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Symbolism and Politics: the Construction of the Louvre, 1660-1667

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Symbolism and Politics: the Construction of the Louvre, 1660-1667 Symbolism and Politics: The Construction of the Louvre, 1660-1667 by Jeanne Morgan Zarucchi The word palace has come to mean a royal residence, or an edifice of grandeur; in its origins, however, it derives from the Latin palatium, the Palatine Hill upon which Augustus established his imperial residence and erected a temple to Apollo. It is therefore fitting that in the mid-seventeenth century, the young French king hailed as the "new Augustus" should erect new symbols of deific power, undertaking construction on an unprecedented scale to celebrate the Apollonian divinity of his own reign. As the symbols of Apollo are the lyre and the bow, so too were these constructions symbolic of how artistic accomplishment could serve to manifest political power. The project to enlarge the east facade of the Louvre in the early 1660s is a well-known illustration of this form of artistic propaganda, driven by what Orest Ranum has termed "Colbert's unitary conception of politics and culture (Ranum 265)." The Louvre was also to become, however, a political symbol on several other levels, reflecting power struggles among individual artists, the rivalry between France and Italy for artistic dominance, and above all, the intent to secure the king's base of power in the early days of his personal reign. In a plan previously conceived by Cardinal Mazarin as the «grand dessin,» the Louvre was to have been enlarged, embellished, and ultimately joined to the Palais des Tuileries. The demolition of houses standing in the way began in 1657, and in 1660 Mazarin approved a new design submitted by Louis Le Vau. Le Vau's prominence as King's First Architect, and his previous success with the imposing College des Quatre Nations, made him a natural choice; his design of Vaux-le-Vicomte, however, represented an untimely success. The arrest of Fouquet in 80 JEANNE MORGAN ZARUCCHI 1661 was one of the king's first steps in consolidating his personal power, and the fact that Le Vau was among Fouquet's supporters made him a threat to that power, as well as to the ascendancy of Colbert. When Colbert became superintendent of buildings on January 1, 1664, he therefore acted to undermine Le Vau's influence by initiating a competition for a new design, although construction of the walls had in places reached the height of three meters (Hautecoeur 144). Le Vau's design, according to a plan dating from about 1663,1 had nevertheless several important features that would influence the project's eventual outcome. First, it incorporated a peristyle, or row of columns, that would run the length of the entire exterior facade of the palace. The similarities between this peristyle and the colonnade later designed by Claude Perrault have led some critics to champion Le Vau as the supposed "true" author of the colonnade; (H. Sauval 62; T. Sauvel 323-347; Whiteley and Braham I: 285-296, II: 347-362) deferring that question for the moment, however, the most important aspect of the column as a design feature is its classical character. Both Le Vau's and Perrault's designs thus incorporated a visual symbol suggestive of a temple, evoking the palatine association. Second, Le Vau's plan called for the enlargement of the existing structure, rather than for its demolition and eventual reconstruction. This approach was not only less costly, it possessed the symbolic advantage of preserving the foundations upon which the present palace had been built, and in a sense, perpetuating the notion of dynastic kingship. As Colbert expressed to the king in a letter of September 1663: (...) rien ne marque davantage la grandeur et l'esprit des princes que les batiments, et toute la posterite les mesure a l'aune de ces superbes maisons qu'ils ont elevees pendant leur vie (Clement 268). Colbert's aim was that the new Louvre should not eradicate the king's ancestral home, which already represented «le SYMBOLISM AND POLITICS:... 81 plus superbe palais qu'il y ait au monde et le plus digne de la grandeur de Votre Majeste,» but that it should be enhanced in such a way as to surpass what had been accomplished previously, and to become the measure by which the public would judge «le plus grand roi et le plus vertueux (Clement 268).» Despite these attractive features of Le Vau's design, Colbert remained unwilling to promote the interests of a political rival, whose own position of power made him unlikely ever to accede to the wishes of a newly-appointed superintendent of buildings.2 In addition, from an aesthetic standpoint, Le Vau's design was relatively conservative in nature, and may have been deemed lacking in the sumptuousness and grandeur to which Colbert aspired. In the opinion of the 18th-century critic