Text IV. The first palaces

No absolute ruler wanted to do without the suitable architectural expression of his importance. Magni­ficent palaces were required to shore up a monarch's claim to validity in an appropriate fashion through­out Europe. The prototype of the absolute ruler, Louis XIV, reigned in splendor in his monumental palace at Versailles just outside Paris. All its sur­roundings, the town as well as the countryside, were oriented towards the palace. Soon similar palaces appeared in Vienna and Madrid, Turin and Potsdam, where Baroque palace complexes grew up following the style of Versailles. They wanted to catch up with the French model, sometimes even imitating the scale of the building project. Palace building was, after the impressive churches and monasteries of the Baroque period, the most important architectural task of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Up until that time the royal residence had been the castle. Throughout the Middle Ages, castle complexes had also always been defensive buildings with massive masonry and battlements. Gradually these two architectural tasks developed into separate buildings. Fortifications were now appropriate for defense, while the royal residence now had one task above all others: to be prestigious. The royal resi­dences of the sixteenth century demonstrate this transition. The Chateau de Chambord in the Loire Valley in France, for example, is in many respects more like a castle.

The French king, Francois I*, commissioned it as his new hunting lodge. Like the residential towers of medieval castles the prominent central building of the four-winged complex stands out, emphasizing the character of the palace as fortification. Even the four massive round towers look more like the defensive towers of a castle than palace architecture. And finally the roof profile, with its forest of towers and chimneys, underlines Chambord's impression of fortification. Meanwhile the journey from castle to palace was undertaken by the Louvre in Paris too and since then it has changed from a royal residence into one of the greatest museums in the world.

The Louvre was built at the end of the twelfth century as a rectan­gular fort with one separate, round tower. In the six­teenth century, under Francois I, who was a lover of Italian Renaissance architecture, a palace appropri­ate to the period was to be created out of the medieval castle. He planned a complex of four wings each with two stories, which would also be partially built over the next decades. Under King Louis XIV*, however, building work at the Louvre came to a temporary standstill. Royal interest in another building project stood in the way of the further extension of the former castle. The new Palace of Versailles soon replaced the Louvre as the royal residence, and established completely new ideas in palace building.

Until well into the eighteenth century, France set the standards in palace building. And the absolutist residence par excellence was the Palace of Versailles. When the Sun King, Louis XIV, ascended to the French throne at the age of 5, France was the new European superpower. In 1682 Louis moved his court from Paris to the nearby hitherto insig­nificant village of Versailles. The king involved the nobles closely in the ceremonial life of the court, thus leaving them no time for political ambitions. In so doing he thwarted potential opponents, while simultaneously reinforcing the dissociation of the monarch from the people. An extravagant royal household on the one hand and strict etiquette on the other characterized the court of Versailles in equal measure. The ingenious hierarchy of the court and the use of courtly ceremonies as a system of com­munication within the nobility required appropriate architectural structures. Not least, these structures had to demonstrate that the king was the center of everything, as Louis's motto had it: "L'etat, c'est moi."* The king was not simply the focus of the state, he was the state itself. He tried to show this in the urban layout of Versailles too: at the center of the site is the palace to which everything is oriented in a star pattern, indicating that all roads lead to the king. The building of France's new center of power began in 1668 in the middle of a rather inhospitable area west of Paris. There Louis bought the village of Trianon and commissioned architect Louis Le Vau* to develop the old Versailles hunting lodge to monumental dimensions. The facade of the new palace alone was to extend over 600 meters, designed in the French Baroque style that was named for the monarch and became known as Louis XIV style. Prestige was the watchword in the design of the palace and its garden as well as in the magnificent decoration of its spacious suites of rooms.

The first stage of building, the enveloping of the old palace, was finished two years after building work began, and the park-like garden was already taking shape. However it would still take a good 50 years before the last room, the royal chapel, was completed. In the meantime the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart* had taken over architectural direction. He built the south and north wings, which enclose the Court of Honor alongside the main building which is set back.

On the first floor of the palace Hardouin-Mansart empha­sized the prestigious character of the palace complex with his Hall of Mirrors.

