5. Versailles and the Rise of Absolutism
What is absolutism?
• In 1682 Versailles became the unofficial capital of France and symbol
of Louis’s absolute power and authority.
• The elaborate design of the new palace was intended to leave the
attending nobility in awe.
• Landscape architect Andre Le Notre was in charge of the grounds at
Versailles. He believed in the formal garden, and his methodical,
geometrical design has come to be known as the French garden.
• Discussion Question: What features make Versailles the embodiment
of Louis XIV’s absolutism?
6. The Arts of the French Court
What tastes in art competed for Louis XIV’s favor?
• The Painting of Peter Paul Rubens: Color and Sensuality —
The taste for Rubens’s painting dominated Louis’s court. Rubens’s
pictorial approach to self-promoting biographical commissions was
through lifelike allegory. Fleshy bodies are a signature stylistic
component of Rubens’s work; his paintings address the senses.
• The Painting of Nicolas Poussin: Classical Decorum —
Poussin believed that a painting’s subject matter should be drawn from
classical mythology or Christian tradition, not everyday life. Painting
technique should be controlled and refined. Poussin’s paintings
addressed the intellect.
7. • Music and Dance at the Court of Louis XIV — The king loved
the pomp and ceremony of his court and the art forms that allowed him
to most thoroughly engage this taste: dance and music. Lully was
largely responsible for entertaining the king who particularly admired
Lully’s comedie-ballets, performances that were part opera and part
ballet. Lully also created tragedie en musique. Louis’s love of the
dance promoted another new musical form at his court, the suite, a
series of dances, or dance inspired movements, consisting of four to six
dances. Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre was one of Louis’s
favorite composers of dance suites.
• Theater at the French Court — Louis’s support of theater
eventually led to the establishment of the French national theater, the
Comedie Francaise. Corneille’s plays embrace the Baroque love for
elaborate moral and emotional range and possibility. Moliere’s plays
spared no one his ridicule, attacking religious hypocrisy, misers,
hypochondriacs, pretentious doctors, aging men who marry younger
women, the gullible, and all social parasites. Racine wrote a string of
successful tragedies which made him the first French playwright to live
entirely on earnings from his plays.
• Discussion Question: Why are performing arts so important in royal
courts?
15. Active Listening Guide: Lully: "Enfin, il est en ma puissance" from Armide,
MyArtsLabChapter 23 – The Baroque Court: Absolute Power and Royal Patronage
16. Active Listening Guide: Jacquet de la
Guerre: Pieces de clevcin, Courente (1687)
MyArtsLabChapter 23 – The Baroque Court: Absolute Power and Royal Patronage
18. The Art and Politics of the English Court
How did political conflict affect the arts in England?
• Anthony Van Dyck: Court Painter — Van Dyke’s great talent
was portraiture. He often flattered his subjects by elongating their
features and portraying them from below to increase their stature.
• Portraiture in the American Colonies — The Puritans did not
think of themselves as Americans but as subjects of the crown and
Parliament. They brought with them the prejudices against ostentation
represented by the Roundheads. New England was dominated by the
Puritan sensibility, but the southern colonies were led by men of
Cavalier attitudes and tastes. But as the New England immigrants
achieved a measure of prosperity, they celebrated their success in
portraits.
19. • Puritan and Cavalier Literature — Writers of a Cavalier bent were
sensualists and often wrote frankly erotic works. These contrasted
strongly with the moral uprightness of even the most emotional Puritan
writing. One of the most moving Puritan writers of the day was Anne
Bradstreet who composed epic poetry as well as personal poetry. The
Cavalier poets of their generation were admirers of Ben Jonson; Robert
Herrick’s poetry descends directly from Jonson’s example.
• Henry Purcell and English Opera — Puritans were suspicious of
secular music in all forms, and special contempt was reserved for
opera. The Roman subject of Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas is in
keeping with the Classical Baroque.
• Discussion Question: What are the differences between Cavalier and
Puritan? What did each contribute to English culture?
26. The Arts of the Spanish Court
What role did the arts play in the Spanish court?
• Diego Velazquez and the Royal Portrait — The Spanish court
understood that in order to assert its absolutist authority, it needed to
impress the people through its patronage of the arts. Velazquez
became the only artist permitted to paint the King Philip IV. His chief
occupation was painting court portraits and supervising the decoration
of rooms in the various royal palaces and retreats. Las Meninas is a
life-size group portrait and his last great royal commission. It elevates
the portrait to a level of complexity almost unmatched in the history of
art.
