10 December 2008
Richard Covington
The future’s looking shiny and well-polished for Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors.
In the glittering, newly restored Hall of Mirrors, the palace jewel of Versailles, curator Nicolas Milovanovic peers up at a striking painting of Louis XIV, the Sun King, 10m above our heads. In preliminary drawings, the female figure of Justice on the right side of the 17th-century French ruler held a baton to point out scenes depicting the ravages of war. “Louis XIV had it removed in the final painting,” the curator says. “He thought the stick made it look like Justice was a teacher giving a lesson to the king.”
But the absolutist monarch, who summoned up the most sumptuous palace in the world from a virtual swamp to trumpet his domination over rival powers – and even over nature itself – was the undisputed teacher here. Europe was his student. In celebrating victories against the Dutch in the 1660s and 1670s, and magnanimous economic and political reforms for the French people, the ceiling paintings elevate the Sun King to mythical proportions, immortalising him as a god among men. As his order to remove the baton indicates, he oversaw every detail of the composition.
Even this domineering perfectionist would be impressed with the prodigious renaissance of Versailles, whose four million annual visitors make it one of the most popular attractions in France. After a painstaking, three-year facelift costing 12 million ($19.7m), the Hall of Mirrors has regained its former glory, looking much as it did when the king opened it in 1684. For the first time in more than three centuries, the chateau’s showpiece – 73m long and 10.5m wide – has been cleaned and restored from top to bottom, including the 30 massive paintings by Charles Le Brun commemorating Louis XIV’s military triumphs and 770sq m of parquetry oak flooring. With its 357 mirrors and 17 glass doors, marble walls, sculptures, chandeliers and paintings, the Sun King’s legacy is an unforgettable experience.
Elsewhere, Marie Antoinette’s 35ha Domaine is in the process of a complete makeover, boosted by publicity surrounding Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film about the doomed queen, which was largely shot at Versailles. Inside the Domaine, the 18th-century Petit Trianon palace – a wedding gift from her husband Louis XVI – is being restored. Already renovated is the jewel-box theatre where the queen once played shepherdesses and milkmaids, and the artificial grotto where she held trysts. The Hameau (hamlet), a fairytale replica of an 18th-century village, has also been remodelled and now has an educational farm for schoolchildren, complete with chickens, roosters, goats and sheep.
Sprawling across 850ha, the gardens and vast forests of Versailles park, which suffered catastrophic damage in a December 1999 storm (more than 1300 trees were lost), are being replanted. Paradoxically, the storm’s 160km/h winds felled many trees dating from the 19th and 20th centuries, opening up much of the original perspective and landscaping. All this renovation is part of an ongoing 390 million ($641.1m) commitment to refurbish the palaces and grounds that is expected to continue until at least 2020.
The campaign to restore the Hall of Mirrors was nearly as complex as the Dutch wars themselves. Funded and managed by the French construction company BTP Vinci, the project is part of a broader initiative to supplement the 59 million ($96.9m) state budget with private donations, fundraising balls and artistic spectacles. Among the 80 restorers working on the immense, 1000sq m space were painting experts, specialists in gilding and repairing sculptures, artisans filling in cracks in the white, red and green marble and electricians rewiring the chandeliers with energy-efficient, candle-shaped bulbs.
Freed of scaffolding, the mirrors now bring the reflected landscape indoors and create the illusion of multiplied space. Astonishingly, 309 of the 357 mirrors are the 17th-century originals, which have been meticulously cleaned, repaired and retouched. The remaining 48 replacements were recovered from the attics of the French Senate in Paris.
At midday, the hall is flooded with dazzling sunlight that refracts through some of the 20 glass chandeliers, each 2m high. As the afternoon wanes, the glare from the mirrors softens, making it easier to study the paintings and the profusion of demonic heads, giant caryatids and gilt stucco putti around them.
In their time, Le Brun’s paintings were revolutionary. Initially, the artist conceived of portraying Louis XIV as Hercules, in keeping with allegorical convention. But the king rejected the idea, insisting on making himself the principal character. Even the descriptions beneath each painting were modern, written in French for the first time, instead of Latin, and composed by the most distinguished authors of the day: playwright Jean Racine and poet-critic Nicolas Boileau.
My favourite painting is the central panel, The King Governs By Himself 1661. It marks the 23-year-old ruler finally taking power after having had the official title of king since the age of four. (He died on September 1, 1715, just before his 77th birthday.) Flanked by the voluptuous, nude figures of the Three Graces, the young monarch, flaunting shoulder-length dark curls and wearing antique armour, is watched over by Hercules and other Olympians from their cloud perches.
Over the course of the centuries, the paintings – which were executed at floor level then attached to the ceiling – were warped by humidity, caked with residue from the candlelit chandeliers and came unglued. The restoration involved removing varnish from previous partial refurbishments – particularly one heavy-handed 1950s operation that yellowed and darkened the colours – then repainting damaged areas and applying a new protective layer of varnish.
“The idea was to remove what hid the original,” restorer Veronique Sorano explained to The New York Times. “But if the original was lost, we left any later repainting as part of the oil’s history.”
The result is spectacular. Through the arched glass doors there’s an unparalleled view over splashing fountains, topiary bushes shaped into perfect cones, and the 1.5km Grand Canal shimmering in the distance. It’s not hard to imagine Louis XIV surrounded by courtiers as he swept from his bedroom through the hall en route to the royal chapel or receiving emissaries from Siam (Thailand) on his throne. After three years under wraps, the Hall of Mirrors, where the Sun King’s aura shone its brightest, again takes centre stage.
Source: Qantas the Australian Way February 2008
Updated: July 2008