture, it was not a synthesis, but rather a system in which the main element and subordinates were clearly distinguished. The park was located in accordance with the axis of symmetry of the building, elements closer to the palace repeated the geometric shapes of the palace (parterres and pools had clear geometric shapes). Thus, nature, as it were, subordinated to the building (man).
The center of the façade is marked by the portico of Delorma, which combines Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque traditions, but compared to earlier buildings, the upper tier is not so heavily loaded. The building has a distinctly Gothic vertical and an aspiration to the sky, but it is already balanced and dissected by clear horizontal lines. It can be seen how horizontal and analyticism dominate in the lower part of the building, geometrism, clarity and tranquility of forms, simplicity of boundaries, but the higher, the more complicated the boundaries are, verticals begin to dominate.
The work is a model of a strong person: at the level of earthly affairs, he is strong in reason, rationalistic, strives to be clear, subordinates nature, sets models and forms, but in his faith he is emotional, irrational, sublime. A skillful combination of these characteristics is characteristic of the work of François Mansart and the masters of the first half of the century.
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The Maison-Laffitte castle played an important role in the development of the type of small "intimate palaces", including the small palaces of Versailles.
An interesting landscape ensemble of Vaux-le-Vicomte (author Louis Levo, Jules Hardouin Mansart, 1656 - 1661). It is the culmination of the line of palaces of the second direction and the basis for the creation of a masterpiece of French architecture - the garden and park ensemble of Versailles.
Louis XIV appreciated the created creation and took a team of craftsmen for the construction of the suburban royal residence of Versailles. However, what they did on his order, collects both the experience of Vaux-le-Vicomte and the built eastern facade of the Louvre (a separate section will be devoted to the Versailles ensemble).
The ensemble is built like a large regular space dominated by a palace. The building was built in the traditions of the first half of the century - high roofs over each volume (even a "blown roof" over the central projection), clear-cut floor divisions in the lower part of the building and the complexity of the upper structure. The palace contrasts with the surrounding space (even separated by a moat with water), it is not merged with the world into a single organism, as was done in Versailles.
The regular park is a composition of water and grass parterres strung on an axis; the sculptural image of Hercules, standing on a dais, closes the axis. The apparent limitation, the "finiteness" of the park (and, in this sense, the finiteness of the power of the palace and its owner) was also overcome at Versailles. In this sense, Vaux-le-Vicomte continues the second direction - the visualization of the strength of the human personality, which interacts with the world as a hero (opposing the world and subjugating it with a visible effort). Versailles, on the other hand, synthesizes the experience of both directions.
7. Second half of c. gave development to the second direction - buildings that visualize the idea of absolutism. First of all, this manifested itself in the construction of the Louvre ensemble.
By the end of the 16th century, the ensemble contained the Tuileries palaces (Renaissance buildings with clear floor divisions, with Gothic high roofs, broken pipes) and a small part of the southwestern building, created by the architect Pierre Lescaut.
Jacques Lemercier repeats the image of Leveaux in the northwestern building, and between them sets the Pavilion of the Clock (1624).
The western façade is characterized by baroque dynamics, culminating in the blown roof of the Clock Pavilion. The building has a loaded high upper tier, a triple pediment. On the façade, the porticoes of Delorme are repeated several times.
In the second half of the XVI century. in France, very little was built (due to the civil wars), by and large the western facade is one of the first large buildings after a long break. In a sense, the western façade solved the problem of reconstruction, restoration of what had been developed by French architects and renewal on new material from the 17th century.
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In 1661 Louis Leveaux began to complete the complex and by 1664 he completed the Louvre square. The southern and northern facades repeat the southern one. The project of the eastern facade was suspended and a competition was announced, participation in which was actively offered to Italian architects, in particular, the famous Bernini (one of his projects has survived to this day).
However, the competition was won by the project of Claude Perrault. The project is surprisingly surprising - it does not follow from the development of the other three buildings. The eastern façade of the Louvre is considered an example of the 17th century official, absolutist classicism.
A sample was selected - paired Corinthian columns, which are drawn along the entire facade with variations: on the galleries, the columns are far from the wall, rich chiaroscuro appears, the facade is open, transparent. On the central risalit, the columns are close to the wall and slightly parted on the main axis; on the side risalits, the columns turn into pilasters.
The building is extremely analytical - clear, easily identifiable volumes, straight boundaries between parts. The building is built clearly - from one point you can see the structure of the entire facade. Dominated by the horizontal roof.
The Perrault façade has three projections, continuing the logic of the pavilion system. In addition, Perrault's order is not placed in single columns along the facade, as Bernini conceived, but is paired - this is more in line with French national traditions.
Modularity was an important principle of creating the facade - all the main volumes are kept in the proportions of the human body. The facade simulates a human society, understanding French citizenship as "alignment", subordination to the same laws that are kept, set by Louis XIV depicted on the axis of the pediment. The facade of the Louvre, like any masterpiece of art, transforms the person-recipient standing in front of it. Due to the fact that it is based on the proportion of the human body, a person identifies himself with the colonnade in the emerging illusory world and straightens up, as if becoming in a row of other citizens, while knowing that the top of everything is the monarch.
It should be noted that in the eastern facade, despite all the severity, there is a lot of Baroque: the depth of the facade changes several times, disappearing towards the side facades; the building is decorated, the columns are very elegant and voluminous and are not evenly spaced, but accented - in pairs. Another feature: Perrault was not very careful about the fact that three buildings have already been built, and its facade is 15 meters longer than necessary to complete the square. As a solution to this problem, a false wall was built along the southern façade, which, like a screen, enclosed the old façade. Thus, the apparent clarity and severity conceals deception, the exterior of the building does not correspond to the interior.
The Louvre ensemble was completed by the building of the College of the Four Nations (architect Louis Leveaux, 1661 - 1665). On the axis of the Louvre square was placed a semicircular facade wall, on the axis of which there is a large domed temple and Lecture 87
a portico jutted out towards the palace. Thus, the ensemble visually collects a large space (the Seine flows between the two buildings, there is an embankment, squares).
It should be emphasized that the building of the College itself is located along the Seine and does not in any way correlate with the semicircular wall - again, the reception of a theatrical screen is repeated, which performs an important symbolic, but not constructive function.
The resulting ensemble collects the history of France - from the Renaissance Tuileries palaces through the architecture of the beginning of the century and to mature classicism. The ensemble also brings together secular France and Catholic, human and natural (river).
8. In 1677, the Academy of Architecture was created, the task was to accumulate the experience of architecture in order to develop "ideal eternal laws of beauty", which had to be followed by all further construction. The Academy criticized the principles of the Baroque, recognizing them as unacceptable for France. The ideals of beauty were based on the image of the eastern facade of the Louvre. The image of the eastern facade with various national treatments was reproduced throughout Europe; the Louvre was for a long time a representative of the city palace of the absolutist monarchy.
9. The artistic culture of France was of a secular nature, so more palaces were built than temples. However, in order to solve the problem of uniting the country and creating an absolute monarchy, it was necessary to involve the church in solving this problem. Cardinal Richelieu, the ideologist of absolutism and counter-reformation, was especially attentive to the construction of churches.
Small churches were built throughout the country, and a number of large religious buildings were created in Paris: the Sorbonne Church (architect Lemercier, 1635 - 1642), the cathedral of the Val-de-Gras convent (architect François Mansart, Jacques Lemercier), 1645 - 1665 ). In these churches, magnificent baroque motifs are clearly manifested, but still the general structure of architecture is far from the baroque of Italy. The scheme of the Sorbonne church later became traditional: the main volume is cruciform in plan, columnar porticoes with pediments at the ends of the branches of the cross, a dome on a drum above the cross. Lemercier introduced Gothic flying buttresses into the construction of the church, giving them the appearance of small volutes. The domes of the temples of the first half of the century are grandiose, have a significant diameter, and are loaded with decor. The architects of the first half of the century were looking for a measure between the grandeur and scale of the dome and the balance of the building.
Of the later religious buildings, the Cathedral of the Invalides (architect J.A. Mansart, 1676 - 1708), attached to the House of Invalids, a strict military structure, should be noted. This building has become one of the verticals of Paris, it is a representative of the "classicism" style in religious buildings. The building is a grandiose rotunda, each of the entrances is designated by a two-tiered portico with a triangular pediment.
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The building is extremely symmetrical (square in plan, three identical porticos on the sides, round dome). The inner space is based on a circle, it is emphasized by the fact that the floor in the center of the hall is lowered by 1 meter. The cathedral has three domes - the outer gilded dome "works" for the city, the inner one is broken through and in its center one can see the middle - parabolic dome. The cathedral has yellow windows, as a result of which there is always sunlight in the room (symbolizing the Sun King).
The cathedral interestingly combines the tradition of building churches that arose in France (dominant dome, flying buttans in the dome in the form of volutes, etc.) and strict classicism. The cathedral almost did not perform the function of a temple; it soon became a secular building. Apparently, this is due to the fact that it was built not for reasons of ensuring the Catholic cult, but as an iconic building - a reference point of the grandiose ensemble of the left bank of the Seine, symbolizing the power of the Sun King.
Around the House and the Cathedral of the Invalids, a large regular space was built, subordinate to the cathedral. The cathedral is the focal point that collects Paris.
10. Restructuring of Paris
Paris developed rapidly and became the largest city in Europe at that time. This presented city planners with difficult tasks: it was necessary to streamline the tangled, spontaneously formed network of streets, provide the city with water and dispose of waste, build a lot of new housing, build clear landmarks and dominants that will mark the new capital of the world.
It would seem that in order to solve these problems, it is necessary to rebuild the city. But even rich France cannot do it. City planners have found great ways to cope with the difficulties that have arisen.
This was solved by including in the cobweb of medieval streets of individual large buildings and squares, building a large space around them in a regular manner. These are, first of all, the large ensemble of the Louvre (which has gathered around itself "palace Paris"), the Palais Royal, the ensemble of the Invalides Cathedral. The main verticals of Paris were built - the domed churches of the Sorbonne, Val de Grae, the Invalides. They set landmarks in the city, making it clear (although in fact, huge areas continued to be a network of tangled streets, but by setting a coordinate system, a sense of clarity of a huge city arises). In some parts of the city, straight avenues were built (rebuilt), opening a view of the named landmarks.
Squares were an important means of ordering the city. They locally set the orderliness of space, often hiding chaos of residential areas behind the facades of buildings. Representative of the square of the beginning of the century - Place des Vosges (1605 - 1612), the second half of the century - Place Vendôme (1685 - 1701).
Place Vendôme (J.A. Mansart, 1685 - 1701) is a square with cut corners. The square is built up with a united front of buildings Lecture 87
palace type (mature classicism) with porticoes. In the center stood an equestrian statue of Louis XIV by Girardon. The entire square was created as the decoration of the statue of the king, this explains its closed nature. Two short streets open onto the square, overlooking the image of the king and obscuring other points of view.
It was strictly forbidden in Paris to have large private land plots and, especially, vegetable gardens. This led to the fact that monasteries for the most part were taken out of the city, hotels from small castles turned into city houses with small courtyards.
But the famous Parisian boulevards were built - places that combined driveways and green paths for walking. The boulevards were built in such a way as to offer a view of one of the iconic points of absolutist Paris.
The entrances to the city were ordered and marked with triumphal arches (Saint-Denis, architect F. Blondel, 1672). The entrance to Paris from the west was supposed to correspond to the entrance to Versailles; the Champs Elysees were built in the design of the Parisian part - an avenue with symmetrical front buildings. The nearest suburbs were attached to Paris and in each of them either due to several open streets a view of the vertical landmarks of the city was provided, or its own iconic point (square, small ensemble) was built, symbolizing the united France and the power of the Sun King.
11. The problem of creating new housing was solved by creating a new type of hotel that dominated French architecture for two centuries. The hotel was located inside the courtyard (in contrast to the bourgeois mansion, which was built along the street). The courtyard, bounded by the services, faced the street, and the residential building was located in the back, separating the courtyard from a small garden. This principle was laid down by the architect Lescaut in the 16th century, and was reproduced by the masters of the 17th century: Hotel Carnavale (architect F. Mansart rebuilt Lescaut's creation in 1636), Hotel Sully (architect Andruet-Duceseau, 1600-1620) , Hotel Tübeuf (architect Plemue, 1600 - 1620), and others.
This layout had an inconvenience: the only courtyard was both ceremonial and economic. In the further development of this type, the residential and economic parts of the house are differentiated. In front of the windows of the residential building there is a front yard, and on the side of it there is a second, utility one: Hotel Liancourt (architect Plemue, 1620 - 1640).
François Mansart built many hotels, introducing many improvements: a clearer layout of the premises, low stone walls from the street side, the assignment of services to the sides of the courtyard. Trying to minimize the number of walk-throughs, Mansart introduces a large number of stairs. The lobby and the main staircase become a must-have part of the hotel. Hotel Batsinier (architect F. Mansart, first half of the 17th century), Hotel Carnavale (1655 - 1666).
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Along with the reconstruction of the structure, the facades and roofs of hotels also change: the roofs become not so high due to the broken shape (the living quarters in the attics were called mansards), the separate overlap of each part of the house is replaced by a common one, the porch and protruding porticos remain only in hotels in the squares. There is a tendency towards flattening of roofs.
Thus, the hotel is being transformed from a small analogue of a country palace into a new type of urban dwelling.