27. • The Literature of the Spanish Court — Under Philip III and Philip
IV, the literary arts in Spain flourished as never before. Cervante’s
great novel Don Quixote appeared and serves as a transitional text as it
represents the culmination of Renaissance thought even as it
announces the beginning of an age of great innovation and originality.
Both Lope de Vega and his successor Calderon wrote literally
thousands of plays. According to Lope, the classical unities of Spanish
drama were to be abandoned and comedy and tragedy should be
mixed in the same play. Calderon was more philosophical and
profound than Lope; his major theme was the conflict between love and
honor. No writer of the Golden Age of Spain understood so well or
confronted so thoroughly the country’s political, economic, and moral
bankruptcy as Francisco de Quevado y Villegas.
28. Active Listening Guide: Purcell: "Dido's
Lament" from Dido and Aeneas
MyArtsLabChapter 23 – The Baroque Court: Absolute Power and Royal Patronage
33. The Baroque in the Americas
How did Native American traditions affect the Baroque style in the
Americas?
• The Cuzco School — The indigenous native populations Indianized
the Christian art imposed upon them, creating a unique visual culture,
part Baroque, part Indian. The artisans who carved the Baroque panels
for mansions in Lima were increasingly native, as were the
metalworkers who created fine objects. In Cuzco, these artisans
brought to their work techniques and motifs from their Inca background.
• Baroque Music in the Americas: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
— As the church sought to convert native populations to the Catholic
faith, the musical liturgy became a powerful tool. Music was adapted to
local conditions. Sor Juana Ines del las Cruz is remembered today
largely as the author of an important tract, Reply to Sor Philotea, in
which se defended the rights of women to pursue any form of education
they might desire, and as a poet. Many of her poems were originally
songs written to be accompanied by music.
34. • The Churrigueresque Style: Retablos and Portals in New
Spain — The taste for elaborate decorative effects and complexity
found its most extraordinary expression in large altarpiece ensembles,
known as retablos. These ensembles were designed to impress the
indigenous population and were also a manifestation of the
extraordinary wealth that Mexico enjoyed as the center of trade for
precious metals.
• Discussion Question: What tends to happen to the culture of a
colonizing nation when it is exported to the colonies?
Hyacinthe Rigaud. Louis XIV, King of France . 1701. 9’ 1" × 6’ 4-3/8”.
Palace of Versailles, France: Grand Façade. 1669-85.
Jules Hardouin Mansart and Charles LeBrun. Palace of Versailles, France: Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors). Begun 1678.
What is absolutism? The court and government of Louis XIV of France were centered at Versailles, the magnificent palace outside Paris designed by Charles Le Brun. André le Nôtre laid out the grounds in the geometric style called the French garden. In what ways does Versailles reflect Louis’s sense of his absolute authority? What did he mean to suggest by calling himself Le Roi Soleil , “the Sun King”?
What tastes in art competed for Louis XIV’s favor? Various members of the court favored one or the other of two competing styles of art, represented, on the one hand, by the work of Peter Paul Rubens and, on the other, by that of Nicolas Poussin. What compositional features characterize the painting of Rubens, and how do they contrast with the painting of Poussin? Louis indulged his taste for pomp and ceremony in music and dance, and especially entertainments written by Jean-Baptiste Lully, who created a new operatic genre, the tragédie en musique . What characterizes Lully’s operas? Louis also strongly promoted dance, the most important form of which was the minuet. Under a charter granted by Louis, the Comédie Française , the French national theater, was established. How did the plays of Pierre Corneille reflect the aesthetic tastes of Poussin? Molière’s comedies, such as Tartuffe , spared no one from ridicule. What is the central focus of his works? Jean Racine wrote such successful tragedies that he became the first French playwright to live entirely on the earnings from his plays.
André Le Nôtre. Versailles: Plan of the gardens and park. Drawing by Leland Roth after Delagive’s engraving of 1746. Designed 1661–68, executed 1662–90.
André Le Nôtre. Versailles: North flower bed, formal French Gardens. 1669-85.
