The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris, France.
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.
Charles Le Brun was a French painter, physiognomist, art theorist, and a director of several art schools of his time. He served as a court painter to Louis XIV, who declared him "the greatest French artist of all time". Le Brun was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art and was influenced by Nicolas Poussin.
François Girardon was a French sculptor of the Louis XIV style or French Baroque, best known for his statues and busts of Louis XIV and for his statuary in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.
The Tuileries Garden is a public garden between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was opened to the public in 1667 and became a public park after the French Revolution. Since the 19th century, it has been a place for Parisians to celebrate, meet, stroll and relax.
Charles Antoine Coysevox, was a French sculptor in the Baroque and Louis XIV style, best known for his sculpture decorating the gardens and Palace of Versailles and his portrait busts.
The Château de Marly was a French royal residence located in what is now Marly-le-Roi, the commune on the northern edge of the royal park. This was situated west of the palace and garden complex at Versailles. Marly-le-Roi is the town that developed to serve the château, which was demolished in 1806 after passing into private ownership and being used as a factory. The town is now a bedroom community for Paris.
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, usually called French classicism, was a style of architecture during the reigns of Louis XIII (1610–1643), Louis XIV (1643–1715) and Louis XV (1715–1774). 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 façades, 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.
Jean-Baptiste Tuby was a French sculptor of Italian origins, best known for the sculpture in the fountains of the Gardens of Versailles. His work expresses the exuberance of the Baroque blended with the classicism of the Louis XIV style.
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; 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 French formal garden, also called the jardin à la française, is a style of "landscape" 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.
The Potager du roi, near the Palace of Versailles, produced fresh vegetables and fruits for the table of the court of Louis XIV. It was created between 1678 and 1683 by Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, the director of the royal fruit and vegetable gardens. Today it is run by the École nationale supérieure du paysage, the grande école for landscape architects. It is officially recognized as a Remarkable Garden of France.
The Latona Fountain in the Gardens of Versailles lies in the Latona Basin between the Palace of Versailles and the Grand Canal. On the top tier, there is a statue of the goddess Latona, mother of the sun and moon gods. The fountain operates three times a week during the high season.
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 less geometric and more natural English landscape garden.
The Plateau de Saclay, also called Silicon Valley Européenne, is located north of Essonne and south-east of Yvelines, 20 km south of Paris. It is bounded by the valley of the Yvette to the south and east, and the valley of the Bièvre to the north.
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 (1675–1691).
The Trianon de Porcelaine was a short-lived structure constructed near the Palace of Versailles, and is considered to be the first Chinoiserie building in Europe. It was built in 1670 on the former site of the village of Trianon which Louis XIV of France had acquired in the 1660s to enlarge the grounds of his expanding palace. The structure comprised five wood-framed pavilions, decorated with blue and white ceramic tiles, and surrounded by formal gardens with extravagant displays of perfumed flowers.