12. Paris of the 17th century. is a school for architects in Europe. If until the middle of the 17th century. Most of the architects went to study in Italy, then since the 60s, when Perrault won the competition from Bernini himself, Paris could present to architects around the world magnificent examples of architecture of various types of buildings, the principles of urban planning.
Works for review
The Luxembourg Palace in Paris (architect Solomon de Bross, 1611);
Palais Royal (architect Jacques Lemercier, 1624);
Sorbonne Church (architect Jacques Lemercier, 1629);
Orleans building of the castle in Blois (architect Francois Mansart, 1635 - 1638);
Maison-Laffite Palace near Paris (architect Francois Mansart, 16421651);
Val de Grae Church (architect Francois Mansart, Jacques Lemercier), 1645 -
College of the Four Nations (architect Louis Levo, 1661 - 1665);
House and Cathedral of the Invalides (architect Liberal Bruant, Jules Hardouin Mansart, 1671 - 1708);
Ensemble of the Louvre:
Southwest building (architect Lesko, 16th century);
Western building (the building of architect Lescaut is continued, built by architect Jacques Lemercier, 1624);
Clock Pavilion (architect Jacques Lemercier, 1624);
North and South buildings (architect Louis Levo, 1664);
East building (architect Claude Perrot, 1664);
Place des Vosges (1605 - 1612), Place Vendôme (architect Jules Hardouin Mansart, 1685 - 1701).
Hotels: Hotel Carnavale (architect F. Mansart rebuilt Lescaut's creation in 1636), Hotel Sully (architect Andrue-Dyceseau, 1600-1620), Hotel Tübeuf (architect P. Lemue, 1600-1620), Hotel Liancourt ( architect P. Lemue, 1620 - 1640), Hotel Batsinier (architect F. Mansart, first half of the 17th century);
Arc de Triomphe Saint-Denis (architect F. Blondel, 1672);
Palace and park ensemble Vaux-le-Vicomte (author Louis Levo, Jules Hardouin Mansart, 1656 - 1661);
Palace and park ensemble of Versailles (authors Louis Levo, Jules Hardouin Mansart, André Le Nôtre, early in 1664).
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3.2. Analysis of a masterpiece of French architecture of the 17th century. Garden and park ensemble of Versailles
The garden and park ensemble of Versailles is a grandiose structure, a representative of the art of the 17th century. The consistency of the ensemble, its grandeur and structure allows to reveal its essence through the concept of an artistic model. It will be shown below how this monument functions as an artistic model.
Cognition with the help of a model is based on the replacement of the object of modeling by another object, isomorphic to the one being investigated in terms of a number of relevant properties. Due to the fact that the model is more accessible to research than the cognized object, it allows you to discover new properties and essential connections. The results obtained in the study of the model are extrapolated to the cognizable object.
The operability of the model makes it possible to perform certain actions with it, to build experiments in which the essential properties of the model and, therefore, the object under study are manifested. Effective schemes of action can be transferred to the study of the cognizable object. The model concentrates in itself the essential properties of the object under study and has a large information capacity.
The model substitution is based on the isomorphism (correspondence) of the cognized object and the model, therefore the knowledge obtained in the process of modeling is true in the classical sense of correspondence to the object under study.
A work of art meets all the principles of the general scientific method of modeling and, therefore, is a model. The specific features of a work of art as a model and the process of artistic modeling itself include the following:
The master, acting as a researcher, models extremely complex objects that reveal the meaning of human existence; he necessarily builds an isomorphism between obviously non-isomorphic structures;
The property of visualization acquires an attributive character in artistic models;
Due to the high status of visibility in artistic models, ontology increases (identification of the model with the object under study, model interaction with a real relation);
A work of art realizes its cognitive essence through a special skill. The tempting beginning of the artistic model unfolds in relation to the artist and the artistic material, giving rise to a new quality in the form of a sensibly manifested essence. The viewer, in the process of an ideal relationship with a work of art, discovers new knowledge about himself and the world.
The creation and action of an artistic model is carried out only in relation to when the subject is not eliminated from the relation, but remains Lecture 87
a necessary element of it. Therefore, the attitude becomes an attributive quality of the artistic model and the modeling process.
The garden and park ensemble of Versailles is a system of artistic elements.
The construction of the Versailles ensemble began in 1661, the main buildings were erected during the 17th century, but the transformations continued throughout the next century. The garden and park ensemble of Versailles is a gigantic complex of various structures, built on the outskirts of the small town of Versailles, 24 kilometers from Paris. The complex is located along a single axis and includes sequentially:
1) access roads to the city of Versailles,
2) the square in front of the palace,
3) the Grand Palace itself with many pavilions,
4) water and herbal parterres,
5) Main alley,
6) The Grand Canal,
7) many bosquets,
8) various fountains and grottoes,
9) regular park and irregular,
10) two other palaces - the Grand and the Small Trianons.
The described set of buildings obeys a strict hierarchy and forms a clear system: the main element of the composition is the King's Large Bedroom, further, by the degree of distance from the center, the building of the new palace, a regular park, an irregular park and access roads to the city of Versailles. Each of the named components of the ensemble is a complex system and, on the one hand, is uniquely different from other components, on the other hand, it is included in an integral system and implements the laws and rules common to the entire ensemble.
1. The king's large bedroom is located in the building of an old palace from the time of Louis XIII, it is highlighted from the outside by the "Delorme portico", a balcony and an elaborate pediment. The entire ensemble is systematically organized and subordinated to the Large bedroom, this is provided in several ways.
Firstly, it was in the King's Great Bedroom and the rooms surrounding it that the main official life of Louis XIV took place - the bedroom was the most significant place in the life of the French court. Second, it is located on the symmetry axis of the ensemble. Thirdly, the figurative symmetry of the facade of the old palace breaks down into submission to mirror symmetry, further emphasizing the elements of the axis. Fourth, a fragment of the old palace, in which the bedroom is located, is surrounded by the main building of the palace as a protective wall, it seems to be guarded by the main building as something most sacred, like an altar (which is emphasized by the location of the ensemble relative to the cardinal points). Fifth, the specific architecture of the first half of the 17th century. contrasts with the new building and other parts of the ensemble: the old building has high roofs with lucarnes, curved Lecture 87
pretentious pediment, vertical clearly dominates - in contrast to the classicism of the rest of the ensemble. The axis of symmetry above the king's bedroom is marked by the highest point of the pediment.
2. The new palace was built in the style of classicism. It has three floors (rusticated basement, a large main floor and an attic), arched windows on the first and second floors and rectangular windows on the third, classical Ionic porticoes, on which instead of the pediment there are sculptures, the flat roof is also decorated with sculptures. The building has a clear structure, geometric shapes, clear divisions, powerful figurative and mirror symmetry, a clear dominant of the horizontal, it adheres to the principle of modularity and antique proportions. At all times, the palace was painted in a yellow, sunny color. On the side of the park facade, on the axis of symmetry, there is the Mirror Gallery - one of the main diplomatic rooms of the king.
The new palace plays its part in a holistic composition. First, it surrounds the old building with the main element - the King's Great Bedroom, designating it as the central, dominant element. The new palace is located on the axis of symmetry of the ensemble. Secondly, the building of the palace in the clearest, most concentrated way sets the main standards of the ensemble - geometric forms, clarity of structure, clarity of articulations, modularity, hierarchy, "sunshine". The palace displays samples to which all other elements of the ensemble correspond to one degree or another. Thirdly, the new palace has a great length, thanks to which it is visible from many points of the park.
3. The regular park is located near the palace in accordance with the same main axis of the ensemble. It combines in itself, on the one hand, the liveliness and organic nature of nature, on the other hand, the geometry and clarity of the building. Thus, the regular park is correlated with the main element of the system, obeying it in form and structure, but at the same time filled with a different - natural - content. Many researchers reflect this in the metaphor of "living architecture".
The regular park, like all elements of the structure, obeys the main axis of the ensemble. In the park, the axis is distinguished by the Main Alley, which then turns into the Grand Canal. On the Main alley, fountains are sequentially located, also emphasizing and highlighting the main axis.
The regular park is divided into two parts according to the distance from the palace and the erosion of the patterns set by the main building - these are parterres and bosquets.
Water and grass parterres are located in the immediate vicinity of the palace and repeat its shape. Water fills rectangular pools, doubling the image of the palace and creating another line of symmetry between water and sky. Grass, flowers, shrubs - everything is planted and trimmed in accordance with the forms of classical geometry - rectangle, cone, circle. The parterres as a whole obey the axis of symmetry of the palace. The space of the parterres is open, its structure is clearly readable.
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The atmosphere of sunshine is preserved. As well as the building of the palace, the strict geometric straight borders of the parterres are decorated with sculpture.
On the sides of the main axis are the so-called bosquettes (baskets) - this is a small open area surrounded by trees. There are sculptures and fountains on the bosquets. The bosquets are no longer symmetrical to the single axis of the palace and are extremely diverse, the space of the bosquets is less clear. However, they all have internal symmetry (usually central) and a ray structure. In the direction of one of the alleys emanating from the bosquet, the palace is definitely visible. The bosquets as an element of the system are subordinated to the palace in a different way than the parterres - exemplary forms are less clearly read, although the general principles are still preserved.
The main alley turns into the Grand Canal. Water spaces are built in the same way as vegetation: water spaces of a clear geometric shape are located on the axis and near the palace, and distant pools have a more free shape, less clear and open structure.
There are many alleys between the bosquets, but only one of them - the Main Alley-Canal - has no visible end - it seems to dissolve in a haze due to its great length. All other alleys end with a grotto, a fountain or just a platform, once again emphasizing the uniqueness - one-man command - of the Main Axis.
4. The so-called irregular park differs from the rest of the really "irregular" curvilinear alleys, asymmetrical plantings and free, uncut, seemingly unkempt, untouched greenery. However, in fact, and it is extremely thoughtfully connected with the whole ensemble, obeying the same rational, but more hidden laws. Firstly, the main axis is never crossed by plantings or buildings - it remains free. Secondly, small architectural forms clearly repeat the motives of the palace. Thirdly, so-called "ah-ah-gaps" are made in the foliage, through which the palace is visible even at a great distance. Fourthly, fountains, grottoes and small sculptural groups are linked by a single theme and style with each other and with the corresponding elements of the regular park. Fifth, the connection with the whole is established by maintaining the solar open atmosphere.
5. The entrance to the residence is a system of three highways that converge in front of the main palace on Arms Square at the point of the sculptural image of the monarch. The highways lead to Paris (central), as well as to Saint-Cloud and Sau, where in the 17th century. were the residences of Louis and from where there were direct exits to the main European states.
Access roads to the ensemble are also an element of the system, since they obey its basic rules. All three highways have buildings that are symmetrical about their axes. The symmetry of the main axis (going to Paris) is especially emphasized: on either side of it are the stables of the royal musketeers and other service buildings, identical in Lecture 87
both sides of the highway. The three axes converge in front of the balcony of the Great King's Bedroom. Thus, even a space of several kilometers around the ensemble turns out to be subordinate to the system-forming element of the model.
Moreover, the ensemble is built into a large supersystem - Paris and France. Arable land and vineyards (about 20 km) were located from Versailles to Paris in the middle of the 17th century, and it was simply impossible to build the Versailles-Paris link directly. The task of including the model in the supersystem was skillfully solved due to the appearance at the exit from Paris of the Champs Elysees - a ceremonial avenue with symmetrical buildings, repeating the structure of the central access highway in Versailles.
So, the landscape gardening ensemble of Versailles is a strict hierarchical system in which all elements are subject to a single rule, but at the same time they have their own unique feature. This means that the Versailles ensemble can claim to be a model, since any model is a well-thought-out system of elements. However, to reveal the modeling essence of the chosen work, this fact is not enough; it is also necessary to show that the Versailles ensemble serves as a means of cognition, replacing a certain object under study.
Further, the Versailles ensemble is analyzed as an actual model that implements cognitive functions. To do this, it is necessary to show that the work replaces (models) a certain object, the study of which was relevant for the authors of the model. The creators of this model are several masters at once. Initially, in 1661, Louis Leveaux (architect) and André Le Nôtre (master of park art) were involved in the project. Then the circle of authors expanded - Charles Lebrun (interiors, fine arts), Jules Hardouin-Mansart (architect) began to work. The sculptors Kuazevox, Toubi, Leongre, Mazelin, Juvane, Kuazvo and many others participated in the creation of various elements of the complex.
Traditionally, in the art studies of Versailles, one of the main authors of the ensemble, Louis XIV, remains aside. It is known that the king was not only the customer for the construction of the complex, but also the main ideologist. Louis XIV was well versed in architecture and considered architecture an extremely important symbolic part of state power. He professionally read the drawings and carefully, repeatedly discussed with the craftsmen the construction of all his residences.
The Versailles ensemble was deliberately built by masters (including Louis XIV, the architect) as the main official royal residence, so it is natural to assume that the French statehood or some of its aspects became the object of modeling. The creation of the Versailles complex helped its authors understand how a united powerful France can be arranged, how it is possible to assemble the disparate parts of the country into a single whole, how to unite the nation, Lecture 87
what is the role of the king in creating and maintaining a powerful nation state, etc.
The proof of this statement will be carried out in several stages.
1. The Versailles ensemble is a model of the King of France.
in several ways. First, by placing the King's Bedroom in the center of the ensemble.
