{"id":36886,"date":"2013-01-30T22:43:59","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T02:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=36886"},"modified":"2020-05-12T19:09:44","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T23:09:44","slug":"scenes-from-versailles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=36886","title":{"rendered":"scenes from Versailles"},"content":{"rendered":"

As promised, photos of the gardens of Versailles, the apogee of the French formal garden style, designed by landscape architect Andre Le Notre for King Louis XIV of France (September 5, 1638 \u2013 September 1, 1715). With itinerant photographer MB Maher<\/a> in town briefly for a friend’s wedding, I was able to shake his coat upside down and turn the pockets out for photos from his recent travels. He’s already back to England, then again to France, so do contact him here<\/a> for any inquiries or just to chat about projects, or if even just for a drink in the local tavern, where he’ll probably leap over the bar and take over mixology duties. He’s an omnivorous fellow interested in just about everything.<\/p>\n

Ready for a stroll? Properly attired, bewigged, perfumed, and powdered? Ladies should be outfitted something like this, give or take a few decades in the evolution of costume:<\/p>\n

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\nGlenn Close, Dangerous Liaisons<\/em>, image found here<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n

Cue the rustle of satin and taffeta swishing over gravel walkways, the whispered plans for afternoon trysts, the rhythmic, metallic clipping and snipping by fleets of gardeners as they maintain the miles of hedges and topiary (presaging a somewhat more reactionary use of sharp cutting instruments to be used upon Louis XIV’s descendants).<\/p>\n

Prepare to be awed at what the Sun King has wrought.<\/p>\n

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“By the beginning of the seventeenth century, with a Medici as Queen of France, the royal palace gardens in Paris were largely Italian in plan<\/em>.”
\n— Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening<\/p>\n

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“Sheer scale alone made his [Le Notre’s] work revolutionary…<\/em>”
\n— Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening<\/p>\n

\"when<\/p>\n

“He always deliberately pushed back the planting from the building…He took the Italian principle of an axial plan and used it to the limit, with a vast clearing as the main axis, walled with trees in perfect symmetry<\/em>.”
\n— Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening<\/p>\n

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Le Notre: “I cannot abide a limit to a view<\/em>.”
\n— Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening<\/p>\n

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“[I]t is interesting to note that the great straight avenues were intended not for dull, fatiguing walks but, as the king showed in his directions, for those crossing them to fully comprehend the dimensions of man’s mastery over nature<\/em>.”
\n— Matteo and Virgilio Vercelloni, Inventing the Garden<\/p>\n

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“Louis XIV was a hydromaniac, if there is such a thing. Never were fountains so many, so massive, or so marvelous. There was never enough water for the King’s desires. Thousands of troops were added to the builders labouring on endless aquedacts to bring more<\/em>.”
\n— Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening<\/p>\n

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“But as time went by the fashion did begin to shift away from a sense of total contro<\/em>l.”
\n— Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening<\/p>\n

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“Designed for a man who already ruled a nation and thought he ruled the world, the park at Versailles was a metaphor for his dominion over nature as well. It was the greatest work, in terms of both quality and quantity, of garden architect Andre Le Notre…who worked for both Louis XIII and Louis XIV, came from a family of gardeners and was the fountainhead of French garden design<\/em>.”
\n— Matteo and Virgilio Vercelloni, Inventing the Garden<\/p>\n

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“It manages to be a great work of art, built with overweening pride and callous brutality, yet with extraordinary imagination and love<\/em>.”
\n— Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening<\/p>\n

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As promised, photos of the gardens of Versailles, the apogee of the French formal garden style, designed by landscape architect Andre Le Notre for King Louis XIV of France (September 5, 1638 \u2013 September 1, 1715). With itinerant photographer MB … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[551,850,112,30],"tags":[2611,1589,2614,2617,2613,2610,1592,2615,2609,2612],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-9AW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36886"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36886"}],"version-history":[{"count":105,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95207,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36886\/revisions\/95207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}