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Anamorphosis abscondita as a reflection of the political culture of France in the Baroque period: the case of Vaux-le-Vicomte

Andrew Blumm

“Public spaces can be read as representations of power relations in society. It is often underexposed that these spaces are produced in, and are the result of, complex political and social struggles that entail a complex relation of power/knowledge.”1

At the time of its creation, the garden at Vaux-le-Vicomte (1661) was perhaps the pinnacle achievement of French baroque landscape. Its grandeur immediately elicited attention from King Louis and gave it immense cultural weight as France continued to separate its style from that of Italy and the rest of Europe. This was due to a changing sociopolitical climate in which state power shifted from control of fortifications and enclaves to control over vast territories.2 King Louis XIV also began to assert his power as total monarch, above even the rule of the papal powers in Rome. He was obsessed with territorial maps, military conquest and fortifying his empire. Chandra Mukerji describes how this ideological change was manifested in the built works of the French aristocracy, she writes,

“As Louis XIV and his collaborators pursued their vision for his reign, there was a turn toward the material, toward the relationship of the built to the unbuilt environment, as a site of political act … the conquests of the French army were not just written about in celebratory languages, but dug into hillsides and dredged along waterways.”3

This essay will examine the formal qualities of French Baroque gardens as a response to the political tension of monarchy and military conquest in opposition to the Church. Specifically, it will examine the experience of Vaux-le-Vicomte (Image 1) and its precise use of cartesian ​ ​ which expressed human dominance over nature and attempted to illustrate an infinite French territorial rule.

History

1 Goverde, Henri. (2009). Representation of power in public spaces: epistemic scientific versus value rationality in ​ social spatial constructions, Journal of Power, Vol 2, 2: pp. 275-300 - ​ 2 Mukerji, Chandra. (1994). The Political Mobilization of Nature in Seventeenth-Century French Formal Gardens. ​ Theory and Society, Vol. 23, 5: pp. 651-677. 3 Mukerji, Chandra. (1994).

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Nicolas Fouquet, a nobleman born in the year 1615, inherited the estate known as Vaux-le-Vicomte from his Father in 1641. The estate lay on a main road between Paris and Madrid. By 1656, King Louis XIV had named him Superintendent of Finances. This created a strategic opportunity for Fouquet. He commissioned the top designers of the period to renovate his estate in order to create an intriguing stopping point for diplomatic travelers. This way, he could attain the latest political happenings a day before the the recipients on either end of the road.4 This included the construction of the chateau designed by Louis Le Vau, the monumental garden designed by Andre Le Notre and the the furnishings for this grand project designed by the famous painter Charles Le Brun.

In 1661, the renovations were finished and Fouquet held a grand party for six-thousand guests including King Louis himself. Fouquet did not, however, foresee the offense that the king would take to the works at the estate. The three designers had created an estate with scale and grandeur unrivaled at the time, even for the king. Upon seeing what Fouquet and his team had achieved, King Louis perceived him as a threat to his reign and promptly had him imprisoned for life.5

The effect of Vaux-le-Vicomte stayed with King Louis. The design was so profound and embodied French ideals so well that he commissioned the same three designers for his own palace. His ego and aspirations pushed him to construct an even grander project which would come to be known as Versailles.6

Dominance and control of nature

“The garden is pre-eminently the expression of civilization, and in it are reflected the emotions of man and the way in which he regards himself in relation to the universe.”7

Immediately before the Baroque period, land control followed the city-state model; power was concentrated in citadels and individual cities. The land between these fortifications was often ambiguous territory.8 This power structure was reflected in the Italian Renaissance gardens, the immediate predecessors to baroque gardens. These gardens were similarly located around large, powerful estates, but presented the landscape in a much different way.

4 Goverde, Henri. (2009). 5 Goverde, Henri. (2009). 6 Goverde, Henri. (2009). 7 Jellicoe, G. A. (1953). The Italian Renaissance Garden. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 101, No. 4892: ​ ​ 175-185. 8 Mukerji, Chandra. (1994).