Secondly, using as an important element the traditional lily - the oldest symbol of the king. Louis XIV gave new meaning to this ancient symbol. Known for his saying "I will gather France into a fist!" The "lily" sign is located above the entrance to the residence; its stylized image has been repeated many times in various interiors of the palace.
However, the most important thing is that the geometry of the royal symbol “lily” is the basis for the composition of the ensemble. The composition of "lilies" is realized through three highways converging in front of the royal balcony, continuing from the park side with alleys, and the isthmus joining them - the royal part of the palace, which includes the Great Bedroom of the old castle and the Mirror Gallery of the new building.
Thirdly, the location of the ensemble at the cardinal points and its axial structure give grounds for comparing the complex with a gigantic, ecumenical Catholic church. The most sacred place of the temple - the altar - corresponds to the Great Royal Bedroom. This correlation is reinforced by the surroundings of the bedroom with more powerful modern buildings, the shrine is placed inside and guarded, even somewhat hidden.
Thus, the ensemble simulates the leading role of the king in Versailles and, therefore, in France in the 17th century. According to the constructed model, the role of the king is to resolutely, even if forcibly, pulling together the "stubborn petals" - the provinces and regions of the state. The whole life of the king consists in official service to the state (it is not for nothing that the dominant feature of the ensemble is the bedroom). The king is the absolute ruler, collecting both secular and spiritual power.
2. The Versailles ensemble - a model of France in the second half of the 17th century.
Known thesis of Louis XIV "France is me". According to this
to thesis, the Versailles complex, simulating the king, simultaneously simulates France. The strict systemic and hierarchical nature of the model is extrapolated to the role and place of the king in the French state of the 17th century, but also to France itself of the period under consideration. Everything that has been said above about the king can be extrapolated to France.
The Versailles complex as a model of France makes it possible to find out the main features of the country's state structure. Above all France - One Lecture 87
a hierarchical system, collected by a single law, rule, will. This unified law is based on the will of the king - Louis XIV, next to whom the world is built and becomes clear, geometrically precise.
This is superbly visualized by the architect L. Levo in the overall compositional structure of the ensemble. The new classicist palace hugs the center - the Grand Royal Bedroom - and sets the standard for clarity and clarity for the entire structure. Near the palace, nature obeys and takes on the forms and patterns of the building (first of all, this is realized in the parterres), then the standards begin to gradually erode, the forms become freer and more diverse (bosquets and an irregular park). However, even in the distant corners (seemingly free from the power of the king), gazebos, rotundas and other small architectural forms with their symmetry and clarity of forms remind of the law to which the whole obeys. In addition, through the “ah-ah-tears” skillfully cut in the foliage, now and then a palace appears in the distance as a symbol of the presence of the law in all of France, wherever its subjects are.
The palace sets the norms for the structure of France as a system (clarity, clarity, hierarchy, the presence of a single law, etc.), showing the most distant elements of the periphery what to strive for. The main building of the palace with a dominant horizontal line, powerful portable symmetry and Ionic porticoes along the entire length of the facade models France as a state relying on its citizens. All citizens are equal and subject to the main law - the will of King Louis XIV.
The Versailles complex reveals the principles of the structure of an ideal state with a powerful unified power.
3. The Versailles Ensemble simulates the role of France as the capital of Europe and the world.
Louis XIV claimed not only the creation of a powerful unified state, but also a leading role in Europe at that time. The authors of the ensemble have implemented this idea in various ways, revealing the essence of France - the capital of the world in the process of building a model.
First of all, this is done with the help of the composition "sun", which, due to the well-known metaphor of the "Sun King", draws to the leading role of Louis XIV. The composition "lily" turns into the composition "sun", since the symbolism of the sun has a broader context. We are talking about world domination, because the sun is one for the whole world and shines for everyone. The monument simulates the role of Louis XIV = France as shining to the whole world, revealing light, bringing wisdom and goodness, laws and life. The rays of the "sun" radiate from the center - the Great Royal Bedroom - all over the world.
In addition to the indicated symbolism of the sun, it is additionally emphasized:
By creating a common solar atmosphere of the ensemble - yellow and white in the color of the palace itself, the sun shine of jets of water, Lecture 87
large windows and mirrors in which the sun color multiplies and fills all spaces;
Numerous fountains and sculptural groups correspond to the "solar theme" - ancient heroes of myths associated with the sun god Apollo, allegories of day, night, morning, evening, seasons, etc. For example, the fountain of Apollo, located on the central axis, was read by contemporaries as follows: “The sun god Apollo in a chariot, surrounded by trumpeting newts, jumps out of the water, greeting his elder brother” (Le Tru a);
a variety of solar symbols were used, the corresponding flowers were selected (for example, the most common flowers in the park are jonquil daffodils);
the bosquets are arranged according to the ray structure; the motive of the circle is constantly repeated in the fountains;
The sun symbol is located on the altar of the royal chapel, and its ceiling contains the image of the diverging rays of the sun, etc.
In addition to the symbolism of the sun, Versailles modeled the dominant position of France in Europe at that time and with the help of "direct analogy", surpassing all the royal residences of Europe of that time in many parameters.
First of all, the ensemble under consideration had the largest dimensions for similar structures - in area (101 hectares), along the length of the main alleys and canals (up to 10 km), along the length of the palace facade (640 m). Versailles also surpassed all European residences in the diversity, splendor, and skill of its elements (each of which was a separate work of art), in their rarity and uniqueness, and in the high cost of materials. The multitude of fountains in the absence of water in most European capitals of the 17th century was “defiant”.
The superiority of the Versailles royal ensemble corresponded to the historical position of France in Europe in the second half of the 17th century: during the time of Louis XIV, the country gradually annexed its border regions, the regions of the Spanish Netherlands, some territories of Spain, Germany, Austria, expanded colonies in America and Africa; Paris was the largest city in Europe at that time; France had the largest army, navy and merchant fleet “surpassing even the English”, the largest industrial growth, the most thoughtful tariff policy, and so on. The superlative degree was applicable to the position of France in the period under review in many respects.
The large area of the park, its "endlessness" created the impression of the unlimited possession of France, the center not even of Europe, but of the world. This simulated quality (to be the capital of the world, to own the world) was enhanced by the considerable length of the main alley of the park (about 10 km together with an irregular part) and the resulting promising optical effect. Since parallel lines converge at infinity, the direct visibility of the convergence of parallel lines. Lecture 87
lines (the boundaries of the alley and the canal) visualizes infinity, makes infinity visible.
The main alley was perfectly visible from the Mirror Gallery, one of the palace's most formal places for diplomatic meetings and processions. We can say that "from the windows of the gallery a view of infinity opened up", and this infinity of the world belonged to the park, the sovereign, France. The astronomical discoveries of modern times turned the idea of the structure of the Universe upside down and showed that the world is infinite, and man is just a grain of sand in the boundless space of space. However, the masters (the authors of the ensemble) skillfully “placed infinity within the framework of the royal residence”: yes, the world is infinite, and this whole world is owned by Louis XIV = France. At the same time, the scale of Europe turned out to be insignificant and lost, Versailles became the capital of the world. Extrapolating this statement, any French citizen and representative of another state understood that France is the capital of the world.
The location of the ensemble to the cardinal points ensured the highest actualization of the modeled position at sunset, when it was seen from the windows of the Mirror Gallery that the sun was setting exactly at the infinity point of the park (hence, the world). If we take into account the "Sun King" metaphor, then the extrapolated knowledge about the world turns into the following: the sun at sunset bids farewell to its elder brother and, obeying his will (his rule, his park), sits in the place of the world intended for him.
Significant complexity and incredible, unprecedented for those times, diversity of the ensemble's components, which included, according to the descriptions of contemporaries, "everything in the world", turned Versailles into a model of the world as a whole.
France's claim to owning the world required modeling everything known to Europeans in the world. In this respect, palm trees are indicative as a model of Africa - a tree outlandish for a northern country and specific precisely for the conquered and annexed “southern end of the world”. The model was integrated into the royal ensemble, thus demonstrating the inclusiveness and subordination of the southern continent of France.
France's leading role in Europe has been modeled and cleverly designed with access roads. L.Levo led to the Marble Courtyard, into which the windows of the Great Royal Bedroom, three highways. The highways led to the main residences of Louis - Paris, Saint-Cloud and Sault, from where the main routes to the main European states went. The main Paris-Versailles highway at the exit from Paris (Champs Elysees) repeated in its structure the entrance to the Versailles ensemble, again subordinating Paris to Versailles, despite the distance of tens of kilometers.
Thus, thanks to the modeling capabilities of the Versailles ensemble, all of Europe converged on the square in front of the palace, visualizing the phrase "All roads lead ... to Paris."
An important aspect of France's international politics was modeled through the Mirror Gallery, which connects two corner pavilions - the Hall of War and the Hall of Peace. Each of the halls is decorated according to the name Lecture 87
and, according to the descriptions of contemporaries, it was even accompanied by appropriate - belligerent or peaceful - music. The reliefs of each of the halls model Louis XIV and France, sometimes as a powerful aggressive force, sometimes as merciful to those who bow to its will.
The situation modeled by the Mirror Gallery corresponded to the complex domestic and foreign policy of the king and the state, which combined a powerful, aggressive military strategy with "cunning", full of intrigues and secret alliances. On the one hand, the country was constantly at war. On the other hand, Louis XIV did not miss a single opportunity to strengthen the influence of France through "peaceful means", starting with claims to the inheritance of his Spanish wife, ending with bringing all legally inaccurate provisions in his direction and organizing multiple secret and explicit alliances.
The plan of the palace reveals a large number of courtyards, the existence of which is impossible to guess, standing in front of the facade of the palace or even walking through its halls. The presence of secret courtyards and passages, false walls and other spaces does not contradict the systematic nature of the work as a whole. On the contrary, in the context of modeling, this fact indicates the real situation in the formation of the French state in the second half of the 17th century: external well-being and clarity of rules, on the one hand, and the presence of secret intrigues and shadow politics, on the other. In the process of creating the most complex system of Versailles, the authors deliberately introduced secret passages and hidden courtyards, thereby revealing and proving the need for state administration of political intrigues and secret conspiracies, unions.
Thus, each element of the ensemble has modeling capabilities, and the entire system of elements as a whole is a model of French statehood, its principles of structure and contradictions.
The authors of the ensemble - Louis XIV, Louis Levoy, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, André Le Nôtre, Charles Lebrun and others modeled a powerful absolute monarchy as an ideal state. To do this, they selected old means of artistic modeling, came up with new means or changed existing ones.
Using the experience of modeling the state structure already accumulated in the history of art, the authors acted as users of available artistic models - Ancient Egyptian architectural complexes, Roman forums of the empire period, national palace ensembles of the early 17th century. and others. However, as a result of collective creative activity, the authors of Versailles created a fundamentally new artistic model, which allows the masters to be called the authors of the model.
Architects, artists, masters of interiors, gardens and parks of subsequent generations mastered the methodological and technical principles and techniques created by the authors of the ensemble. Lecture 87 was built throughout Europe in subsequent centuries in the leading European states.
numerous "Versailles" - royal residences, simulating the general principles of the structure of the monarchical state of a particular country. These are the garden and park complexes Caserta in Italy, JIa Granja in Spain, Drottningholm in Sweden, Hett Loo in Holland, Hemptoncourt in England, Nymphenburg, Sanssouci, Herrnhausen, Charlottenburg in Germany, Schönbrunn in Sweden, Peterhof in Russia. Each of the creators of such ensembles used certain modeling principles developed by the creators of the Versailles complex.
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Architecture
The second half of the 17th century is the time of the highest flowering of the architecture of French classicism.
One of the reasons for the leading importance of architecture among other forms of art in the second half of the 17th century was rooted in its specific features. It was architecture with the monumental character of its forms and longevity that could most forcefully express the ideas of a centralized national monarchy in its period of maturity. In this era, the social role of architecture, its ideological significance and organizing role in the artistic synthesis of all types of fine, applied and gardening arts were especially clearly manifested.
The organization of the Academy of Architecture had a great influence on the development of architecture, the director of which was appointed a prominent architect and theorist Francois Blondel (1617 - 1686). Its members were outstanding French architects L. Briand, J. Guittard, A. Le Nôtre, L. Levo, P. Mignard, J. Hardouin-Mansart and others. The task of the Academy was to develop the basic aesthetic norms and criteria for the architecture of classicism, which were to be guided by the architects.
The development of the economy and trade caused an intensive construction in the second half of the 17th century of new and further expansion of old French cities. Marshal and military engineer-fortifier Sebastian Vauban built more than thirty new fortified cities and reconstructed about three hundred old ones. Among them, the cities of Longuy, Vitry-le-François and the city of Neuf-Brisac were rebuilt and were in the shape of a square and an octagon, surrounded by walls, moats and bastions. Their internal layout was a geometrically correct system of streets and quarters with an area in the center.
The port cities of Brest, Rochefort, Lorian are being built on the Atlantic coast, and Seth on the Mediterranean Sea. At the suburban royal residence, the city of Versailles begins to be built.
The architects Bull and Blondel in 1676 draw up a plan for the expansion of Paris, so that the appearance of the capital corresponded to the splendor and grandeur of the monarchy of Louis XIV. The expansion of the territory of Paris to the north-west was envisaged; on the site of ancient fortifications, green "promenades" are being designed, which laid the foundation for the future Bolshoi Boulevards. The main entrances to the city are formed and architecturally fixed by the construction of gates in the form of triumphal arches: Saint-Denis, Saint-Martin, Saint-Bernard and Saint-Louis.
