Originally, the Louvre and Versailles were cast as reflections of the ancien régime’s self-image, and to cement notions of grandeur, opulence and order. As arguably the definitive architectural symbol of France’s previous monarchy, the Palace of Versailles still to some extent stands as a shrine to Louis XIV’s ambitions to creating an absolute monarchy for France. Open to tourists as well as the general French public, the experience serves as a stark visual reminder of the grand nature of the political proceedings during the Ancien Regime. So striking and immediately identifiable as a royal palace is Versailles, that we might debate how far it can remodel itself to ensure continued cultural relevance, a question to which we will return. Certainly, it must compete with the Louvre’s successive reinventions since the twelfth century and its current incarnation as the hugely successful Museé du Louvre, recently recognised as the most visited museum in the world (Storrie, 2007).
The Louvre’s creation began in the twelfth century with various kings contributing to its construction to form the leading European fort at the time, “enlarged and beautified” (Bresc-Boutier, 1995) by the likes of Charles V.
Indeed, the original chateau of the Louvre was formulated into a vast network. The construction of the Tuilleries palace for example, an ambitious royal plan, fashioned the Grande Galerie and, thereafter, the extensive plans of Louis XIII and especially Louis XIV greatly impacted on the Louvre we see today (McClellan, 1999), producing the grand Palace, for example, which housed the king and his fellow aristocracy. From its inception, thus, constant change was an intrinsic part of the Louvre’s history. If initially the Louvre was significant because it was the first major palace of France, the original stronghold of French monarchy, Louis XIV’s decision to leave the Louvre vacant and move the monarchy to Versailles in 1682, however, hinted at the difficulty of sustaining sovereign reign within the site of political and ideological tension that the city of Paris was becoming.
Indeed, Versailles, standing ten miles west of the capital, provided some much needed breathing space and literal space too; eventually housing a thousand courtiers, retinues, and attendant functionaries (Solnon, 1987, cited in Walton, 1986) or in other words, all of the King’s nobility. Through a series of ambitious architectural designs, Versailles became an international platform to project the legacy of the French monarchy; a showground for its extensive capabilities and accomplishments. The King was determined to commission the creation of a setting that would sate his ‘hunger for self-aggrandisement’ as (Schama 1995) has put it and justify his self ordained status as the leader of victorious armies via a host of marble walls and floors, painted walls and decorations. Versailles was its own universe, and everything pointed towards the sun – le roi soleil or Louis XIV, whose Bedchamber was fittingly, the centre point of all Versaille’s long, extensive symmetrical buildings. Although independent from the epicentre of Paris itself the palace was designed on an axis directly leading to the city in a metaphorical demonstration of the King’s ‘omniscient’ power (Kemp, 1958). For Simon Schama, this grande allée to Paris constituted ‘a royal retort, a proclamation of the realm’s metamorphosis from anarchy to order.’ (Schama, 1995, p. 340) As such the very architecture of the palace itself became a means of asserting the monarchy’s control; converting bricks and mortar to actual political currency. Ultimately, given Versaille’s peripheral status and physical distance from Paris, its continued impact on the city was remarkable and highlights the sheer enormity of its cultural, but more importantly, symbolic presence.
In the Louvre’s case, vacancy was short-lived. Indeed, towards the final decades of the Ancien Regime, ministers had a vision to create a museum of art in the Louvre which would be envied by all Europe (McClellan, 1999). This materialised when the Louvre was opened as a public museum, with ceremonial displays of art in place since the mid 1600’s. Not just significant on an aesthetic level, the Louvre’s birth into museum culture also synchronised with an upheaval in cultural and political values: the spread of Enlightenment values in Europe in the second half of the 18th century, aiming at increased public accessibility and educational emphasis. Somewhat ironically then, the Louvre became however known for its unique royal collection.
Royal collections in the 18th century manifested the wealth and taste of their owners; art became stock between owners and nobility. France in particular saw their royal collection as a national property which was “part of the nation’s cultural patrimony that had to be preserved for posterity” (McClellan, 1999). This led to pressure on the Louvre to deliver national pride and ownership, and to become a quasi-guardian of cultural value through its works of art. The majority of the royal collection however followed Louis XIV to Versailles, where they remained for a hundred years. And yet, he spending on Comte D’Angiviller’s part of 1 million livres over 1775-1789 to bring pieces such as Pietro da Cortona’s Reconcilliation of Jacob and Laban to the Louvre constituted an attempt to reassert the Louvre above all as a space commemorating sovereignty.
