The Palace of Versaille history is full of wealth, luxuriousness, and power. The palace itself is one of the most magnificent buildings in all of art history.
Who Built the Palace of Versailles?
To understand the opulence of the Palace of Versailles, you need to understand the main guy who built it – King Louis XIV. King Louis and the Palace of Versailles history go hand-in-hand.
Now this guy was obsessed with himself. He made people call him the Sun King because he thought the Earth revolved around him. The day began and ended with Louis. He’s even been known to say “l’etat, c’est moi”, which means “the state, it is myself”, which basically means “I am France” – everything French is a reflection of me.
Now having this big of a head, needed to be matched with his surroundings. The palace at the Louvre was not big enough for him.
How big is the Palace of Versailles
This “little” chateau began as a hunting lodge, a vacation home of sorts, before it was transformed into what we know today.
It’s estimated to have cost somewhere between two billion and three hundred billion dollars (in today’s money). This is a huge range, but records don’t actually tell us. Nonetheless, billions of dollars!
This place was large enough to house 5,000 Aristocrats and over 14,000 servants. There are 700 rooms, 2,153 windows, and 67 staircases. The building covers 721,182 square feet of floor space – that’s over 12 football fields!
Palace of Versailles Façade
The façade, or exterior, is quite simple compared to the inside. But like St. Peter’s, this palace draws you in, arms open wide. It is done in a pretty classical, yet more austere manner.
The palace is horizontally composed and balanced, symmetrical, and repetitive.
Palace of Versailles Interior
Louis’ entire life was a spectacle, and the interior of this Palace was decorated to match it. Built on an east to west axis, there’s a chapel, apartments, and even its own Opera House. All of the finest materials were used; expensive
marbles for the walls; glass imported from Venice for the mirrors; and lavish paintings on every surface, including the ceilings.
Most of the art reflected a motif of power – Louis riding triumphantly after victorious battles and busts of him staring at you wherever you go. And of course, there was a lot of gold and silver.
The King’s Bedchamber
At the center of this palace is the King’s bedchamber, surprise surprise. The rays of sun hit his bedroom first, awakening the Sun King for a new day. The rest of the world could wake up after the king.
This was such an event that the king required an audience each morning he woke up. There were literally hundreds of honorable people in his room each morning, and depending on your social status, you had certain duties. It was considered a high honor to empty the king’s chamber pot, or to remove his nightshirt, or to buckle his shoes.
The Versailles Apollo Room
This is the Apollo room, or the royal throne room that was built for Louis XIV. The style is very Baroque – drama, intensity, over-the-top lavishness.
Hall of Mirrors
The most infamous room in this Palace is the Hall of Mirrors. Hundreds of years after Louis XIV built this, a very important document was signed here – The Treaty of Versailles, which ended the first world war.
This Basilica, light-barrel vaulted hallway overlooks The Gardens from the second floor from 250 feet up.
The Hall of Mirrors is the perfect representation of Baroque architecture. Used as a reception hall, this room is full of dramatic movement and dramatic scale. Every surface is decorated in a way to impress, inspire, and intimidate. There is this harmonious balance of organic, yet geometric shapes, everything is covered in either gold or silver, the ceiling is painted, and there are motifs everywhere of civil and military achievements of King Louis.
The barrel-vaulted hallways tend to feel like tunnels. In order to alleviate that feeling, mirrors were placed on the opposing side of the windows to reflect the gardens, making the room feel wider, larger, and more impressive.
Glass at this time was one of the most expensive materials that were being made, and Venice had a monopoly. King Louis XIV entices a bunch of Venetian mirror makers to create the 357 mirrors that encompass this room.
The Gardens
King Louis envisioned a park for himself. He wanted a place to play and relax and have fun, so a park and more is what he got. His gardens cover over a mile in width, and almost twice that in depth. There are 2,000 acres of cultivated land.
This is an incredible feat in and of itself, but what makes this more crazy, is the park was originally a swamp and many workers died of malaria.
The design of the gardens are done in a traditional French style. There is symmetry and harmony in the scrolls, the perfectly shaped topiaries, and the many fountains filtered throughout.
Manicured laws were a way to display how much land you owned. It’s a way to brag about how much land you can play with without having to cultivate it to make living. This practice actually continues today. just drive around your neighborhood and see how many folks are outside mowing their lawns.
The Water Features
The grounds house 55 fountains, and over 20 miles of water pipe. There are two huge reflection pools that reflect the façade of the palace, having the same effects as the Hall of Mirrors. There were few issues with these water features
though.
Versailles was higher in elevation and not close to a water supply, so there was not enough water to supply these fountains. To combat this issue, fountains were turned on when the king walked by and turned off when he left.
Versailles Apollo Fountain
This is an example of one of the fountains in Versailles. The fountain shows Apollo riding his chariot, bringing up the sun for the day.
When this fountain is turned on, the effect is breathtaking as the sun god literally rises from the pool.
Marie Antoinette’s Hamlet
One of the main attractions of the gardens is the famous Hamlet Village built for Marie Antoinette in 1783. The village is an eclectic cabin-like place
where she would play at raising animals and living a more simple life.
There were 12 structures originally, but only 10 remain today, and they stand in a Normandy Village style. The structures include a farmhouse, a dairy, a mill, a boudoir, a pigeon loft, a lighthouse tower, and a cottage with a billiard
room for the queen to entertain her guests.
Literally in this palace’s backyard is an actual village – that is out of control.
What Happened to Versailles?
So basically Versaille was a huge power play. It was a way for the king of France to flaunt his money, hold tight to his power, and intimidate anyone who came into his presence.
This makes it a little bit easier to understand when in October 1789, a group of seven thousand women marched up to Versailles and took the king with them back to Paris, beginning the French Revolution.
The royal family never returned to Versailles after the French revolution. The French Court still sometimes uses it for large events, like when Queen Victoria came to visit France, but for the most part it remains as a tourist attraction. In fact, in the year 2017 there were over 7.7 million visitors.
If you’d like to see how the Palace of Versailles fits within the larger picture of art history, you can download my condensed timeline of Western art history.
Please reach out with any questions.
CREDITS
Marie Antoinette amusement at Versailles.JPG / Daderot / Wikimedia Commons / GFDL
Versailles Bassin d’Apollon 001.jpg / Moonik / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Orangerie.jpg / Urban / Wikimedia Commons / GFDL
Chateau Versailles Galerie des Glaces.jpg / Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Appartement du Roi (Versailles).jpg / Jean-Marie Hullot / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Cour de Marbre du Château de Versailles October 5, 2011.jpg / Kimberly Vardeman / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
Château de Versailles, salon de Diane, buste de Louis XIV, Bernin (1665) 00.jpg / Coyau / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Versailles Château de Versailles Innen Apollon-Salon 1.jpg / Zairon / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
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