New large ensembles of the Vendôme and Victory squares, dedicated to Louis XIV, are being created according to the projects of J. Hardouin-Mansart. The architect L. Levo in 1664 completes the quadrangular composition of the Louvre with a closed courtyard with the construction of its northern, southern and eastern buildings. The eastern facade of the Louvre, created by C. Perrault, F. d'Orbet and L. Leveaux, gives the final look to this remarkable ensemble. a vast green esplanade in front of it, completed by the construction of a magnificent rotundal church in its center, designed by J. Hardouin-Mansart.
Major urban planning works in Paris, mainly to complete the previously formed ensembles, undertaken by Colbert, significantly changed the appearance of the center of the capital, but on the whole turned out to be isolated from the system of medieval buildings by inclusions that were not organically connected with the system of highways and streets. This approach to the composition of closed urban ensembles was influenced by the urban planning principles of the Italian Baroque.
New large ensembles and squares were created at this time in other cities of France - in Tours, Po, Dijon, Lyon, etc.
The features of the architecture of the middle and second half of the 17th century are reflected both in the huge volume of construction of large ceremonial ensembles designed to exalt and glorify the ruling classes of the era of absolutism and the powerful monarch - the sun king Louis XIV, and in the improvement and development of the artistic principles of classicism.
In the second half of the 17th century, a more consistent application of the classical order system is observed: horizontal divisions prevail over vertical ones; high separate roofs constantly disappear and are replaced by a single roof, often masked by a balustrade; the volumetric composition of the building becomes simpler, more compact, corresponding to the location and size of the interior.
Along with the influence of the architecture of ancient Rome, the influence of the architecture of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque is increasing. This latter is reflected in the borrowing of some baroque forms (crooked, torn pediments, lush cartouches, volutes), in the principles of solving internal space (enfilade), as well as in the increased complexity and pomp of architectural forms, especially in interiors, where their synthesis with sculpture and painting is often carries in itself more features of baroque than classicism.
One of the works of architecture of the second half of the 17th century, in which the predominance of mature artistic principles of classicism is already clearly felt, is the suburban ensemble of the palace and park Vaux-le-Vicomte near Melein (1655-1661).
The creators of this outstanding work, built for the controller general of finance Fouquet and in many ways anticipating the ensemble of Versailles, were the architect Louis Leveaux (c. 1612 - 1670), the master of landscape art André Le Nôtre, who planned the park of the palace, and the painter Charles Lebrun, who took part in decoration of the interiors of the palace and painting of plafonds.
In terms of the composition of the plan, the allocation of the central and corner tower-like volumes crowned with high separate roofs, the general open character of the building - it is placed on an island surrounded by a moat filled with water - the palace of Vaux-le-Vicomte resembles Maison-Laffitte.
Nevertheless, in the structure and appearance of the building, as well as in the composition of the ensemble as a whole, there is undoubtedly a more consistent application of classicist architectural principles.
This is manifested primarily in the logical and strictly calculated planning solution of the palace and park as a whole. The large oval-shaped salon, which forms the central link of the enfilade of ceremonial rooms, became the compositional center of not only the palace, but also the ensemble as a whole, since its position at the intersection of the main planning axes of the ensemble (the main park alley going from the palace and the transverse ones coinciding with the longitudinal axis building) makes it the "focal point" of the entire complex.
Thus, the building of the palace and the park are subordinated to a strictly centralized compositional principle, which allows bringing various elements of the ensemble to artistic unity and highlighting the palace as the main component of the ensemble.
The composition of the palace is characterized by the unity of the interior space and volume of the building, which distinguishes the works of mature classicist architecture. The large oval salon is highlighted in the volume of the building by a curved projection, crowned with a powerful domed roof, which creates a static and calm silhouette of the building. The introduction of a large order of pilasters, covering two floors above the plinth, and a powerful horizontal line of a smooth, straight-line classical entablature, achieved the predominance of horizontal divisions over vertical ones in the facades, the integrity of order facades and volumetric composition, which was not characteristic of castles of an earlier period. All this gives the appearance of the palace a monumental representativeness and splendor.
In contrast to some restraint of forms in the external appearance of the palace, the interiors of the building received a rich and free architectural interpretation. In one of the most ceremonial rooms - the oval salon - there is a rather strict order of Corinthian pilasters dismembering the wall, and the arched openings and niches located between the pilasters are combined with the magnificently decorated second tier of the wall, with heavy baroque caryatids, garlands and cartouches. The interior space is illusoryly expanded by a favorite Baroque technique - the introduction of mirrors in niches located opposite the windows. The perspectives that open from the windows of cozy living rooms and salons to the surrounding landscape, to the space of the parterre and the park alleys, are perceived as a kind of logical continuation outside the interior space.
The park ensemble Vaux-le-Vicomte was created according to a strictly regular system. Skillfully trimmed green spaces, alleys, flower beds, paths form clear, easily perceived geometric volumes, planes and lines. Fountains and decorative statues frame the extensive parterre, which stretches on terraces in front of the palace facade.
Among other buildings in Levo - country palaces, hotels and churches - the monumental building of the College of the Four Nations (1661 - 1665) stands out for the originality of the composition and features of the mature classicist style, created on the instructions of Cardinal Mazarin to educate the natives of various provinces of France. At the College of the Four Nations (now the building of the French Academy of Sciences), Levo develops the principles of classicist architecture in an urban ensemble. Positioning the building of the College on the left bank of the Seine, Leveau reveals the powerful, widely deployed semicircles of its main facade towards the river and the Louvre ensemble in such a way that the domed church, which is the center of the College's composition, falls on the axis of the Louvre. This achieves the spatial unity of these large urban complexes, which form one of the outstanding ensembles of the center of Paris, connected by a riverbed.
In the architecture of the building of the College, with its vast semicircle of the courtyard open on the Seine, a developed silhouette, highlighting the center of the composition, the dominant importance of which is emphasized by the enlarged divisions and forms of the entrance portal and dome, the image of a public building of great national importance has been successfully found. On the basis of creative processing of the forms of palace and religious architecture, Levo creates the appearance of a public building with a domed compositional center, which served as a prototype for many state buildings in European architecture of the 18th - 19th centuries.
One of the works in which the aesthetic principles of French classicism and the canons developed by the Academy of Architecture received the fullest expression is the eastern facade of the Louvre (1667-1678), in the design and construction of which Claude Perrot (1613-1688), François d "Orbet" (1634 - 1697) and Louis Levo.
The eastern façade of the Louvre, which is often called the Louvre Colonnade, is part of the ensemble of two palaces united in the 17th century - the Tuileries and the Louvre. The large facade (173 m) has a central and two lateral projections, between which on a monumental smooth base with rare window openings rest powerful (12 m high) double Corinthian columns supporting a high entablature and forming shaded loggias. The rizalit of the central entrance with a three-span portico, which is the richest in forms, decor and order divisions, is crowned with a strict triangular pediment antique in forms and proportions. The tympanum of the pediment is richly decorated with a sculptural relief. The lateral projections, which have less rich plastic development, are dissected by twin pilasters of the same order.
François d "Orbet, Louis Leveaux, Claude Perrot. The eastern facade of the Louvre (Louvre Colonnade). 1667 - 1678
The flat architectural relief of the lateral projections creates a logical transition to the lateral facades of the Louvre, which repeat the composition of the eastern facade, with the difference that double Corinthian columns are replaced in them by single pilasters of the same order.
In a simple and laconic volumetric structure of the building, in a clear and logical division of the volume into carried and bearing parts, in the details and proportions of the Corinthian order close to the classical canon, and, finally, in the subordination of the composition to a strongly revealed rhythmic order beginning, mature artistic principles of the classicist architecture of the 17th century. The monumental facade, with its enlarged forms and emphasized scale, is full of grandeur and nobility, but at the same time it has a tinge of academic coldness and rationality.
An important contribution to the theory and practice of French classicism was made by François Blondel (1617 - 1686). Among his best works should be noted the triumphal arch, usually called the Gate of Saint-Denis in Paris. The architecture of the monumental arch, erected to the glory of French arms, to commemorate the passage of French troops across the Rhine in 1672, is distinguished by great laconicism, generalized forms and emphasized splendor. Blondel's great merit lies in the deep creative processing of the type of the Roman triumphal arch and the creation of a kind of composition that had a strong influence on the architecture of such structures in the 18th - 19th centuries.
The problem of the architectural ensemble, which stood for almost the entire century in the center of attention of the masters of classicism of the 17th century, found its expression in French urban planning. An outstanding innovator in this area is the largest French architect of the 17th century - Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646 - 1708; from 1668 he bore the name of Hardouin-Mansart).
The square of Louis the Great (later Vendôme; 1685 - 1701) and Place de la Victory (1684 - 1687), erected according to the designs of Arduin-Mansart in Paris, are very important for the urban planning practice of the second half of the 17th century. The square of Louis the Great, rectangular in plan with cut corners (146x136 m), was conceived as a ceremonial building in honor of the king.
In accordance with the design, the equestrian statue of Louis XIV by the sculptor Girardon, located in the center of the square, played the dominant role in the composition. The facades of the buildings forming the square, of the same type in composition, with slightly protruding porticos at the cut corners and in the central part of the buildings, serve as the architectural frame of the square's space. Connected to the adjacent neighborhoods by only two short stretches of streets, the square is perceived as a closed, isolated space.
Another ensemble - Victory Square, which has a circular shape with a diameter of 60 m in plan, is close to the square of Louis the Great in terms of the uniformity of the facades surrounding the square and the location of the monument in the center. In her compositional concept - a circle with a statue in the center - the ideas of absolutism are even more vividly expressed. However, the location of the square at the intersection of several streets connected with the general planning system of the city deprives its space of isolation and isolation. With the creation of Victory Square, Arduin-Mansart laid the foundations for progressive urban planning trends in the construction of open public centers closely related to the city's planning system, which were implemented in European urban planning in the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. Another example of the skillful solution of large urban planning problems is the construction by Arduin-Mansart of the Church of the Invalides (1693 - 1706), completing a huge complex built according to the project of Liberal Bruant (c. 1635 - 1697). The House of the Invalides, intended to house war veterans, was conceived as one of the most grandiose public buildings of the 17th century. In front of the main facade of the building, located on the left bank of the Seine, there is a vast square, the so-called Esplanade of Invalides, which, adjoining the river, as if picks up and continues the development of the right-bank ensemble of the Tuileries and Louvre in the left bank of the city. The strictly symmetrical complex of the House of Invalides consists of four-storey buildings closed along the perimeter, forming a developed system of large rectangular and square courtyards subordinated to a single compositional center - a large courtyard and a monumental domed church erected in its central part. Arduin-Mansart created the center of the ensemble by staging a large compact volume of the church along the main, compositional axis of the complex of buildings spread out in breadth, subjugating all its elements and completing it with a general expressive silhouette.
The church is a monumental centric structure with a square plan and a dome with a diameter of 27 m, crowning a vast central space. The proportions and orderly divisions of the church are restrained and strict. Originally conceived by the author is the domed space of the church with a floor deepened by several steps and three crowning domed shells. The lower one, with a large hole in the center, closes the light openings cut in the second dome shell, creating the illusion of an illuminated celestial sphere.
The dome of the Church of the Invalides is one of the most beautiful and highest domes in world architecture, which also has an important urban planning significance. Along with the domes of the Val de Grae church and the Pantheon built in the 18th century, it creates an expressive silhouette of the southern part of Paris.
The progressive trends in the architecture of classicism of the 17th century are fully and comprehensively developed in the ensemble of Versailles (1668 - 1689), grandiose in scale, boldness and breadth of artistic design. The main creators of this most significant monument of French classicism of the 17th century were the architects Louis Leveaux and Hardouin-Mansart, the master of gardening art André Le Nôtre (1613 - 1700) and the artist Lebrun, who participated in the creation of the interiors of the palace.
The original idea for the ensemble of Versailles, consisting of a city, a palace and a park, belongs to Levo and Le Nôtre. Both masters began working on the construction of Versailles in 1668. In the process of implementing the ensemble, their design has undergone numerous changes. The final completion of the Versailles ensemble belongs to Arduin-Mansard.
Versailles, as the main residence of the king, was supposed to exalt and glorify the boundless power of French absolutism. However, this does not exhaust the content of the ideological and artistic conception of the ensemble of Versailles, as well as its outstanding significance in the history of world architecture. Shackled by official regulations, forced to submit to the despotic demands of the king and his entourage, the builders of Versailles - a huge army of architects, artists, masters of applied and gardening art - managed to embody in it the enormous creative forces of the French people.
The peculiarities of building the ensemble as a strictly ordered centralized system based on the absolute compositional dominance of the palace over everything around it are due to its general ideological concept. Three wide straight ray avenues of the city converge to the Versailles Palace, located on a high terrace, forming a trident. The middle avenue continues on the other side of the palace in the form of the main alley of a huge park. Perpendicular to this main compositional axis of the city and the park, there is a very elongated palace building. The middle avenue of the trident leads to Paris, the other two - to the royal palaces of Saint-Cloud and Sau, as if connecting the main country residence of the king with various regions of the country.