D’Angiviller stressed the urgency of acquiring national treasures as a matter of national importance.; in particular the possession of the Le Sueurs and the establishment of the Great Men were fundamental to D’Angiviller’s art policy. He wrote to Louis XV pressing the need to attain Le Sueurs as it was part of France’s heritage which he intended to preserve and glorify at the Louvre, displaying them alongside “productions of foreign genius” (McClellan, x). In the space of a month in 1776, D’Angiviller managed to grab three dozen of his best works. The Great Men were primarily linked to their loyal service to the crown, representing themselves as exemplary benefactors to their country. The men of genius signal a common debt to the enlightened support of a dynamic monarchy.
Gois’ statue of Chancellor de l’Hopital of 1777 can illustrate in particular the crucial politicization of art during D’Angiviller’s reign, with monarchical right of way for art in a period of tension for French politics. The arts had long been a weapon in the ideological arsenal of the French Monarchy but in the Louvre’s case, to an unprecedented degree (Clout, 1977). After the French territorial expansion of 1794, for example, the museum developed a vast collection of confiscated art and the museum became a monument to military might , with visitors encouraged to regard captured paintings and sculptures as trophies of war. Indeed, in setting out to make the arts “an emanation of the throne” (Horne, 2004), D’Angiviller planned the Louvre not just to be a platform for royal ideology, but to integrate the space of the museum itself into the political fabric of the nation, ensuring its significance for years to come. Although he often had to explain the glory of the Louvre’s art as a direct representation of the ancien régime’s power, as “the public had little preconception either way” (D’Angillver memoire, cited in McClellan, 1999),
D’Angiviller certainly succeeded in expanding the Louvre’s audience beyond art lovers to create a space of popular sovereignty, whose design of the monarchical structure was no longer just external, but internal (Pile, 2004). He was acutely aware of the museum’s potential to target segments of society whose voice made up ‘public opinion’, so art and politics were channelled towards the same means: cementing the public’s service and devotion to king and country; hardly a case of ‘art for art’s sake.’
Despite D’Angivillers’ multiple projects and evident success, the dawn of the French Revolution curtailed developments and his full potential to reinvent the museum was never reached. Nonetheless, in a comment that demonstrates to what extent the Louvre had an influence on political proceedings Jacques-Henri Miester, Baron Grimm’s successor at the Correspondance Littéraire ventured that the completion of D’Angiviller’s museum might have prevented the Revolution in the first place:
“Who knows if this museum, completed to perfection, might not have saved the monarchy? By providing a more imposing idea of its power and vision, by calming anxious spirits, and by dramatizing the benefits of the Old Regime” (Meister, Souvenirs de mon dernier voyage, 1795, cited in McClellan, 1999).
Although a view held by a select minority, such an analysis reveals the common recognition at the time of the Louvre as the monarchy’s public figurehead, and the confidence in its ability to project solid ideals of order and tradition upon an increasingly precarious political reign. Instead the eventual opening of the Louvre was to become significant for the French in coordinating with the birth of a new Republican nation.
Essentially, the Louvre’s transition from palace to vacancy to museum changed its significance from active stronghold for the monarchy to its representation through art. With a much shorter history and not as an extensive transition as the Louvre, built outside of Paris and relatively late in the ancien régime, the Palace of Versailles still underwent strong architectural editions (Pizzoli, 2004). Developments at Versailles such as the Grand Trianon and the pavilion of Apollo were monumental projects during Louis XIV’s reign, aided by highly regarded architects such as Swedish royal architect Nicodemix Tessin who also had influences on the Louvre in 1706, le Vau, le Notre and le Brun. And yet, it never underwent vast changes, its contemporary significance rather concentrated in the admiration it garnered from neighbouring European nations (Walton, 1986), with every prince in Europe said to be eager to replicate it. Indeed, the palace had reached a level where art and design standards had been set for the whole era (Walton, 1986). Ultimately then, by the end of the ancien régime, the Louvre was taking steps to become an active art space, whereas Versailles was still perhaps a cultural artefact. Its signifiance as a public space of sovereignty, as opposed to a private showcase of absolutist, individual power, was to come somewhat later.
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