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Italian Renaissance gardens (Image 3, 4) were bounded by the noble residence at one end and ​ ​ confined by walls on the remaining sides.9 They were created as places of recreation and pleasure for the elite, often with the goal of stimulating the senses. The focus was introspective; walls separated the gardens from the domain of nature and directed views back towards the chateau or up towards the heavens.10

King Louis’ began to change the strategy of land control even before the construction of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Control of vast territories, not individual citadels, became his primary pursuit, thus changing the function of estates in the French territory and shifting their importance from military enclaves or economic holdings to cultural and political exhibitions of power.11 These estates marked important points in the land where power was not limited to the estate itself, but extended to all of the land between them.12

This ideological shift in the function of these noble and royal estates facilitated a change in the form and function of the gardens as the aristocracy developed a new style that aimed to reflect these ideals. While Italian designers explored a human relationship to God in their designs, French designers attempted to raise the royal court to a divine level of power.13 The gardens lacked walls and instead offered a blurred boundary to the court’s domain. Their displays were meant to “dazzle” foreign diplomats and travelers14 and exhibit power rather than induce pleasure. This change was so profound that the hierarchical organization of estates changed. The

9 Weiss, Allen S. (1995). Mirrors of Infinity: the French Formal Garden and 17th-Century Metaphysics. Princeton ​ ​ ​ Architectural Press. “The typical Italian Renaissance garden, exemplified by the Villa Medici (circa 1544) and the Villa d’Este (circa 1550), was constructed on a sloping terrain with the villa at the summit so as to provide a magnificent overall view of the gardens … The gardens themselves were enclosed by walls and were prolonged to the villa’s courtyard and portico.” 10 Whalley, J. M. (1988). Water in the landscape. Landscape Urban Planning, Vol. 16: 145-162. ​ ​ Whalley discusses water features in regard to the overall theme of Italian Renaissance gardens: “The Renaissance water gardens of Italy displayed an exuberance quite unknown before - born of fantasy rather than logic. Such gardens as Villa d'Este at Tivoli (1540) and Villa Lante (1566) had waterfalls, cascades, water organ, great jets, sprays from walls, and even surprise fountains to wet unsuspecting guests at parties. These were gardens for the benefit of the senses rather than the intellect.” 11 Mukerji, Chandra. (1994). 12 Graf, Douglas. (1986). “If the chateau was originally the center of a paradise garden, it has left this special precinct to command the domains of a series of vicinities, contrasting the past vicinity with the present vicinity.” 13 Heywood, Andrew. (2007). Politics. London: Macmillan. ​ ​ According to Heywood, King Louis XIV wanted to show that his court had no less power than the Church manifesting his “divine right” through conquest and symbolism. “[Government] possesses unfettered power: government cannot be constrained by a body external to itself. The absolute principle nevertheless resides in the claim to an unlimited right to rule (as in Divine Right), rather than in the exercise of unchallengeable power.” 14 Mukerji, Chandra. (1994). “Many visitors came away from the gardens, commenting in journals and letters on the natural and aesthetic wealth of France and declaring that the French court now surpassed anything found in Italy.”

4 chateaus in which the aristocracy resided became subservient to the surrounding land.15 Chandra Mukerji expands on this idea, writing,

“They delineated living spaces and ceremonial stages beyond the walls of buildings; they constituted a site for an aristocratic way of life that linked social standing to territorial control and the accumulation of property. It seemed that buildings in this historical moment were no longer large enough or complex enough for the new cultural possibilities of the age. Something more was needed to contain the sculpture, fountains, and plants; a bigger stage was required for the elaborates fetes that were part of court ceremonial life. Land itself needed attention and celebration, requiring ingenious decorative strategies and engineering feats, and embodying new visions of natural order.”16

In addition to the monumental scale, French gardens employed the use of rigid Cartesian geometry17 to display control over nature at the scale of individual plants, as was done in Italian Renaissance gardens. But landscape architects saw another opportunity to employ their advanced understanding of math, this time using Descartes’ postulates on and vanishing points. Using perspectival manipulation they were able to create optical illusions in which the gardens seemed to stretch into the horizon. This symbolically illustrated the reaches of aristocratic power. 18 This tool, known as abscondita,19 was being explored by painters of the era as ​ ​ well. Although most evident in Vaux-le-Vicomte, these characteristics became a common trope in French estates at the time.