The Palace of Versailles was built in three periods: the most ancient part, framing the Marble Courtyard, is the hunting castle of Louis XIII, which began construction in 1624 and was subsequently heavily rebuilt. In 1668-1671, Levo rebuilt it with new buildings facing the city along the axis of the middle ray of the trident. From the side of the Marble Courtyard, the palace resembles the early buildings of French architecture of the 17th century with extensive courdoner, towers crowned with high roofs, fragmentation of forms and details. The construction is completed by Arduin-Mansart, which in 1678-1687 further enlarges the palace by adding two buildings, south and north, each 500 m long, and from the central part of the park facade - a huge Mirror Gallery 73 m long with side halls of War and Peace. Next to the Mirror Gallery, on the side of the Marble Courtyard, he placed the bedroom of the sun king, where the axes of the trident of the city's avenues converge. In the central part of the palace and around the Marble Courtyard, the apartments of the royal family and ceremonial reception rooms were grouped. The huge wings housed the premises of the courtiers, guards and the palace church.
The architecture of the palace facades created by Arduin-Mansart, especially from the side of the park, is distinguished by great stylistic unity. Strongly stretched in breadth, the building of the palace is well combined with the strict, geometrically correct layout of the park and natural surroundings. In the composition of the facade, the second, front floor is clearly distinguished with large-scale arched window openings and orders of columns and pilasters, which are strict in proportions and details, resting on a heavy rusticated plinth. The heavy attic floor crowning the building imparts monumentality and representativeness to the appearance of the palace.
The premises of the palace were distinguished by their luxury and variety of decoration. They widely use Baroque motifs (round and oval medallions, complex cartouches, ornamental fillings above doors and in the walls) and expensive finishing materials (mirrors, chased bronze, marble, gilded wood carving, precious woods), widespread use of decorative painting and sculpture - all this is calculated on the impression of stunning splendor. The reception rooms were dedicated to the ancient gods: Apollo, Diana, Mars, Venus, Mercury. Their decoration reflected the symbolic meaning of these rooms, associated with the glorification of the virtues and dignity of the king and his family. During balls and receptions, each of the halls served a specific purpose - a place for banquets, games of billiards or cards, a concert hall, a salon for playing music. In the Apollo Hall, which excelled in luxury in decoration, there was a royal throne - a very high chair made of cast silver under a canopy. But the largest and most ceremonial room of the palace is the Mirror Gallery. Here, through wide arched openings, a magnificent view opens up to the main alley of the park and the surrounding landscape. The inner space of the gallery is illusoryly expanded by a number of large mirrors located in niches opposite the windows. The interior of the gallery is richly decorated with marble Corinthian pilasters and a lush stucco cornice, which serves as a transition to the huge plafond of the painter Lebrun, which is even more complex in composition and color scheme.
The spirit of official solemnity reigned in the Versailles chambers. The premises were luxuriously furnished. In the mirror gallery, thousands of candles were lit in shining silver chandeliers, and a noisy, colorful crowd of courtiers filled the palace suites, reflected in the tall mirrors. The Venetian ambassador, describing in his report from France one of the royal receptions in the Versailles Mirror Gallery, says that it was "lighter than during the day" and "the eyes did not want to believe the unprecedented bright outfits, men in feathers, women in lush hairstyles." He likens this sight to a "dream", "an enchanted kingdom."
In contrast to the architecture of the façades of the palace, which is not devoid of a somewhat baroque representativeness, as well as overloaded with decorations and gilding of the interiors, the layout of the Versailles Park, which is the most outstanding example of a French regular park, is executed by André Le Nôtre and is distinguished by its amazing purity and harmony of forms. In the layout of the park and the forms of its "green architecture" Le Nôtre is the most consistent exponent of the aesthetic ideal of classicism. He saw in the natural environment an object of intelligent human activity. Le Nôtre transforms the natural landscape into an impeccably clear, complete architectonic system based on the idea of rationality and order.
A general view of the park opens from the side of the palace. From the main terrace, a wide staircase leads along the main axis of the composition of the ensemble to the Latona fountain, then the Royal Alley, bordered by clipped trees, leads to the Apollo fountain with a vast oval pool.
The composition of the Royal Alley ends with a huge water surface of a cruciform canal extending far to the horizon and the perspectives of the alleys, framed by clipped trees and bosquets, converging to the main ray, then diverging from it. Le Nôtre has given the park a west-east orientation, making it especially splendid and radiant in the rays of the rising sun reflecting in the large canal and pools.
The rich and varied sculptural decoration of the park is in organic unity with the layout of the park and the architectural appearance of the palace.
The park sculpture of Versailles is actively involved in the formation of the ensemble. Sculptural groups, statues, herms and vases with reliefs, many of which were created by outstanding sculptors of their time, close the perspectives of green streets, frame squares and alleys, form complex and beautiful combinations with a variety of fountains and pools.
The Park of Versailles, with its clearly expressed architectonic structure, richness and variety of forms of marble and bronze sculptures, foliage of trees, fountains, pools, geometrically clear lines of alleys and shapes of lawns, flower beds, bosquets, resembles a large "green city" with enfilades of various squares and streets ... These "green enfilades" are perceived as a natural continuation and development outside the inner space of the palace itself.
The architectural ensemble of Versailles was complemented by the Grand Trianon (1687-1688), an intimate royal residence, built in the park according to the project of Arduin-Mansart. A feature of this small, but monumental in its appearance, one-storey building is its free asymmetrical composition; grand drawing rooms, galleries and living quarters are grouped around small landscaped courtyards with fountains. The central entrance of the Trianon is designed as a deep loggia with paired Ionic columns supporting the ceiling.
Both the palace and especially the Park of Versailles with its wide promenades, abundance of water, easy visibility and spatial scope served as a kind of magnificent "stage" for the most diverse, unusually colorful and magnificent performances - fireworks, illuminations, balls, ballet divertissements, performances, masquerade processions, and canals - for walks and festivities of the amusement fleet. When Versailles was under construction and had not yet become the official center of the state, its "entertainment" function prevailed. In the spring of 1664, the young monarch, in honor of his favorite Louise de Lavaliere, instituted a series of festivities under the romantic title "Delights of the Enchanted Island". In the beginning, there was still a lot of immediacy and improvisation in these peculiar eight-day festivals, in which almost all types of arts participated. Over the years, the festivities took on an increasingly grandiose character, reaching their climax in the 1670s, when a new favorite reigned in Versailles - the profligate and brilliant Marquise de Mont-Tespan. In eyewitness accounts, in many engravings, the glory of Versailles and its holidays spread to other European countries.
Chapter “Art of France. Architecture". Section "Art of the 18th century". General History of Art. Volume IV. Art of the 17-18 centuries. Author: L.S. Alyoshina; edited by Yu.D. Kolpinsky and E.I. Rotenberg (Moscow, State Publishing House "Art", 1963)
If the 17th century in the architecture of France was marked by grandiose construction works for the king, the main result of which was the creation of the monumental ensemble of Versailles, where the style of classicism itself in its imposing splendor reveals elements of internal connection with Baroque architecture, then the 18th century brings with it new trends.
Construction moved to cities. The new needs of the era posed the problem of creating a type of urban residential house-mansion. The development of bourgeois relations, the growth of trade and industry, and the strengthening of the role of the third estate in public life put forward the task of constructing new public buildings - stock exchanges, commercial premises, public theaters. The growing role of cities in the economic and political life of the country, the emergence of new types of private and public buildings pose new requirements for architects in creating an urban ensemble.
The architectural style of the era is also undergoing changes. The great unity of figurative solutions of the external appearance and internal space, characteristic of the classicism of the last century, by the beginning of the 18th century. disintegrates. This process of decay is accompanied by the separation of building practice and theoretical teachings, the difference in the principles of interior and facade design. Leading architects in their theoretical works still worship antiquity and the rules of the three orders, but in direct architectural practice they deviate from the strict requirements of logical clarity and rationalism, subordination to the private whole, and clear constructiveness. The work of Robert de Cott (1656-1735), successor of Jules Hardouin-Mansart as royal architect (he completed the construction of the chapel of the Palace of Versailles, beautiful in its strict, noble architecture), is a convincing example of this. In the buildings built by him in the 1710s. Parisian mansions (Hotel de Toulouse and Hotel d'Estre) notice the relief of architectural forms, the free development of decor.
The new style, called Rococo or Rocaille, cannot be viewed from only one side, seeing in it only a reactionary and hopeless product of a decadent class. This style reflected not only the hedonistic aspirations of the aristocracy. In Rococo, some of the progressive tendencies of the epoch were also refracted in a peculiar way; hence - the requirements of a freer and more appropriate planning for real life, a more natural and lively development, internal space. The dynamics and lightness of the architectural masses and decor opposed the ponderous pomp of the interior design in the era of the highest power of French absolutism.
At the beginning of the 18th century. the main construction is still carried out by the aristocracy, but its character is changing significantly. The place of manor castles is occupied by city mansions, the so-called hotels. The weakening of absolutism was also reflected in the fact that the nobility left Versailles and settled in the capital. In the green outskirts of Paris - Saint Germain and Saint Oporet - one after another during the first half of the century, luxurious mansion-hotels with extensive gardens and services were built. Unlike the palace buildings of the previous century, which pursue the goals of imposing representativeness and solemn grandeur, in the mansions being created now, much attention is paid to the real convenience of life. The architects are abandoning the chain of large halls, stretching out in a solemn suite, in favor of smaller rooms, located more naturally in accordance with the needs of private life and public representation of the owners. Many tall windows illuminate the interior well.
By their location in the city, hotels of the first half of the 18th century. represented to a large extent still a transitional phenomenon from a country estate to a city house. This is a closed architectural complex, a kind of manor inside the city quarter, connected to the street only by the front gate. The house itself stands in the depths of the site, facing out onto a vast courtyard lined with low office space. The opposite façade faces the regular garden.
In hotels of the first half of the 18th century. most clearly manifested a characteristic contradiction of French architecture of this era - the discrepancy between outdoor architecture and interior decor. The facade of the building, as a rule, retains the traditional order elements, interpreted, however, more freely and lightly. Registration
the same internal premises often completely breaks with the laws of tectonics, merging the wall with the ceiling into an integral shell of internal space that has no definite boundaries. It is no coincidence that such a great role was acquired at this time by decorators, who were able to decorate the interior with amazing subtlety and perfection. The period of early and mature Rococo knows a whole galaxy of masters who created exquisite masterpieces of interior decoration (Gilles Marie Oppenor, 1672-1742; Just Aurel Meissonier, 1693-1750, and others). Often a building was built by one architect and decorated by another. But even when all the work was carried out by one master, his approach to solving the external appearance of the hotel and its internal premises was fundamentally different. One of the most prominent Rococo architects Germaine Beaufrand (1667-1754), in his treatise "Livre d" Architecture "(1745), bluntly said that nowadays interior decoration is a completely separate part of architecture, which does not take into account the decoration of the outer part of the building. In his practice, he consistently carried out this thesis.In the architecture of the Luneville castle, in the hotels in Naisi, built in the 1720s, one can feel the adherence to the traditions of classicism - the central part is clearly distinguished, emphasized by a portico with columns or pilasters. stucco details and comparative lightness of order elements.
Beaufrand decides his interiors in a completely different way. A shining example of this is the interior decor of the Soubise Hotel (1735-1740). Regardless of the appearance of the mansion, which was made by Delamere in 1705-1709. In the classical tradition, Beaufrand gives the hotel rooms the character of elegant bonbonnieres. Carved panels, stucco ornaments, picturesque panels cover the walls and ceiling with a solid carpet. The effect of these exquisitely ornate, whimsically light forms should be particularly impressive in contrast to the more restrained architecture of the façade.
Religious construction during this period was incomparably less important than secular. The buildings of the previous century were mostly completed.
Such is the Church of Saint Roche in Paris, begun by Robert de Cott at the end of the 17th century. and Completed after the death of this architect by his son J.-R. de Cottom.
A more interesting Parisian church Saint-Sulpice, also begun in the 17th century. By the 20s. 18th century the main facade remained unfinished. It was designed by several architects. The project of the famous decorator Meissonier (1726), who tried to transfer the principles of rocaille to outdoor architecture, was rejected. In 1732, another decorator, Jean Nicola Servandoni (1695-1766), won the competition announced for the design of the facade, turning to classical forms in his solution. His idea formed the basis for further construction. The facade of the church is divided into two tiers, each of which has its own order. Towers rise on both sides of the façade.
From the second quarter of the 18th century. the rich commercial cities of the province began to play an increasingly prominent role in French construction. At the same time, the matter was not limited to the construction of individual buildings. The entire system of the old feudal city with chaotic buildings, with an intricate network of streets, included in the tight framework of city fortifications, came into conflict with the new needs of the growing commercial and industrial centers. The preservation of many key positions for absolutism, however, led, at first, to a rather compromise solution of urban planning problems. In many cities, the reconstruction of certain parts of the old city is carried out at the expense of the arrangement of royal squares. The tradition of such squares dates back to the 17th century, when they were created not with the aim of ordering the chaos of a medieval city, but as an open place for the installation of a statue of the king. Now the reason remained, as it were, the same - all that arose in the 18th century. during the period of the monarchy, the squares were called upon to serve for the erection of a monument to the monarch, but the architects themselves pursued much broader urban planning tasks.
One of the first areas of a new type associated with the redevelopment and development of entire city blocks was the square in Bordeaux. Its designer and builder was Jacques Gabriel (1667-1742), a representative of the famous from the 16th century. dynasty of architects, father of the famous architect Jacques Ange Gabriel.