Jean- Aymar Piganiol de la Force: Le Vau etait le plus habile Archeitecte qu'il y eut a Paris, mais je m'explique: c'etoit un de ces Architectes de tradition, comme ils sont presque tous. II avait parfaitement profite de ce qu'on lui avoit enseigne, et de ce qu'il avoit vu pratiquer, mais nulle imagination, nulle invention au-dela (259). Colbert therefore determined to solicit designs from other architects, and in so doing, created a furor. Every architect and artist of note entered into the competition, including the King's First Painter, Charles Le Brun. Perhaps the most prominent among the rival French architects was Francois Mansart, who had previously designed Val-de-Grace. Mansart was a genius, but not a practical one, being renowned for his tendency to make costly changes even after a work was in progress. According to the caption of a 17th-century portrait of Mansart in the Bibliotheque Nationale: Malgre la superiorite de son merite, ce celebre Artiste avoit beaucoup de peine a se satisfaire lui meme; et on Pa vu recommencer souvent ce qu'il avait bien fait, dans l'espoir de le faire mieux encore. [...] Mansard refusa de se charger de 82 JEANNE MORGAN ZARUCCHI Fexecution des nouvelles facades du Louvre, parce que M. Colbert voulut exiger de lui qu'il ne changeat plus rien a son Plan, quand, une fois, il auroit ete arrete.3 In this case, then, Mansart's unwillingness to defer to Colbert's authority, coupled with the prospect of ballooning cost, effectively removed him from the competition. According to Charles Perrault (tr. Zarucchi 54-55), it was at this point that Claude Perrault also submitted a design to Colbert, incorporating the crucial colonnade. The design evoked a suitably classical grandeur; it preserved the existing edifice; and most importantly from Colbert's standpoint, Claude Perrault was an amateur, and therefore not part of the artistic power structure to which Colbert found himself in opposition. Perrault was also a member of a bourgeois family well-known to Colbert, not only because of Charles but because of Colbert's long acquaintance with their brother Pierre, the Receiver General of Finances for the city of Paris. As the brother of a tax collector, Claude was unlikely to take umbrage over financial constraints. If both Le Vau's and Mansart's plans were to be rejected, however, the acceptance of a design by a man who was not even an acknowledged architect was a political impossibility. In the words of the modern critics Laprade, Bourdel and Lafond, his contemporary rivals «ne devai[en]t avoir que mepris pour Claude Perrault, surement considere dans la corporation des architectes comme un pretentieux personnage, incapable de composer quoi que ce soit (59).» On a more profound level, however, the issue at stake was the rivalry for a project of immense symbolic importance, one which at the time was viewed as the single most important architectural undertaking of the century. Regardless of the merits of Perrault's design, Colbert could not have dared to jeopardize his own precarious authority by snubbing the entire artistic establishment in favor of an unknown. Charles Le Brun, after all, had engineered the SYMBOLISM AND POLITICS:... 83 removal of Colbert's predecessor as superintendent of building, Antoine de Ratabon. Colbert's solution was to broaden the competition to include architects from outside of France, and among these, there was one name that stood apart from the rest: the world's most renowned sculptor and the protege of Pope Alexander VII, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Although Bernini was not the only Italian to be approached, the others including Carlo Rainaldi and Pietro da Cortona, he was by far the most celebrated, and at the age of 66, was regarded to be at the pinnacle of his career. After delicate negotiations to secure his release from papal service, and the promise of gratifications that would ultimately total over one hundred thousand livres, Bernini was selected to be the most fitting architect for the Louvre of Louis XIV. The invitation of Bernini was a highly symbolic gesture, and one that reflected the king's youth, Colbert's inexperience, and the fact that in the early days of the personal reign, these two architects of state had not yet formulated their mission to create a French national identity, founded upon the persona of the king. In looking to an Italian designer, they avoided the controversial issue of selecting one Frenchman over another, but with the resulting negative implication that no French architect was good enough for a project of this magnitude. Bernini may have also appeared to be an ideal choice because of his earlier design of the elliptical colonnade in the piazza of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, a temple-like row of freestanding columns that echoes both Le Vau's and Perrault's designs for the Louvre.
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