Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams both create watercolors of historic American and European buildings and garden ornament. Their work is noted for its realist technique and historical accuracy. The artists, both trained architects, employ the conventions of architectural rendering to re-create destroyed and altered monuments in their initial state, as well as to present unbuilt projects with exceptional realism. The chief value of their work is the enlarged and precise view it thus offers of European—and particularly French—architectural history.
Their expertise is Ancien Régime French architecture—that of the 17th and 18th centuries—and particularly French royal châteaux and gardens, most notably the Château de Versailles and the Château de Marly, the monumental estates of King Louis XIV. In various publications, they have re-examined the genesis of both châteaux, and have renounced the traditional authorship of Versailles to Louis Le Vau in favor of a triumvirate of Le Vau, Charles Le Brun and Claude Perrault; and have attributed Marly's creation to Le Brun, renouncing the traditional attribution to Jules Hardouin-Mansart.
They have written four books illustrated with their work: Pleasure Pavilions and Follies (1995), Garden Vases (2000), Palaces of the Sun King (2002) and Chinoiseries (2006). Beside the value of their reconstruction drawings, the books are notable for their analysis of architecture and its accompanying social history from an architect's perspective, which is highly unusual in a field dominated by writers trained as art historians.[3]
The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence located in Versailles, about 12 miles (19 km) west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and has since 1995 been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. 15,000,000 people visit the Palace, Park, or Gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of paying visitors to the Chateau dropped by 75 percent from eight million in 2019 to two million in 2020. The drop was particularly sharp among foreign visitors, who account for eighty percent of paying visitors.
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions.
The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a Baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 kilometres (34 mi) southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne department of Île-de-France.
Jules Hardouin-Mansart was a French Baroque architect and builder whose major work included the Place des Victoires (1684–1690); Place Vendôme (1690); the domed chapel of Les Invalides (1690), and the Grand Trianon of the Palace of Versailles. His monumental work was designed to glorify the reign of Louis XIV of France.
Louis Le Vau was a French Baroque architect, who worked for Louis XIV of France. He was an architect that helped develop the French Classical style in the 17th Century.
The Hall of Mirrors is a grand Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the Hall and its adjoining salons was intended to illustrate the power of the absolutist monarch Louis XIV. Located on the first floor of the palace's central body, it faces west towards the Palace Gardens. The Hall of Mirrors has been the scene of events of great historic significance, including the Proclamation of the German Empire and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
17th-century French art is generally referred to as Baroque, but from the mid- to late 17th century, the style of French art shows a classical adherence to certain rules of proportion and sobriety uncharacteristic of the Baroque as it was practiced in most of the rest of Europe during the same period.
French Baroque architecture, sometimes called French classicism, was a style of architecture during the reigns of Louis XIII (1610–43), Louis XIV (1643–1715) and Louis XV (1715–74). It was preceded by French Renaissance architecture and Mannerism and was followed in the second half of the 18th century by French Neoclassical architecture. The style was originally inspired by the Italian Baroque architecture style, but, particularly under Louis XIV, it gave greater emphasis to regularity, the colossal order of facades, and the use of colonnades and cupolas, to symbolize the power and grandeur of the King. Notable examples of the style include the Grand Trianon of the Palace of Versailles, and the dome of Les Invalides in Paris. In the final years of Louis XIV and the reign of Louis XV, the colossal orders gradually disappeared, the style became lighter and saw the introduction of wrought iron decoration in rocaille designs. The period also saw the introduction of monumental urban squares in Paris and other cities, notably Place Vendôme and the Place de la Concorde. The style profoundly influenced 18th-century secular architecture throughout Europe; the Palace of Versailles and the French formal garden were copied by other courts all over Europe.
The Château du Raincy was constructed between 1643 and 1650 by Jacques Bordier, indendant des finances, on the site of a Benedictine priory on the road from Paris to Meaux, in the present-day commune of Le Raincy in the Seine-Saint-Denis department of France.
André Le Nôtre, originally rendered as André Le Nostre, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France. He was the landscape architect who designed the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, and his work represents the height of the French formal garden style, or jardin à la française.
The Gardens of Versailles occupy part of what was once the Domaine royal de Versailles, the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover some 800 hectares of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French formal garden style perfected here by André Le Nôtre. Beyond the surrounding belt of woodland, the gardens are bordered by the urban areas of Versailles to the east and Le Chesnay to the north-east, by the National Arboretum de Chèvreloup to the north, the Versailles plain to the west, and by the Satory Forest to the south.
The grand appartement du roi is the King's grand apartment of the Palace of Versailles.
The French formal garden, also called the jardin à la française, is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the landscape architect André Le Nôtre for Louis XIV and widely copied by other European courts. Power in its connection to the French formal garden went beyond imposing it upon nature. Gardens like Versailles were symbols of political, monarchal power ,with one quote stating, The palace was built to impress. "Versailles is a mirage, a sumptuous and theatrical entertainment. It is also a manifestation of glory and power imposed to a great extent by art, luxury, and magnificence." This "manifestation of glory and power" The idea that art and culture can convey power, status, or influence is known as "soft power", or the kind of international influence that is leveraged through tools like culture and art.
The Louvre Colonnade is the easternmost façade of the Palais du Louvre in Paris. It has been celebrated as the foremost masterpiece of French Architectural Classicism since its construction, mostly between 1667 and 1674. The design, dominated by two loggias with trabeated colonnades of coupled giant columns, was created by a committee of three, the Petit Conseil, consisting of Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun, and Claude Perrault. Louis Le Vau's brother, François Le Vau also contributed. Cast in a restrained classicizing baroque manner, it interprets rules laid down by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, whose works Perrault translated into French (1673). Its flat-roofline design, previously associated with Italy and unprecedented in France, was immensely influential.
The Baroque garden was a style of garden based upon symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. The style originated in the late-16th century in Italy, in the gardens of the Vatican and the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome and in the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, and then spread to France, where it became known as the jardin à la française or French formal garden. The grandest example is found in the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the landscape architect André Le Nôtre for Louis XIV. In the 18th century, in imitation of Versailles, very ornate Baroque gardens were built in other parts of Europe, including Germany, Austria, Spain, and in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. In the mid-18th century the style was replaced by the more less-geometric and more natural English landscape garden.
François d'Orbay (1634–1697) was a French draughtsman and architect who worked closely with Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin Mansart.
François Le Vau was a French architect and a founding member of the Académie Royale d'Architecture. He is also known for being the youngest brother of the more famous French architect, Louis Le Vau.
The Louis XIV style or Louis Quatorze, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and the Académie royale d'architecture. It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major architects of the period included François Mansart, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Pierre Le Muet, Claude Perrault, and Louis Le Vau. Major monuments included the Palace of Versailles, the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and the Church of Les Invalides (1675–91).
Neoclassicism is a movement in architecture, design and the arts which was dominant in France between about 1760 to 1830. It emerged as a reaction to the frivolity and excessive ornament of the baroque and rococo styles. In architecture it featured sobriety, straight lines, and forms, such as the pediment and colonnade, based on Ancient Greek and Roman models. In painting it featured heroism and sacrifice in the time of the ancient Romans and Greeks. It began late in the reign of Louis XV, became dominant under Louis XVI, and continued through the French Revolution, the French Directory, and the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Bourbon Restoration until 1830, when it was gradually replaced as the dominant style by romanticism and eclecticism.
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