Work on the planning and development of the square began in 1731. The site was allocated for it on the banks of the wide Garonne. The architect has widely and diversified the possibilities of creating a new ensemble, covering a significant part of the city and connecting it with the natural environment.
Jacques Gabriel began his work in Bordeaux with the demolition of old nondescript buildings on the river bank and the construction of a magnificent embankment. The city turned its face to Garonne - its main decoration. This turn was intended to fix both the square, wide open to the river, and the layout of the two streets flowing into the square. Using the planning principle of Versailles, the architect applied it to a new social and artistic organism - the city, solving it on a broader basis. The buildings located on the sides of the square were intended for the trade and economic needs of the city: on the right - the stock exchange, on the left - the building of the tax office. Their architecture is distinguished by restraint and graceful simplicity. The construction of the stock exchange and the central pavilion between the two streets was completed after the death of Jacques Gabriel by his son. A number of the innovative principles of the Bordeaux square - its open character, its appeal to the river, the connection with the city blocks using the rays-streets - Jacques-Ange Gabriel soon developed brilliantly in his work on the Place Louis XV in Paris.
If the ensemble of the square in Bordeaux gave a solution that anticipated many planning principles of the subsequent time, then another remarkable ensemble of the mid-18th century. - a complex of three squares in Nancy, more connected with the past, - as it were, sums up the methods of organizing space of the Baroque Epoch.
Three squares of different outlines - the rectangular Stanislav Square, the long Carriere square and the oval Government square - form a closely united and internally closed organism that exists only in a very relative connection with the city. The oval courtyard of the Government Palace is separated by an arcade from the surrounding area of the city and the park. Active movement from it can, in fact, develop only forward through the boulevard-like Carriere square and the triumphal arch, so that, upon entering Stanislav Square, it immediately turns out to be blocked by the monumental building of the town hall. One gets the impression of two monumental Courdoners spread out in front of magnificent palaces and connected by a straight alley. It is characteristic that the streets overlooking Stanislav Square are separated from it by bars. The ensemble's charm is created by the festive architecture of palaces, amazingly skillfully forged with gilded lattices, fountains at two corners of the square, kept in a single elegant and elegant Rococo tonality. The planner of the area and the architect of the main buildings was Beaufran's student Emmanuel Héré de Corny (1705-1763), who worked mainly in Lorraine. Built in 1752-1755, this complex in its forms and planning principles already looked somewhat anachronistic in comparison with the new movement in architecture that began at the end of the first half of the 18th century.
This movement, the influence of which had already marked the design of the square in Bordeaux, was expressed in the abandonment of the extremes and quirks of Rococo in favor of a more reasonable orderly architecture, in an increased interest in antiquity. The connection between this movement and the strengthening of the positions of the bourgeoisie is beyond doubt.
It was at the turn of the first and second half of the century that the encyclopedists appeared, who put forward the criterion of reason as the only measure of all things. From these positions, the entire feudal society and its offspring, the Rococo style, are criticized, as devoid of logic, rationality, naturalness. Conversely, all these qualities are seen in the architecture of the ancients. During these years, uvrazhi devoted to the monuments of ancient architecture appeared. In 1752, the well-known amateur and philanthropist Count de Cailus begins to publish the work "Collection of Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman antiquities." Two years later, the architect David Leroy travels to Greece and then publishes the title "Ruins of the Most Beautiful Structures of Greece". Among the theorists of architecture, Abbot Laugier stands out, whose "Studies in Architecture" published in 1753 evoked a lively response in wide circles of French society. Speaking from the standpoint of rationalism, he stands for reasonable, that is, natural architecture. The pressure of educational, ultimately democratic ideas was so great that it had an impact on the official artistic circles. The leaders of the artistic policy of absolutism felt the need to oppose something to the positive program of the encyclopedists, their convincing criticism of the illogical and unnatural art of Rococo. The Royal Government and the Academy are taking steps to wrest the initiative from the hands of the Third Estate and to lead the emerging movement themselves. In 1749, a kind of artistic mission was sent to Italy, headed by the brother of the all-powerful favorite of Louis XV, Madame Pompadour, the future Marquis of Marigny, who served as director of royal buildings. He was accompanied by the engraver Cochin and the architect Jacques Germain Soufflot, the future builder of the Parisian Pantheon. The purpose of the trip was to get acquainted with Italian art - this cradle of beauty. They visited the recently begun excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Souflo also studied the ancient monuments of Paestum. This whole trip was a sign of new phenomena in art, and its consequence was a further turn towards classicism and a more acute struggle with the principles of rocaille, even in various forms of decorative arts. At the same time, this journey provides vivid evidence of how differently the appeal to the ancient heritage was understood and what different conclusions were drawn from this by representatives of the ruling class and by the artists themselves. The results of Italian impressions and reflections poured out in Marigny's words: "I do not want neither the present excesses, nor the severity of the ancients - a little bit of that, a little bit different." He adhered to this compromise artistic policy in the future throughout his many years of work as the head of fine arts.
His travel companions, Cochin and Souflo, took a much more progressive and proactive stance. The first published on his return the treatise "Review of the Antiquities of Herculaneum with a few reflections on the painting and sculpture of the ancients" and then led a very sharp struggle in print against the principles of rocaille art, for the severity, purity and clarity of architectural and decorative forms. As for Souflo, his very additional trip to Paestum and the study on the spot of two remarkable monuments of Greek architecture testify to his deep interest in antiquity. In his construction practice, upon his return from Italy, the principles of classicism fully and uncompromisingly triumph.
In this transitional era, the creativity of the most captivating master of French architecture, Jacques Anges Gabriel (1699-1782), took shape and flourished. Gabriel's style seems to meet the requirements of Marigny, but it is an extremely original and organic phenomenon, generated by the natural, "deep" development of French architecture. The master has never been to Italy, let alone Greece. Gabriel's work, as it were, continued and developed the line of French architecture that was outlined in the later buildings of Jules Hardouin-Mansart (Grand Trianon and the Chapel at Versailles), in the eastern facade of the Louvre. At the same time, he also assimilated those progressive tendencies that were contained in Rococo architecture: its closeness to man, intimacy, as well as the exquisite subtlety of decorative details.
Gabriel's participation in the urban planning work of his father in Bordeaux prepared him well for solving ensemble problems that occupied by the middle of the 18th century. an increasingly prominent role in architectural practice. Just at this time, the press is increasing attention to Paris, to the problem of turning it into a city worthy of the name of the capital.
Paris had wonderful monuments of architecture, a number of squares created in the previous century, but they were all separate, self-contained, isolated islands of organized development. In the middle of the 18th century, a square appeared that played a huge role in the formation of the ensemble of the Parisian center - the present Place de la Concorde. It owes its appearance to a whole team of French architects, but its main creator was Jacques-Ange Gabriel.
In 1748, on the initiative of the capital's merchants, the idea of erecting a monument to Louis XV was put forward. The Academy has announced a competition to create an area for this monument. As you can see, the beginning was completely traditional, in the spirit of the 17th century - the square was intended for the statue of the monarch.
As a result of the first competition, none of the projects was chosen, but the place for the square was finally established. After a second competition, held in 1753 only among the members of the Academy, the design and development were entrusted to Gabriel, so that he could take into account other proposals.
The site chosen for the square was a vast wasteland on the banks of the Seine on the then outskirts of Paris, between the garden of the Tuileries Palace and the beginning of the road leading to Versailles. Gabriel has exploited the benefits of this open and coastal location with exceptional fruitfulness and promise. Its area became the axis of the further development of Paris. This became possible due to her versatile orientation. On the one hand, the square is thought of as a vestibule of the Tuileries and Louvre palace complexes: it is not for nothing that three rays provided by Gabriel, provided by Gabriel, lead to it from outside the city - the alleys of the Champs Elysees, the mental point of intersection of which is at the entrance gate of the Tuileries Park. The equestrian monument of Louis XV is oriented in the same direction - facing the palace. At the same time, only one side of the square is architecturally accentuated - parallel to the Seine. It provides for the construction of two majestic administrative buildings, and between them projected the Royal Street, the axis of which is perpendicular to the axis of the Champs Elysees - Tuileries. At the end of it, very soon, the construction of the Madeleine church by the architect Contana d "Ivry begins, with its portico and dome enclosing the perspective. On the sides of his buildings, Gabriel designs two more streets parallel to the Royal. Thus, another possible direction of movement is given, connecting the square with other quarters. growing city.
Gabriel decides the boundaries of the square very wittily and in a completely new way. Building only one of its northern side, putting forward the principle of free development of space, its connection with the natural environment, he at the same time seeks to avoid the impression of its amorphousness and uncertainty. On all four sides, he projects shallow dry ditches, covered with green lawns, bordered by stone balustrades. The gaps between them give an additional clear accent to the beams of the Champs Elysees and the axis of the Rue Royal.
In the appearance of the two buildings that close the northern side of the Concorde Square, the characteristic features of Gabriel's work are well expressed: a clear, calm harmony of the whole and details, the logic of architectural forms that is easily perceived by the eye. The lower tier of the building is heavier and more massive, which is emphasized by the large rustication of the wall; it bears two other tiers, united by Corinthian columns, a motif that goes back to the classical eastern façade of the Louvre.
But Gabriel's main merit lies not so much in the masterful solution of the facades with their slender fluted columns rising above the powerful arcades of the lower floor, but in the specifically ensemble sound of these buildings. Both of these buildings are inconceivable without each other, and without the space of the square, and without a building located at a considerable distance - without the Madeleine Church. Both buildings of the Concorde Square are oriented towards it - it is no coincidence that each of them does not have an accented center and is, as it were, just one of the wings of the whole. Thus, in these buildings, designed in 1753 and beginning to be built in 1757 -1758, Gabriel outlined the principles of volumetric-spatial solutions that would develop during the period of mature classicism.
The gem of French architecture of the 18th century is the Petit Trianon, created by Gabriel at Versailles in 1762-1768. The traditional theme of a country castle is solved here in a completely new way. The small square building faces the space with all four of its facades. There is no such predominant accentuation of the two main facades, which until recently was so characteristic of palaces and estates. Each of the parties has an independent meaning, which is reflected in their different solutions. And at the same time, this difference is not cardinal - it is, as it were, variations of one theme. The facade facing the open space of the parterre, perceived from the farthest distance, is interpreted in the most plastic way. Four additional columns connecting both floors form a kind of slightly protruding portico. A similar motive, but in a modified form - the columns are replaced by pilasters - sounds in two adjacent sides, but each time is different, since due to the difference in levels in one case, the building has two floors, in the other - three. The fourth facade, facing the thickets of the landscape park, is quite simple - the wall is dissected only by rectangular windows of different sizes in each of the three tiers. This is how Gabrielle achieves an amazing richness and richness of impressions with meager means. Beauty is drawn from the harmony of simple, easily perceived forms, from the clarity of proportional relationships.
The interior layout is also designed with great simplicity and clarity. The palace consists of a number of small rectangular rooms, the decoration of which, built on the use of straight lines, light cold colors, and the parsimony of plastic means, corresponds to the graceful restraint and noble grace of the outer appearance.
Gabriel's work was a transitional link between the architecture of the first and second half of the 18th century.
In the buildings of the 1760-1780s. the younger generation of architects is already forming a new stage of classicism. It is characterized by a decisive turn towards antiquity, which has become not only the inspirer of artists, but also a treasury of the forms they use. Requirements for the rationality of an architectural work go as far as rejecting decorative ornaments. The principle of utilitarianism is put forward, which is linked together with the principle of the naturalness of the building, the model of which is the ancient structures, as natural as utilitarian, all forms of which are dictated by reasonable necessity. The column, entablature, pediment, which have become the main means of expressing the architectural image, return to their constructive, functional meaning. Accordingly, the scale of order divisions is enlarged. Park construction is characterized by the same striving for naturalness. Related to this is the rejection of the regular, "artificial" park and the flourishing of the landscape garden.
A characteristic phenomenon of the architecture of these pre-revolutionary decades is the predominance of public buildings in the construction. It is in public buildings that the principles of new architecture are most clearly expressed. And it is very significant that one of the outstanding architectural works of this period - the Pantheon - very soon turned from a building of cult purpose into a public monument. Its construction was conceived by Louis XV as the church of the patroness of Paris - St. Genevieve, the place where her relics are kept. The development of the project was entrusted in 1755 to Jacques Germain Souflot (1713-1780), who had just recently returned from a trip to Italy. The architect understood his task much broader than his client. He presented a plan that provided, in addition to the church, a vast area with two public buildings - the faculties of law and theology. In the further work of Souflo, he had to abandon this plan and limit his task to the construction of a church, the whole appearance of which testifies, however, to the fact that the architect thought of it as a construction of a great public sound. The building, which is cruciform in plan, is crowned with a grandiose dome on a drum surrounded by columns. The main facade is emphasized by a powerful deep six-column portico with a pediment. All other parts of the wall were left completely blank, without openings. The clear logic of architectural forms is clearly perceived at the first glance. Nothing mystical and irrational - everything is reasonable, strict and simple. The same clarity and strict consistency are characteristic of the spatial solution of the temple interior. The rationalism of the artistic image, expressed so solemnly and monumental, turned out to be extremely close to the attitude of the revolutionary years, and the newly finished church was turned in 1791 into a monument to the great people of France.