Achieving anamorphosis abscondita

“Anamorphosis abscondita is defined as a distorted projection or perspective, requiring the viewer to use a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image. Optical

15 Goverde, Henri. (2009). 16 Mukerji, Chandra. (1994). 17 Goverde, Henri. (2009). Goverde describes the impact of mathematical techniques applied to the natural world: “The relevance of Cartesian thought for the Vaux-le-Vicomte design team as well as for the owner, Fouquet, was its political impact in a regime of absolute monarchy. Absolutism claims an unlimited right to rule.” 18 Mukerji, Chandra. (1994). “Versailles presented to the world marvels of French engineering that spoke directly to the might of France and its ability to control its territory.” 19 “a drawing presenting a distorted image that appears in natural form under certain conditions, as when viewed at a raking angle or reflected from a curved mirror.” Dictionary.com ​

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anamorphosis is a method where by the observer's visual perception of the scene's composition looks different from its reality.”20

Perspectival manipulation is based on fundamental understandings of vanishing points and horizon lines as outlined by Descartes. It is likely that these postulates informed the decisions of French landscape architects. Le Notre employed this concept in his design for the garden at Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Using his knowledge of cartesian geometry and the existing terrain of the site, Le Notre creates six significant nodes upon the central axis21 which are demarcated by perpendicular crossroads terraces and/or waterways (Image 5). These nodes occur at varying heights so that different ​ ​ ​ ​ perceptions of horizon distances can be read from each. A team of engineers set out to calculate these inferred distances using precise cartographic methods. According to them,

“The basic geometric idea in creating the illusion lies in the premise that all the points that lie on the same projection ray have the same perspective image … Deceleration or acceleration of the linear perspective is achieved by the slope of the garden terrain. When facing terrain that rises, the observer obtains an impression of greater depth (acceleration) of the space compared to the same length that this space has in the horizontal plane. This is a result of “lifting” the vanishing line of the inclined plane in comparison to the horizon line. When the ground in front of the observer descends, the vanishing line of the inclined plane is located below the horizon, hence the observer has the impression of a decelerated linear perspective.”22

This phenomena can be documented graphically (Image 6) and functions on the human tendency ​ ​ to infer vanishing points on the horizon using surrounding topography. According to their findings, the view of the garden from the chateau would create the illusion that the features at the far end (the highest part of the garden) are much larger than they actually are. Subsequently, the progression from the chateau onwards would cause the viewer to feel as if the garden were being gradually elongated as the topography adjacent to the subject increases in perceived size much faster than the terrain at the far end due to the upslope in elevation.23

20 Grbic, Mihailo, Aleksandar Cucakovic, Biljana Jovic, and Milos Tripkovic. (2015). Garden cultural heritage ​ ​ spatial functionalities: The case of anamorphosis abscondita at Vaux-le-Vicomte. Journal of Cultural Heritage, Vol. ​ 18: pp. 366–369. 21 Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016). 22 Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016). 23 Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016).

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When one finally reaches the end of the garden there is a single statue of Hercules signifying the power of France and its rule over vast territories.24 When looking back upon the chateau from this point, the viewer would perceive a longer distance than in reality since the subtle downward slope lowers the perceived horizon line (Image 7). ​ ​

Douglas Graf writes about Le Notre’s mastering of anamorphosis abscondita in relation to the numerous different perspectival impression that were realized in a single axial piece of landscape.

“The attainment of constant illusion in a landscape of such presumed clarity and composed of such pedestrian elements marks Vaux-le-Vicomte's unrivaled position. The serial positioning of centers along the axis allows for the constant reevaluation of the significance of a number of positions.”25

By analyzing perceived distances at the different nodes of the garden, this can be verified graphically (Image 8). Additionally, the angles of the slopes are subtle enough that the ​ ​ impression of level terrain disguises the use of anamorphosis abscondita.26 Le Notre’s ability to create such varied conditions in Vaux-le-Vicomte is a feat no less than extraordinary.

