How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (free reads .txt) 📕

Tuilleries was erected by the architect, Philibert de l’Orme, for Catherine de Medicis; and to connect it with the Louvre, a long gallery, subsequently completed by Henri IV, was built along the bank of the Seine. This was supplemented later by wings, forming three sides of the larger Court of the Place du Carrousel, which was finished by Napoleon I. Meanwhile, by Louis XIV a new front, bordering on the Seine, had been added to the Old Louvre, and finally, under Napoleon III, two wings were projected from the Old Louvre on the north and south of the Place du Carrousel, forming what is now known as the New Louvre. At present the only change from the plan thus gradually compiled, consists in the loss of the Tuilleries which was burnt by the Commune mob in 1871.

Old Louvre—Blois.—Returning to the original façade by Pierre Lescot, one may compare it profitably with both the earlier and the later façades of Blois. The Louvre design, like the earlier Blois, consists of three parts, but has become more unified. The arcade is replaced by deeply set windows, under round arches; the bel étage now presents a regular recurrence of windows at closer intervals, and the dormer windows have given way to a continuous attic with a consequent lowering of the pitch of the roof. Again, when compared with the later façade of Blois, one notes in that of the Louvre the disappearance of the mullion divisions in the windows, their narrower and higher shape, and the Italian detail of their pedimental tops. Particularly noticeable is the more simplified and organic effect produced by compressing the four stories of the older design into an appearance of three divisions, very carefully balanced. Under this appearance, however, lies an actual fourth story, introduced as a mezzanine floor between the first and second. It is betrayed by the bull’s-eye window or œil de bœuf, a characteristically French shape of window, and by a range of semi-circular windows which at first sight may seem to be a part of the windows below them. This exterior blending of the mezzanine with the first story results in strengthening the character of the lower part, so that it affords a resolute foundation for the bel étage, which in itself is effectively emphasised by the special treatment of the windows.

And this unity of design is further increased by the bold projection of the entablatures and cornice. The suggestion of verticality has been abandoned in the frank acceptance of the horizontal motive. Lest, however, this should produce monotony, the Gallic preference for variety relieved the flatness of the façades by doubling the width of the window-bays at the ends and in the centre, and by giving them a slight projection. Around this the entablatures are broken, while double pilasters are employed and the summit terminates in segmental pediments, which break into and relieve the continuous line of the cornice. When further we note that in addition to the Corinthian and Composite pilasters and other carved details of purely Italian design, there are statues and much other enrichment, characterised by the free, vigorous feeling of French sculpture, the work it is said of Jean Goujon, we realise than even the advanced phase of French Renaissance, at least in its early stage, reflects still a temperament noticeably Gallic.

When it was decided, in the reign of Louis XIII, to double the size of the court of the Louvre, Jacques Lemercier, who was entrusted with the work, erected as a central feature of the prolonged façade, the “Pavilion de l’Horloge.” This was supplemented on the side facing west by another pavilion called after the famous minister of Henri IV and Louis XIII, the Pavilion Sully. The former occupies a width twice that of the double, projecting bays, and, while it continues the sequence of windows in the bel étage and attic, introduces in the former a large round-topped window. Further, the attic is surmounted by a clerestory of three windows, framed with twin-figured caryatids by Jacques Sarrazin. They support a pediment, above which rises a domical roof, divided by four well-defined ribs and terminating in a balustraded crown—a treatment of pavilions essentially French in character.

It is akin to that type of roof construction, which was called after the architect, François Mansart or Mansard, who popularised its use. The principle is the replacement of the continuous slope by a “hip” or “curb”—namely, the meeting of an upper and a lower slope at an obtuse angel; a form of construction which reduces the outward thrust on the walls by directing much of the strain to the post that supports the angle. When used upon pavilions, it gives them something of the effect of towers.

East Façade.—Under Louis XIV the Old Louvre was completed by the addition of the east façade. The work had been entrusted to Bernini, who was a visitor at the court, but his project was rejected in favour of one designed by the King’s physician, Dr. Perrault. This involved again doubling the size of the plan by the continuation of the north and south façades. In these the style of Lescot’s was fortunately preserved, though another story was added to accommodate the extra height of the east façade.

The latter represents the full acceptance of the classical style, which reflects the taste of the time; and is such a design as an intelligent student of the writings of Vignola might compile. Its main feature is a colossal order of coupled Corinthian columns, forming a colonnade, behind which the walls of the edifice are set back. The uniformity of this front of six hundred feet is interrupted by projections at the ends and in the centre, the predominance of the latter being asserted by a pediment. The character of this façade is echoed on the south one, overlooking the Seine, by an order of colossal pilasters.