Of the public buildings built in Paris in the pre-revolutionary decades, the Surgical School of Jacques Honduin (1737-1818) stands out. The project, on which he began to work in 1769, was distinguished by a great breadth of design, which is generally a characteristic feature of the architecture of these years. Along with this building, Gondouen conceived the restructuring of the entire quarter. And although Honduin's plan was not fully implemented, the building of the School of Surgery itself, completed in 1786, was decided on a grand scale. It is a vast two-storey building with a large courtyard. The center of the building is marked by an imposing portico. The most interesting part of the interior is the large semicircular hall of the anatomical theater with benches rising like an amphitheater and a captive vault - a kind of combination of half of the Roman Pantheon with the Colosseum.
The theater became a new widespread type of public building during this period. And in the capital and in many provincial cities, theater buildings are growing one after another, conceived by their appearance as an important part in the architectural ensemble of the urban public center. One of the most beautiful and significant buildings of this kind is the theater in Bordeaux, built in 1775-1780. architect Victor Louis (1731-1807). A massive volume of rectangular outlines is set in an open area of the square. The twelve-column portico adorns one of the narrow sides of the theater building, imparting a solemn representativeness to its main entrance facade. Statues of muses and goddesses are installed on the entablature of the portico, defining the purpose of the building. The main staircase of the theater, at first one-marching, then dismembered into two sleeves leading in opposite directions, served as a model for many later French theater buildings. The simple, clear and solemn architecture of the theater in Bordeaux, the clear functional solution of its interior space make this building one of the most valuable monuments of French classicism.
In the years under consideration, the activities of a number of architects began, whose work as a whole already belonged to the next period of French Architecture, inspired by the ideas of the revolution. In some projects and buildings, those methods and forms are already outlined that will become characteristic features of the new stage of classicism associated with the revolutionary era.
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12-49. French architecture of the 17th century. Urban growth. Gardens and parks. The heyday of classicism. Works by Levo, Mansara. Ensembles of Versailles. Parisian squares.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 5e6669; background: #ffffff "> The 17th century is one of the brightest eras in the development of Western European artistic culture. European countries - Italy, Spain, Flanders, Holland, France. I'll tell you about France
; text-decoration: underline; color: # ff0000 "> Urban growth
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 5e6669; background: #ffffff "> The architecture of French classicism of the 17th century was characterized by consistency and balance of compositions, clarity of straight lines, geometric correctness of plans and strict proportions.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 5e6669 "> Construction and control are concentrated in the hands of the state. A new position of" architect of the king "and" first architect "is introduced. Huge funds are spent on construction. Government agencies control construction not only in Paris but also in the provinces. Urban planning is widely deployed throughout the country. New cities arise as settlements near the palaces and castles of the kings and rulers of France. In most cases, new cities are designed in the form of a square or rectangle in the plan or in the form of more complex shapes - five, six, eight, etc. squares formed by defensive walls, moats, bastions and towers. Inside them, a strictly regular rectangular or radial-ring system of streets with a city square in the center is planned. Anrishmon, Marle, Richelieu, etc.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 5e6669 "> Reconstruction of old medieval towns is underway based on new principles of regular planning. Straight highways are being laid, urban ensembles and geometrically correct squares are being erected in place of the disorderly network of medieval streets.
However, during the years of the French Revolution, steps were taken that played a significant role in the history of architecture. In 1794, the Commission of Artists was formed, which was engaged in the improvement of the city, and also planned changes in its appearance. These plans influenced the subsequent urban planning transformations in Paris, which were already implemented in the Napoleonic era.
; text-decoration: underline; color: # ff0000 "> Parisian squares
; color: # ff0000 "> 1) ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 258fcc "> Place Vendôme
R ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> Located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, the octagonal Place Vendome was named after the son of Henry IV and his favorite Duchess de Beaufort, Duke of Vendome, whose mansion was nearby.
NS ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> the horse was designed by an architect; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> Jules Hardouin-Mansart; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 ">; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> and was built in 1699-1701 according to the classical" royal "scheme: houses with elegant facades form a closed space, in the center of which is an equestrian monument to Louis XIV. Unfortunately, the monument like many other symbols of the monarchy, it was destroyed during the French Revolution.
NS ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> During the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, a bronze column was erected in the center of Place Vendome, made (1806-1810) by architects Jacques Gondouin and Jean Baptiste Leper. The 44-meter column was cast from Austrian and Russian cannons, and Trajan's Roman column served as a model for the Vendôme Column.
V ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> the Andomian column is decorated with a spiral bas-relief depicting Napoleon's victories and topped with a statue of the emperor (sculptor Antoine-Denis Chodet). In 1814, Napoleon's figure was replaced by the white flag of the Bourbon dynasty, and the sculpture itself was later melted down.
V ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> In 1833, a new statue of Napoleon was erected on top of the column by order of Louis Philippe I. And a little later, by order of Napoleon III, who feared that the statue would suffer from bad weather conditions , in the 1850s, the sculpture was exhibited in the House of Invalides, and on the column it was replaced by a copy.
V ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> during the Paris Commune in 1871, the Vendome Column was dismantled - a member of the Central Committee, artist Gustave Courbet, insisted on this. the defeat of the Paris Commune, the Vendôme column was restored and crowned with another copy of the statue of Napoleon (Gustave Courbet was obliged to pay all the expenses).
H ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> Since the time of the Second Empire, the houses on the Place Vendome are occupied by the most luxurious boutiques and famous jewelry houses, including Chanel and Cartier. the Ritz hotel, the creator of which - Cesar Ritz - offered its guests an interior and comfort worthy of the representatives of royal blood. Scott Fitzgerald and many others.
; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 258fcc "> 2) Charles de Gaulle Square or Star Square
O ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> the bottom of the busiest squares in the French capital - Place Charles de Gaulle (also known as Place de la Star) - is located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, at the top of the Chaillot hill.
NS ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> The appearance of the square was not included in any urban development project, but the erection of the Tuileries Palace and the garden of the same name required a decent decoration of the residence of the kings. Therefore, the famous landscape architect of the 17th century Andre Le Nôtre right up to the Chaillot hill paved an avenue (now the famous Champs Elysees), which ended in a round square, and 5 new roads diverged from it in different directions - it was from here that the square was originally called the Place of the Stars. more like a fork in the road than a square.
WITH ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> In 1836, the square is decorated with the majestic Arc de Triomphe, erected in its very center by order of Napoleon Bonaparte and glorifying the military victories of France.
O ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> the final appearance of the square was formed only in 1854, when, according to the plan of the prefect of Paris, Baron Haussmann, 7 more streets were added to the square, and then there were 12 avenues-rays. The most famous and wide of them - the Champs Elysees, connecting the Place de l'Estre with the Place de la Concorde.
V ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> In 1970, the Place de Zvezda was officially renamed: in honor of the first president of the Fifth Republic, it became known as the Place Charles de Gaulle, but Parisians often continue to use the old name.
; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 258fcc "> 3) Concord Square
; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> The central square of Paris - Place de la Concorde - is a magnificent creation of the era of classicism and is rightfully considered one of the most beautiful in the world.
; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> The architectural project of the future square, the place for which the square was chosen by Louis XV himself, was completed in 1757. The construction was completed only in 1779, and in the very center of the new square, originally called the Royal, installed an equestrian statue by the sculptors E. Bouchardon and J.-B. Pigalle.
; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> During the French Revolution, it was decided to rename the square to the Revolution Square, and to demolish the equestrian monument. A guillotine was placed here, on which Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, L A. Saint-Just, C. Corday, J.J. Danton, C. Desmoulins and M. Robespierre More than a thousand executions were carried out.
; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> In 1795, as a sign of the reconciliation of the estates after the end of the revolutionary events, the square was renamed again - this time in the Place de la Concorde.
; font-family: "Verdana"; color: # 000000; background: #ffffff "> An ancient Egyptian obelisk (Luxor obelisk), two fountains, equestrian groups and marble statues depicting cities of France appeared under Louis-Philippe. In 1835 the architect Gittorf completed the design of the square, observing the principles of Gabriel's planning: it is not built up around the perimeter of houses, thanks to which wide perspectives open up from any point of the square.
; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 258fcc "> 4) Pyramids Square
R ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> Located opposite the entrance to the Tuileries Gardens, the Pyramids Square got its name in memory of Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt.
NS ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> where the square was occupied by the Equestrian Academy, which was run by the personal groom of three monarchs - Henry III, Henry IV and Louis XIII - Antoine de Pluvenel.
V ; font-family: "Helvetica"; color: # 292929 "> in the center of the square is the equestrian statue of Jeanne D" Arc, made by the sculptor Emmanuel Fremier. The monument was commissioned by the republican government back in 1870 after the fall of the Second Empire and was installed in the square in 1874 - not far from the place where Jeanne D "Arc was wounded in 1429 during the siege of Paris.
More squares of paris:
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Greve Square
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Pigalle
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Place de la Bastille
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Victory Square
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Place des Vosges
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Republic Square
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Tertre Square
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Châtelet Square
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Place Saint-Michel
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Nation Square
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Place de Madeleine
; text-decoration: underline; color: # ff0000 "> Rise of classicism. Works by Levo, Mansart. Ensembles of Versailles
; color: # 000000; background: #ffffff "> The deepest reflection of the essential features of the era manifested itself in France in forms and progressive trends - in the art of classicism.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 5e6669; background: #ffffff "> Classicism- Stylistic trend in European art, the most important feature of which was the appeal to ancient art as a standard and reliance on the traditions of the High Renaissance.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000; background: #ffffff "> The second half of the 17th century was the time of the heyday of French classicism architecture.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000; background: #ffffff "> The organization of the Academy of Architecture, whose director was the prominent architect and theorist François Blondel (1617-1686), had a great influence on the development of architecture. French architects L. Briand, J. Guittard, A. Le Nôtre, L. Levaud, P. Miyan, etc. The task of the Academy was to develop the basic aesthetic norms and criteria of the architecture of classicism, which were to be guided by the architects.; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Features of the architecture of the middle and second half of the 17th century are reflected in the huge volume of construction of large ceremonial ensembles designed to exalt and glorify the ruling classes of the era of absolutism and the powerful monarch - the sun king Louis XIV and in the improvement and development of the artistic principles of classicism.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> In the second half of the 17th century, a more consistent application of the classical order system is observed: horizontal divisions prevail over vertical ones; high separate roofs constantly disappear and are replaced by a single roof, often masked by a balustrade; volumetric composition the building becomes simpler, more compact, corresponding to the location and size of the interior.
; color: # 000000; background: #ffffff "> Representatives of classicism found the embodiment of their social ideals in Ancient Greece and Republican Rome, just as ancient art was the embodiment of aesthetic norms for them.
; color: # 000000; background: #ffffff "> The main stylistic features of the architecture of classicism on the example of the Palace of Versailles.
; color: # 000000; background: #ffffff "> Only under the conditions of a powerful centralized monarchy was it possible at that time to create huge urban and palace ensembles made according to a single plan, designed to embody the idea of the power of an absolute monarch. It is no coincidence that the flourishing of French architecture Classicism dates back to the second half of the 17th century, when the centralization of absolutist power reached its peak.Progressive tendencies in the architecture of French classicism of the 17th century are fully and comprehensively developed in the ensemble of Versailles (1668-1689), grandiose in scale, boldness and breadth of artistic design.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 333333; background: #ffffff "> The peak of the development of classicism in French architecture of the 17th century was the Versailles palace and park ensemble - a grandiose ceremonial residence of French kings, erected near Paris. The history of Versailles begins in 1623 from a very modest hunting castle, like a feudal one, built at the request of Louis XIII from brick, stone and roofing slate The second stage of construction (1661-68) is associated with the names of the greatest masters - the architect; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 6699cc; background: #ffffff "> Louis Levo; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 333333; background: #ffffff "> (c. 1612-70) and the famous garden and park decorator; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 6699cc; background: #ffffff "> André Le Nôtre; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 333333; background: #ffffff "> (1613-1700). Modifying and expanding the original modest castle, Levo creates an Imaginative composition with an imposing façade overlooking the park. Le Nôtre works. A colossal order, which has long belonged to the typical and favorite means of Levo, is placed on the ground floor.; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 6699cc; background: #ffffff "> Mirror Gallery; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 333333; background: #ffffff ">. As a result of the second construction cycle, Versailles was formed into an integral palace and park ensemble, which was a wonderful example of the synthesis of arts - architecture, sculpture and garden and park art . In 1678-89 the ensemble of Versailles was rebuilt, under the leadership of the greatest architect of the end of the century; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 6699cc; background: #ffffff "> Jules Hardouin-Mansart; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 333333; background: #ffffff "> (1b4b — 1708). Arduin-Mansart further enlarged the palace by erecting two wings, each five hundred meters long, at right angles to the southern and northern facades Above the Leveaux terrace, Hardouin-Mansart added two more floors, creating the famous; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 6699cc; background: #ffffff "> Mirror Gallery; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 333333; background: #ffffff ">, enclosed by the halls of War and Peace (1680-86). Arduin-Mansart also built two corps of Ministers (1671-81), which formed the so-called "Courtyard of Ministers", and connected these buildings with a rich gilded lattice. The architect designed all the buildings in the same style. The facades of the buildings were divided into three tiers. The lower one, modeled on the Italian Renaissance palazzo, is decorated with rustic wood, the middle, the largest, is filled with high arched windows. , between which columns and pilasters are located.The upper tier is shortened, it ends with a balustrade (a fence consisting of a row of figured posts connected by handrails) and sculptural groups that create a feeling of lush decoration, although all the facades have a strict appearance. All this completely changed the appearance of the structure , although Arduin-Mansart left the same height of the building. Gone are contrasts, freedom of imagination, nothing remains, except for an extended horizontal line of a three-storey building, united in the structure of its facades hells with a basement, front and attic floors. The impression of grandeur that this brilliant architecture produces is achieved by the large scale of the whole, the simple and calm rhythm of the entire composition. Arduin-Mansart was able to combine various elements into a single artistic whole. He had an amazing sense of ensemble, striving for rigor in decoration. For example, in; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 6699cc; background: #ffffff "> Mirror Gallery; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 333333; background: #ffffff "> he applied a single architectural motif - a uniform alternation of walls with openings. This classic basis creates a sense of clear form. Thanks to Arduin-Mansard, the expansion of the Palace of Versailles acquired a natural character The annexes received a strong relationship with the central buildings.The ensemble, outstanding for its architectural and artistic qualities, was successfully completed and had a great influence on the development of world architecture.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> One of the works of architecture of the second half of the 17th century, in which the predominance of mature artistic principles of classicism is already clearly felt, is the suburban ensemble of the palace and park Vaux-le-Vicomte near Melin (1655 -1661).