Conclusion

King Louis XIV’s appetite for total power led him to establish territorial control as the model for French rule. At the same time, he hoped to distance himself from the rule of the Church and this led to the development of a unique French style.27 The culmination of these factors created gardens which were unprecedented in the rest of Europe. They were grand, seemingly had no bounds and displayed a precise control of nature. The pinnacle achievement of this control was the delicate use of anamorphosis abscondita.

24 Graf, Douglas. (1986). Graf discusses Hercules’ position in the garden and the different readings it provides: “His [Hercules] position affords a new perspective of the garden, revealing a model of history as contrivance, a tilted offering on the platter of fiction, fixed on the axis between certainty and myth.” 25 Graf, Douglas. (1986). 26 Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016). 27 Goverde, Henri. (2009). The secularization of government was relatively new in Europe at this time. Goverde describes Vaux-le-Vicomte as a manifestation of the transition to modernity: “In sum, Vaux-le-Vicomte represents a combination that accords with ​ pre-modern political philosophy and modern scientific methods… It reflects a period of transition from Divine Rule to Enlightenment, or from pre-modernity to modernity.” ​

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Because France wished to show government as more powerful than the Church, the aristocracy was interested in raising their status to divine levels and illustrating this to foreign diplomats. The optical illusions created in Vaux-le-Vicomte embody this goal. The feeling of “constant illusion” created by anamorphosis abscondita establishes the subjectivity of visitors in the French landscape.28 They place the visitor at the whim of the landscape, but more importantly, their perceptions are actively controlled by the ruling class. One would be continually reminded of the power of the French and their vast reign.

28 Graf, Douglas. (1986). Graf expands on the idea of subjectivity in Vaux-le-Vicomte: “The garden itself is composed by a series of ​ proposals for a new center since these move across the landscape with the viewer, they always establish the notion of centrality as the domain of the present and just as quickly demolish it as folly by the provision of a new perspective and its attendent revision.” ​

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References

Graf, Douglas. (1986). Diagrams. Perspecta, Vol. 22: pp. 42-71. ​ ​

Grbic, Mihailo, Aleksandar Cucakovic, Biljana Jovic, and Milos Tripkovic. (2015). Garden ​ cultural heritage spatial functionalities: The case of anamorphosis abscondita at Vaux-le-Vicomte. Journal of Cultural Heritage, Vol. 18: pp. 366–369. ​

Goverde, Henri. (2009). Representation of power in public spaces: epistemic scientific versus ​ value rationality in social spatial constructions. Journal of Power, Vol 2, 2: pp. 275-300 - ​

Heywood, Andrew. (2007). Politics. London: Macmillan. ​ ​

Jellicoe, G. A. (1953). The Italian Renaissance Garden. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, ​ ​ Vol. 101, No. 4892: 175-185.

Mukerji, Chandra. (1994). The Political Mobilization of Nature in Seventeenth-Century French ​ Formal Gardens. Theory and Society, Vol. 23, 5: pp. 651-677. ​

Weiss, Allen S. (1995). Mirrors of Infinity: the French Formal Garden and 17th-Century ​ Metaphysics. Princeton Architectural Press. ​

Whalley, J. M. (1988). Water in the landscape. Landscape Urban Planning, Vol. 16: 145-162. ​ ​

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Image 1

Perspective drawing of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Louis Le Vau Graf, Douglas (1986).

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Image 2

Site of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Louis Le Vau Graf, Douglas (1986).

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Image 3

Site plan for Villa Lante, 1564 Jellicoe, G. A. (1953).

Image 4

Villa Medici, 1458 Jellicoe, G. A. (1953).

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Image 5

Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016).

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Image 6

Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016).

Image 7

Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016).

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Image 8

From each of these views one can compare the perceived length of each garden section to the true length (RD). Grbic, Mihailo, et. al. (2016).