Peter Paul Rubens and workshop. The Arrival and Reception of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles . 1621-25. 13' × 10’.
Peter Paul Rubens. The Kermis (La Kermesse) . ca. 1635. 56-5/8" × 102-3/4”.
Nicolas Poussin. Et in Arcadia Ego (or The Shepherds of Arcadia) . 1638-39. 33-1/2" × 47-5/8”.
Louis XIV as the Sun in the Ballet de la Nuit . 1653.
The Comédie Française . Interior of the Comédie Française Theatre in 1791.
How did political conflict affect the arts in England? The greatest artist of the English court was Anthony Van Dyck, who had worked in Rubens’s studio as his chief assistant. His great talent was portraiture. How did the political climate in England—the rivalry between Roundhead Puritan factions and Cavalier royalists— complicate his career? Can you briefly describe the political maneuverings of the era? How did this rivalry manifest itself in literature? And how did it manifest itself in the burgeoning art and literature of the American colonies?
Anthony van Dyck. Portrait of Charles I Hunting . 1635. 8' x 6’ 11”.
Anthony van Dyck. Portrait of Alexander Henderson . ca. 1641. 50" × 41-1/2”.
John Foster. Portrait of Richard Mather . ca. 1670. 6" × 5”.
John. Portrait of Daniel Parke II . 1706.
Anonymous American. Portrait of John Freake . 1671-74. 42-1/2" × 36-3/4”.
Anonymous American. Portrait of Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary . 1671-74. 42-1/2" × 36-3/4”.
What role did the arts play in the Spanish court? Philip IV of Spain strove to rival the other great courts of Europe by employing the greatest painters of the day, including Peter Paul Rubens. The young court painter Diego Velázquez, already deeply influenced by Caravaggio, visited Rubens at work. Velázquez’s greatest work is Las Meninas , ostensibly a portrait of the royal princess, but a self-portrait as well, and a complex realization of space. There are many different gazes that ricochet throughout Velázquez’s painting Las Meninas and act as focal points. Describe as many of them as you can find. Under Philip III and Philip IV, the literary arts thrived, especially in the drama of Lope de Vega and Calderón, who were central to what has come to be known as the Golden Age of Spanish drama. What is the central theme of Calderon’s work? What characterizes Lope de Vega’s plays? What theme predominates the satires of Francisco de Quevedo?
Diego Velasquez. El Triumfo de Baco , or Los Borrachos ( The Triumph of Bacchus , or The Drunkards ). ca. 1670. 65-1/8" × 87-1/2”.
Diego Velasquez. Closer Look: Velasquez's Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor) . 1656. 10' 3/4" × 9' 3/4”.
Map: Spanish Viceroyalties in South America, 1542-1824.
How did Native American traditions affect the Baroque style in the Americas? By the start of the seventeenth century, Lima, Peru, was a fully Baroque city. Native painters decorated their paintings of saints with elaborate brocateado . How does the technique reflect their Inca heritage? In New Spain, the poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote villancicos . How would you describe these complex Baroque musical compositions? What do they celebrate? The Baroque found particular expression in the retablos , or altarpiece ensembles, in the churches of New Spain. What characterizes them? This style spread throughout the Viceroyalty of Mexico, as far north as San Xavier del Bac, near present-day Tucson, Arizona. After the Pueblo revolt of 1680, the Church became more tolerant of native traditions. How does the Church of San José at Old Laguna Pueblo reflect this new tolerance?
Palacio Tore Tagle, Lima, Peru. 1753.
Luis Niño (Bolivian). Our Lady of the Victory of Málaga . Southern Cuzco school, Potosí, Bolivia. ca. 1740. 59-1/2" × 43-3/4”.
Map: The Viceroyalty of New Spain, 1535-1821.
Jerónimo de Balbás. Altar of the Kings , principal retablo of the Cathedral, Mexico City. 1718-37. Height: 85’.
San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson, Arizona. 1783-97. Length: ca. 99’.
San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson, Arizona: Nave, with retablo , restored 1992-97. 1783-97.
The Laguna Santero. Retablo and high altar of the Church of San José, Old Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico. ca. 1780-1810.
Henri Testelin. Continuity & Change: Jean-Baptiste Colbert Presenting the Members of the Royal Academy of Science to Louis XIV . ca. 1667.