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> The creators of this outstanding work, built for the Comptroller General of Finance Fouquet, were the architect Louis Leveaux (c. 1612-1670), master of landscape art André Le Nôtre, who planned the park of the palace , and the painter Charles Lebrun, who took part in the decoration of the interiors of the palace and the painting of the plafonds.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> In the structure and appearance of the building, as well as in the composition of the ensemble as a whole, there is undoubtedly a more consistent application of classicist architectural principles.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> This is manifested primarily in the logical and strictly calculated planning solution of the palace and park as a whole. The large oval-shaped salon, which forms the central link of the suite of ceremonial rooms, has become a compositional center not only the palace, but also the ensemble as a whole, since its position at the intersection of the main planning axes of the ensemble (the main park alley going from the palace and the transverse ones coinciding with the longitudinal axis of the building) makes it the "focal point" of the entire complex.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> Thus, the building of the palace and the park are subject to a strictly centralized compositional principle, which allows bringing various elements of the ensemble to artistic unity and highlighting the palace as the main component of the ensemble.
; font-family: "Arial"; color: # 000000 "> The composition of the palace is characterized by the unity of the interior space and volume of the building, which distinguishes the works of mature classicist architecture. the calmness of the silhouette of the building The introduction of a large order of pilasters, covering two floors above the basement, and a powerful horizontal line of a smooth, straight-line classical entablature, predominance of horizontal divisions over vertical ones is achieved in the facades, the integrity of order facades and volumetric composition is not characteristic of castles of an earlier period. gives the appearance of the palace monumental representativeness and splendor.
MAIN STAGES OF A NEW ART
Let's return to French architecture at the end of the 16th century, at the time of the end of the religious wars. Architecture is going through all the vicissitudes of a period of returning to peace and prosperity: it is modest and calculating after the wars of the League, wasteful under Richelieu, majestic and solemn to the point of excessiveness under Louis XIV, cold and stern on the eve of the revolution. Let us consider sequentially the means that she used either separately or simultaneously.
FRENCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE XVII CENTURY
Stone and brick architecture and its forms
Combination of brick and stone.- Under Henry IV, decorative effects are often achieved by such constructive techniques in which color contrasts give, at low cost, facades of a lively and varied appearance; this is the design of the walls in the form of a frame made of hewn stones filled with rough masonry.
The surface of the filling is covered with colored plaster: according to the tradition, coming from the early Renaissance, the framing of the openings is connected across all floors ( rice. 437), forming long white stripes from the basement to the lucarne, which stand out against the red background of the walls and against the blue background of the slate roofs.
Always using simple means, this architecture strives at the same time to color contrasts and to clear contours, to patterned outlines of roofs and lucarnes; she makes little use of profiling and completely avoids small details: there are only contours and a play of colors.
The earliest monuments of this style include Mayenne palace on rue Saint-Antoine dating back to the era of Henry III.
Then follow: under Henry IV the palace of the cardinal of Bourbon in the abbey of Saint-Germain de Pré, buildings on the Place Dauphin and on the Place des Vosges ( rice. 437); under Louis XIII - the main nucleus of the Palace of Versailles; one of the more recent examples of this style is Mazarin palace(National Library), built by François Mansart in the minority of Louis XIV. To the same architecture belongs Rambouillet palace.
Application in stone architecture of forms that have arisen from a combination of stone and brick.- The previous group, as a derivative of it, includes a whole series of buildings built entirely of stone, but borrowing the decoration from the mixed structure we have just described.
As examples of this peculiar transfer of forms, we cite: under Louis XIII - Sully palace on rue Saint-Antoine built J. Ducereau, Sorbonne and Cardinal palace built Lemercier; at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV - Palace d "Omon on Rui Street built Fr. Mansar.
Decorating with orders
The brick and stone architecture, clearly imbued with a desire for economy, is best suited for buildings that require nothing but graceful simplicity. For monumental structures, they resort to order decorations, and in France, as in Italy, they hesitate between two decisions: whether to make these decorations in accordance with the scale of the entire facade, or on the scale of only the floor that they decorate. Hence, there are two trends in the order architecture, which we will trace below.
Decorations linked to the scale of the floors.- When the decoration is tied to the scale of the floors, usually different orders are placed on each floor; such are the buildings of Tanle (department of Ionna), erected at the end of the reign of Henry IV.
Under Louis XIII, the tradition of using small orders was continued by S. de Brosse in Luxembourg Palace and on the facade Saint-Gervais.
Using the same method builds Lemercier central pavilion in Louvre courtyard and in the palace Liancourt(rice, 438) - his main work, from which only one drawings have come down to us.
Early reign of Louis XIV Lepotre applies the same decoration method during Beauvais palace(François Miron street); we meet in the same way in the castle Bussy Rabutin(Côte d'Or); the last representative of this system was Fr. Mansar (Castle Mason, pavilion of Gaston d'Orléans in Blois).
The least successful system of small orders was at the beginning of the 17th century. In the Thorpanne Palace, an attempt was made to find a compromise solution: to preserve the entablature and destroy the pilasters or replace them with pillars.
During the entire reign of Henry IV, we meet only one frank application of the traditional system - the Louvre gallery ( rice. 439). This beautiful composition gives us an idea of the flexibility that art still retained. The lower floor was built earlier (it dates back to the era of Catherine de Medici), and it had to be coordinated with the wing of the palace, the cornice of which was at the M level; this transition is provided by the mezzanine MN.
Now consider the opposite system.
Decorating with a colossal order.- Among the first buildings where several floors were combined into one large order of pilasters, we already called the wing chantilly castle dating back to the era of Henry II.
We provide a fragment of the facade ( rice. 440, C). He clearly shows the difficulties that are associated with this system. The entablatures reach exorbitant proportions to maintain proportionality with the pilasters; the windows are lost and, as it were, faded away. For the sake of the entablature, they make concessions to classical proportions, but in order not to deprive the windows of their value, they capture a part of the roof with them, turning them into a kind of lucarnes, not connected either with the facade or with the roof; sometimes they even try to cover the windows of two floors with one frame, as if simulating one common opening.
Thanks to all these compromises, the colossal warrant becomes one of the most common elements of French architecture. We meet him during the reign of Henry III. Diane de France palace(Pave Street, in the Marais); under Henry IV it was used in the gallery connecting the Louvre with the Tuileries (Fig. 440, L); built during the time of Louis XIII palace of the duchess of savoy(rue Garancière) is an example of Ionian pilasters drastically going out of scale. Dorian pilasters of more modest size adorn the Palace of Versailles.
By the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV, the tendency towards large orders was becoming more and more decisive. They find in them that greatness that meets the new claims of the monarchy. To the left and Dorbe they are used in the old southern facade of the Louvre, in the castle of Vaud, in the College of the Four Nations (Institute); Lemue uses this ceremonial uniform for d'Avo palace(Temple Street); Fr. Mansart applies it on the main façade monastery of Minims in the Saint Antoine suburb.
Subsequently, Perrault, in 1670, borrowed a colossal order as a theme for his Louvre Colonnade, and in the 18th century. Gabriel will repeat this order in the palaces in the Place de la Concorde.
Processing of facades with rustic materials and panels
Rustic processing.- We have already pointed out the consequences that follow from the use of a colossal order: the need for huge cornices and the need to excessively increase the openings. It is possible to preserve to some extent the grandeur that gives the architectural composition an order that rises from the very base of the building, if you replace the pilasters with rusticated blades. At the same time, the costs are reduced, and at the same time, since the forms of the order become, as it were, implicit, the requirements for proportions become less imperative, which makes it possible to limit both the value of entablatures and the size of the windows.
The division of the facades with rusticated blades instead of pilasters was applied by Lemercier in the reign of Louis XIII century Richelieu castle and at the Cardinal Palace; under Louis XIV, these techniques were used L. Bruan- for processing facades Homes for the disabled, Fr. Mansar - for Val de Grae, Perrault - for the northern ledge of the Louvre.
Decorating by means of panels.“Architecture doesn't stop on this path to simplification. In the end, these rusticated scapulae are also destroyed; the entablature crowning the façade rests on bare walls, barely decorated with frames that outline the boundaries of the intermediate panels.
The courtyard of the House of Invalids is an excellent example of such facades, where only cornice profiles and blades remained from the orders. In the same spirit, Perrault decorates Observatory, Fr. Blondel is the gate of Saint-Denis, Bullet is the gate of Saint-Martin.
FRENCH ARCHITECTURE OF THE LATE XVII AND XVIII CENTURIES
Official style.- In the last third of the 17th century. taste depletion begins, the onset of decline is felt. To prevent it, Colbert founded the Academy of Architecture in 1671 and instructed it to fill in the gaps in craft apprenticeship by teaching theory. He sends architects to Rome to draw inspiration there, orders the publication of works on the monuments of classical antiquity, tries to revive art by elevating the position of its masters. But the decrepit art is powerless to rise and rejuvenate. Generation Lemercier and Fr. Mansara is dying out; the next generation still creates several works worthy of the previous period, but in general the style becomes flabby, the performance is mediocre.
Striving for the false ideal of nobility, they stop, following the example of the Italians, at monotonous facades that repeat the same motives throughout - and this cold symmetry conceals the arrangement of parts of the building so much that chapels and chapels are located behind the same facade. stairs, and even baths; even the roofs are masked. The main desire is not to reveal anything from the outside that would remind of the material needs of life.
It is this kind of architecture, as if created not for mere mortals, that the king likes. Jules Hardouin-Mansart fully applied it to the Palace of Versailles ( rice. 441, A); the façade, which clearly reveals all these tendencies, dates back to 1675. High art traditions and the decline of the 18th century. - The last years of the 17th century. marked by a return to more varied forms; then the style of Hardouin-Mansart acquires great flexibility, this, perhaps, should be attributed to the collaboration with other architects, among whom Saint-Simon names Lassurance.
Be that as it may, but before the death of Hardouin-Mansart (1708), there seems to be some revival: he ends his activity with two masterpieces - the House of
valid and the Versailles Chapel. The calamities of the end of the reign of Louis XIV hold back this revival, and it resolutely resumes only after the establishment of the Regency. From this moment, there are, so to speak, two architectures: one continues the strict traditions of the previous period, the other embarks on the path of refined grace, which very truthfully reflects the sophistication of its contemporary society.
The style of the new school, the “rococo” genre, was established only by 1730 and found the main exponent in the person of Boffran; the style of the classical school has its representatives successively Gabriel, Soufflot, and finally Louis and Antoine.
During the entire second half of the reign of Louis XV, both schools exist completely independently: while the palaces of Nancy are overloaded with Rococo decorations, the Place de la Concorde is distinguished by the majestic dignity and grandeur of its magnificent outlines ( rice. 441, B, 1750) A disorderly school of the middle of the 18th century. fizzles out by the time of Louis XVI: the philosophical movement directs the minds towards antiquity. Tastes completely change, and even the school of Gabriel and Soufflot is trying to surpass in purity of forms. With the approach of the revolution, they fall into dryness, and together with the revolution a crisis of art begins, a way out of which is barely outlined only in our era.
GENERAL STATE OF ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE IN THE XVII AND XVIII CENTURIES
In the 17th and 18th centuries. Europe is influenced partly by modern Italy, partly by France. In general, French influences predominate; for example, French architects erect most of their palaces for the German princes: in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, and Mannheim.
Inigo Jones, from which classical architecture in England begins, apparently developed his own style through direct study of the monuments of Italy and founded a school, which he continued in the 18th century. came Chambers, the builder of Somerset Palace.
Wren (S. Wren), the architect of the Cathedral of St. Paul in London, adjacent to the school that created the House of Invalids in France; the Cathedral of St. Paul, in turn, served as the main model for America in the construction of the Capitol in Washington.
In Russia in the 18th century. mainly Italian influence is manifested - in the palaces of St. Petersburg.
As for Italian art, the echo of which is represented by all modern architectural schools, its last creations were: Bernini's colonnade in St. Petra, a majestic, but not austere facade, given by the architect Al. Galilee of the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano, and the cold edifices of Vanvitelli in Caserta.
Auguste Choisy. History of architecture. Auguste Choisy. Histoire De L "Architecture