Introduction
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| Portrait of a young Louis XIV, by Charles Le Brun |
For this blog post, I choose to introduce The Palace of Versailles which could be seen discussed as a topic in Chapter 15. To accompany, I have selected a JSTOR article called "Classical, Baroque: Versailles, or the Architecture of the Prince" by Louis Marin and Anna Lehman to support my view and ideas about The Palace of Versailles. The main idea of this article the Palace's relationship to Baroque elements and also Louis XIV. Here is the King and Palace describe by the article, "In a sense, his function as King found its fulfillment, its monarchal dignity, its privileged manifestation, in the edification of the palace; the King is an arch-architect, the arichitectural Subject of Versailles through which the Kingdom receives its most perfect consecration."(Classical 2) This is pretty important because we know that through this monumental achievement, King Louis XIV is a big contributor to the Baroque art.
Article vs. Chapter 15
From both the perspective of the JSTOR article and Chapter 15. Something that I learned from article and was not in the Chapter 15 of Cunningham's text was the power presented by the Palace, "We see here the production of the symbolic place of power, of State power, of absolute power through the appropriation, by means of the gaze of universal space to this place."(Classical 14) In exchange, something that I learned from Chapter 15 that was not in the JSTOR article I have selected was the description about the Hall of Mirrors, "Thus, each morning the king would rise from his bed, make his way past the assembled court through the Hall of Mirrors, where the seventeen hug mirrors reflected the daylight and his splendor."(Cunningham 370) What we see is that both sources do suggest that Louis XVI is a very artistic king that display his power with this elegant palace. Here is a video on tour inside the palace.
Tour of Versailles 4K - Palace of Versailles - Youtube - by Alessio Viviani
Why I Selected This Article
The reason that I have selected this article and this topic is because that I'm always intrigued by such architectural achievement. This palace is also worth attention to as it represent the peak of the Baroque art, "Nothing is left to chance, whether it be the architecture of the buildings and gardens or the ornamentation. The principle that rules them, the norm of their visibility and of their legibility is the king in his device. His body and type is the sun and the soul, the very legend of the incomparable absolute, nec pluribus imper."(Classical 15) Yes, and it also represented the power of Louis XIV as the Sun-King, an magnificent which also reminded me of Ramesses II(Ozymandias) of Egypt.
Works Cited
Marin, Louis, and Anna Lehman. “Classical, Baroque: Versailles, or the Architecture of the Prince.” Yale French Studies, no. 80, 1991, pp. 167–182. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2930266. Accessed 17 May 2021.
Reich, John J, and Cunningham, Lawrence. “Culture and Values. Volume 2.” Belmont, Calif., Wadsworth; Andover, 2013.Accessed 17 May 2021.
“Tour of Versailles 4K - Palace of Versailles.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdYeG4eZNpQ. Accessed 17 May 2021.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Louis XIV.” Wikipedia, 25 Aug. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV. Accessed 17 May 2021.
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