The palace of Versailles is a great expression of the absolutism of the monarch. Louis XIV’s palace underwent a huge transformation from a small hunting lodge surrounded by swampland to an extravagant palace that rerouted waterlines, uprooted land, and tamed nature. Nature at Versailles was a means of invoking thoughts of immortality, absolutism, and the domination of nature. Romantic paintings and poetry use nature as a way to access a deeper part of the mind and remind people of their own mortality.
One of the most obvious differences in the representation of nature at Versailles and in Romantic artwork and poetry is the domination of nature. At Versailles, the domination of nature can be seen in almost every aspect of the 2,000-acre garden …show more content…
The sheer size of Versailles and the general splendor of the palace and gardens boasted his power as an absolute monarch. With the help of landscape architect Andre le Nôtre, Louis XIV created the gardens that unfold like a carpet following the axis of the palace (Versailles I, slide 3). Everything is straight, symmetric, and controlled. The taming of nature is proof of Louis XIV’s desire for absolute dominance. Louis XIV used nature as a way to dominate and prove absolute power, but many Romantic artists and poets used nature to allow viewers to go beyond the surface and access deeper parts of the mind of the individual self. In the poem “Inifinity”, viewing nature allows the narrator to “see beyond” what is in front of him and he is able to experience the sublime (“Infinity”,4-5). Nature leads to “unending spaces” in Romantic poetry, but at Versailles nature is a vehicle for domination. Versailles and its gardens, although beautiful, were a prison for the noble court. Nature at Versailles was not supposed to invoke the thought of the “eternal” as it is in “Infinity”, but the thought of the power of the absolute monarch, Louis
One of the most obvious differences in the representation of nature at Versailles and in Romantic artwork and poetry is the domination of nature. At Versailles, the domination of nature can be seen in almost every aspect of the 2,000-acre garden …show more content…
The sheer size of Versailles and the general splendor of the palace and gardens boasted his power as an absolute monarch. With the help of landscape architect Andre le Nôtre, Louis XIV created the gardens that unfold like a carpet following the axis of the palace (Versailles I, slide 3). Everything is straight, symmetric, and controlled. The taming of nature is proof of Louis XIV’s desire for absolute dominance. Louis XIV used nature as a way to dominate and prove absolute power, but many Romantic artists and poets used nature to allow viewers to go beyond the surface and access deeper parts of the mind of the individual self. In the poem “Inifinity”, viewing nature allows the narrator to “see beyond” what is in front of him and he is able to experience the sublime (“Infinity”,4-5). Nature leads to “unending spaces” in Romantic poetry, but at Versailles nature is a vehicle for domination. Versailles and its gardens, although beautiful, were a prison for the noble court. Nature at Versailles was not supposed to invoke the thought of the “eternal” as it is in “Infinity”, but the thought of the power of the absolute monarch, Louis