Luxembourg Palace.—Before enumerating other examples of the Classicism of Louis XIV, we must revert to a notable example of the advanced Renaissance; namely, the Luxembourg Palace, which was erected in 1611 by Salomon de Brosse for Marie de Médicis, the wife of Henri IV. In conformity with her Florentine tastes the design was based upon that of the garden front of the Pitti Palace, which is distinguished by its orders of rusticated pilasters. But the French character prevails in the plan, which presents a central main building or corp de logis, flanked by wings that extend back and form the sides of a courtyard, which is separated from the street by a screen-wall with porte-cochère. Moreover, the garden front is distinguishably French in the picturesque variety obtained by the projecting portions that form terminal and central pavilions, crowned with characteristic roofs. It is a design of quietly elegant refinement.

A corresponding choiceness of quality was prolonged into the classical régime in the Château de Maisons, near St. Germain-en-Laye, by François Mansart and in the same architect’s domical church of Val de Grace, Paris, in which he was assisted by Lemercier. Meanwhile, Mansart’s nephew, Jules Hardouin Mansart, was associated with Levau in Louis XIV’s special pride, Versailles.

Versailles.—This immense palace is representative at once of the monarchical spirit of the time and of the sterility of classicism. Colossally pretentious, for the total length of the garden façade is one thousand three hundred and twenty feet, the design in its monotonous repetition of orders, scarcely relieved by the tame projections, is also monumentally dull. It fronts upon formal gardens, laid out with terraces and fountains, that in their magnificence are a memorial to the genius of Le Nôtre. The decorations of the interior of the palace exhibit the unfortunate taste for prodigal display, represented in exuberant and oppressively heavy relief work, executed in gilded papier maché, and set off with prodigious canvases by Lebrun and his assistants.

J. H. Mansart also designed the Place Vendome, around the four sides of which all the houses are treated with a uniform order of colossal pilasters, out of scale with the size of the square and pretentiously inappropriate. His, too, was the Veterans’ home, the Hôtel des Invalides.

Hôtel des Invalides.—The latter is vast but truly barrack-like, with tedious repetition of the orders; but is celebrated for the stately grace of the dome. This surmounts the church that is in the form of a Greek cross, the angles being filled with chapels, so as to make the complete plan a square. The exterior design of the dome includes a high drum, pierced with windows, between which project eight coupled columns that form buttresses. These terminate in carved corbels, which reinforce a smaller drum, with round topped lights. From this springs the dome; the grace of its curve being echoed in the airy cupola whose roof diminishes in concave curves to a soaring point.

The somewhat excessive height of the exterior needed on the inside very considerable reduction, in order to bring it into proportion with the rest of the interior. This the architect accomplished by erecting beneath the wooden shell of the outer dome two interior ones, a middle and a lower one, independently constructed. The lower, which rises immediately above the lower drum, has a large circular opening, through which is visible the decorations painted on the middle dome, which rests upon the upper drum and is lighted by its windows. The whole structure is supported upon four large piers, which, as in S. Paul’s, London, are pierced by arched openings, leading, in the case of the Invalides, into the four angle chapels.

Another instance of a triple dome occurs in the Church of S. Geneviève, better known as the Pantheon, which we shall refer to later in connection with the Classic revival, although its construction, extending from 1755 to 1781, occupied a considerable part of the Rococo period.

Rococo.—The Rococo is marked by a further decline into dry and pedantic formality in the use of the orders, which, however, in time produced a reaction toward a more intelligent, if uninspired, observance of the principles of classic design. It appears in the façade added to the Church of S. Sulpice in 1755 by the Italian, Servandoni. This comprises a Doric portico, supporting an Ionic arcade, above which, at the extremities, rise turrets in two tiers of orders. Other examples which mark the end of the reign of Louis XV will be referred to in the subsequent chapter on Classic Revival.

Meanwhile the style that is recognised as Rococo is characteristically exhibited in the interior decorations. These reflect the change of spirit that came over court life with the death of Louis XIV and the succession of the Duke of Orleans as regent during the minority of Louis XV. The old King under the control of Madame de Maintenon and his confessor had become gloomily religious; the court spirit, punctilious as ever, was ponderously dull. With the Regency it rebounded into lightsomeness. Versailles was abandoned for the Luxembourg; the peruke and stiff fashions gave way to powdered hair and elegance of costume; rigid etiquette was replaced with gay wit and gallantry; all that was lightest in the Gallic temperament bubbled sparkling to the surface. To the call of this new spirit the decorators responded. The papier-maché ornament was discarded for stucco; profusion still abounded, but it was no longer heavy and oppressive; it wandered in light luxuriance over walls, doors, and ceilings; exhibiting a fertility of decorative invention in its combinations of curly-cues, scrolls, shells, foliage, flowers, and rockwork. The last named motive (rocca in Italian) is the doubtful origin attributed to the term Rococo.

It was a style that characteristically avoided straight lines and, in general, the formality of arrangement which distinguishes classic ornament. Accordingly it fell under the ban of the Classical Revival and is always condemned by those whose preferences are classical. And, undoubtedly, its freedom often degenerated into license and its profusion became excess, especially in the hands of German or Spanish imitators.