This hall, 71 meters in length, was located on the garden side and provided the proper context for court balls and grandiose receptions. Around the hill on which the Palace of Versailles was built, the king had a no less impressive garden landscape designed on an area of over 800 hectares under the direction of royal gardener Andre Le Notre*: entire woods were planted and canals dug to keep the numerous fountains and water jets running. Paths led symmetrically through the park, which was strewn with statues and marble vases. Around the palace, geometrically shaped beds formed the parterre, and perfectly straight rows of pruned trees and sculptural topiary hedges charac­terized the overall picture. Nature was rigorously transformed and adapted to fit the total work of art that was the Palace of Versailles.

At end of the seventeenth century, although Versailles was not quite finished, the palace complex began to be quoted or copied by the absolute monarchs of Europe. In many places, palace build­ings in the Versailles style were intended to make people aware of the divine legitimacy of the ruler. Italy, Spain, Germany, and Austria followed the French model. Be it Nymphenburg Palace in Munich or the magnificent Belvedere and Schonbrunn Palace complexes in Vienna, Versailles was the perfect model for the palace of the absolute mon­arch. The idea of the total work of art in which all artistic genres operated together, extended throughout the Baroque period. It was by no means limited to architecture and the fine arts, but rather artists played out courtly life using music and costumes in theatrical productions or operas. The Baroque prince, Augustus the Strong, indulged his penchant for courtly celebrations even to the extent of building an open-air ballroom in the Zwinger Palace in Dresden.

Architect Matthaus Daniel Poppelmann* arranged the pavilions and galleries symmetrically around the almost square inner courtyard, while to the west the Kronentor (нем. Коронные Ворота), like a triumphal arch, forms the main entrance.

The center of the broad inner courtyard is indicated by four fountains, from which four axes radiate, leading to the pavilions. As a total work of art in the spirit of the late Baroque every part of the Zwinger, every staircase and facade, is decorated: stone vases adorn the garden, and putti, masks, and garlands cover the surfaces of the walls. The interplay of architecture, sculpture, and ornament forms the backdrop-like character of the Dresden palace complex. All artistic genres operated together to provide the absolute ruler with the proper framework for his self-drama­tization.

Notes:

Francois I - Франци́ск I — король Франции (1515 - 1547), сын графа Карла Ангулемского, двоюродного брата короля Людовика XII, и Луизы Савойской. Основатель ангулемской ветви династии Валуа.

Louis XIV - Людовик IV - Король Франции (1643 - 1715)  из  династии Бурбонов, известный как «король-солнце». Сын Людовика XIII и Анны Австрийской.

"L'etat c'est moi." [лета́ сэ муа́] («фр.Государство, это — я») — фраза, приписываемаяЛюдовику XIV, который, по преданию, 13 апреля1665 годаявился впарламент, где и произнёс эти слова в ответ президенту, выдвигавшему на первый план интересы государства.

Louis Le Vau - Луи Лево, реже Луи Ле Во (1612 - 1670) — французский архитектор, один из основоположников французского классицизма, с 1653 по 1670 год —первый королевский архитектор. Над крупнейшими заказами архитектор работал обычно вместе с ландшафтоустроителемЛенотроми художником по интерьеруЛебреном.

Jules Hardouin-Mansart - Жюль Ардуэн-Мансар (1646—1708) — французский зодчий,придворныйархитекторЛюдовика XIV, внучатый племянникФрансуа Мансара, один из крупнейших представителей стилябарокково французской архитектуре.

Andre Le Notre - Андре Ленотр (1613 — 1700) французский ландшафтный архитектор. Прежде всего он известен как автор проекта создания и последующих реконструкций королевскихсадов и паркавВерсале. Среди других его работ планирование и создание парка вВо-ле-Виконте,Фонтенбло,Шантийи, замкеСен-Клу,Сен-Жерменском дворце. Также он является автором проектовСент-Джеймсского паркавЛондонеиГринвичского парка. Ленотр считается признанным создателем системы французскогорегулярного парка, господствовавшей в Европе до середины XVIII века. Наряду с этим он внёс большой вклад впрактику градостроительства: он расширил аллеиТюильрив западном направлении, где позже появилась улицаЕлисейские Поля, и внёс свой вклад в созданиеисторической осиПарижа.

Matthaus Daniel Poppelmann - Ма́ттиас Да́ниель Пёппельман (1662—1736) — придворный архитектор курфюрста СаксонииАвгуста Сильного, основной представитель т. н. дрезденскогобарокко.