French landscape garden - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The French landscape garden is a style of garden inspired by idealized Italian landscapes and the romantic paintings of Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...

, Claude Lorrain

Claude Lorrain

Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English (also Claude Gellée, his real name, or in French Claude Gellée, , dit le Lorrain) Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English (also Claude Gellée, his real name, or in French...

and Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...

, European ideas about Chinese garden

Chinese garden

The Chinese garden, also known as a Chinese classical garden, is a style of landscape garden which has evolved for more than three thousand years, and which is inspired by Chinese literature, Chinese painting and Chinese philosophy...

s, and the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

. The style originated in England, as the 'English landscape garden,' in the early 18th century and spread to France, where, in the late 18th and early 19th century, it gradually replaced the formal, symmetrical garden à la française

Garden à la française

The French formal garden, also called jardin à la française, is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order over nature. It reached its apogee in the 17th century with the creation of the Gardens of Versailles, designed for Louis XIV by the landscape architect André Le...

The Decline of the Garden à la française

Even during the lifetime of Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

and his gardens of Versailles

Gardens of Versailles

The Gardens of Versailles occupy part of what was once the Domaine royal de Versailles, the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover some 800 hectares of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French Garden style perfected here by...

, the formal, symmetrical garden à la française

Garden à la française

was criticized by writers La Fontaine, Madame de Sévigné, Fénelon and Saint-Simon

Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon

Louis de Rouvroy commonly known as Saint-Simon was a French soldier, diplomatist and writer of memoirs, was born in Paris...

for imposing tyranny over nature. In 1709, in his influential book on garden design, Dezallier d'Argenville

Dezallier d'Argenville

The family of Dezallier d'Argenville produced two writers and connoisseurs in the course of the 18th century.Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville , avocat to the Parlement de Paris and secretary to the king, was a connoisseur of gardening who laid out two for himself and his family, before writing...

called for garden designers to pay more attention to nature than to art. Signs of a new, more natural style were seen in the design of the bousquet des Sources at the Trianon, created by André Le Nôtre

André Le Nôtre

André Le Nôtre was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France...

, and in the bousquets of the Château de Marly

Château de Marly

The Château de Marly was a relatively small French royal residence located in what has become Marly-le-Roi, the commune that existed at the edge of the royal park. The town that originally grew up to service the château is now a dormitory community for Paris....

, created by Hardouin-Mansart. After the military defeats of France in the beginning of the 18th century and the freezing winter of 1709, the royal treasury was unable to finance upkeep of the elaborate gardens of Versailles. Trees were untrimmed, gardens and paths were overgrown. France was ready for the introduction of a new style of gardens.

The Influence of the English Garden

The French landscape garden was influenced first of all by the new style of English landscape garden, particularly those of William Kent

William Kent

William Kent , born in Bridlington, Yorkshire, was an eminent English architect, landscape architect and furniture designer of the early 18th century.He was baptised as William Cant.-Education:...

at Stowe

Stowe House

Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house located in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of Stowe School, an independent school. The gardens , a significant example of the English Landscape Garden style, along with part of the Park, passed into the ownership of The National Trust...

(1730–1748) and Rousham

Rousham

Rousham is a village and civil parish beside the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire. The village is about west of Bicester and north of Kidlington...

(1738–1741); and the garden by Henry Hoare

Henry Hoare

Henry Hoare II , known as Henry the Magnificent, was an English banker and garden owner-designer.-Career:Born the son of Henry Hoare I and educated at Westminster School, Henry Hoare dominated the Hoare family through his wealth and personal charisma. Henry was a partner for nearly 60 years in C...

at Stourhead

Stourhead

Stourhead is a 2,650 acre estate at the source of the River Stour near Mere, Wiltshire, England. The estate includes a Palladian mansion, the village of Stourton, gardens, farmland, and woodland...

(begun in 1741); which were themselves inspired by trips to Italy and filled with recreations of antique temples; and later by the gardens of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill

Strawberry Hill House

Strawberry Hill is the Gothic Revival villa of Horace Walpole which he built in the second half of the 18th century in what is now an affluent area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in Twickenham, London...

(beginning 1750), where Gothic ruins replaced antique temples. Later, the gardens of Capability Brown

Capability Brown

Lancelot Brown , more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English eighteenth-century artists to be accorded his due", and "England's greatest gardener". He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure...

, who had studied with William Kent, had an important influence in France, particularly his work at Stowe (1748), Petworth

Petworth

Petworth is a small town and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 east-west road from Heathfield to Winchester and the A283 Milford to Shoreham-by-Sea road. Some twelve miles to the south west of Petworth along the A285 road...

(1752), Chatsworth

Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House is a stately home in North Derbyshire, England, northeast of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield . It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish family, since Bess of Hardwick settled at Chatsworth in 1549.Standing on the east bank of the...

(1761), Bowood (1763) and Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace is a monumental country house situated in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, residence of the dukes of Marlborough. It is the only non-royal non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, one of England's largest houses, was built between...

(1769.).

Descriptions of English garden

English garden

The English garden, also called English landscape park , is a style of Landscape garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical Garden à la française of the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The...

s were first brought to France by the Abbé LeçBlanc, who published accounts of his voyage in 1745 and 1751. A treatise on the English garden, Observations on Modern Gardening, written by Thomas Whately

Thomas Whately

Thomas Whately , an English politician and writer, was a Member of Parliament , who served as Commissioner on the Board of Trade, as Secretary to the Treasury under Lord Grenville, and as Under- secretary of State under Lord North . As an M.P...

and published in London in 1770, was translated into French in 1771. After the end of the Seven Years War

Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...

in 1763, French noblemen were able to voyage to England and see the gardens for themselves. During the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, many French nobles went into exile in England, and brought back with them the new style of gardening.

The Chinese Influence on the French landscape garden

In 1743, Father Attiret, a French Jesuit priest and painter in service to the Emperor of China, wrote a series of letters describing the Chinese garden

Chinese garden

s he had seen. In particular he described the Emperor's summer residence, Yuanming yuan near Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, and described it

Attiret's letters were a success in both France and in England, where they were translated and published in 1752, They had an important influence on what became known as the Anglo-Chinese garden.

In 1757 Sir William Chambers, an English writer and traveler who made three trips to China, published a book called The Drawings, buildings, furniture, habits, machines and untensils of the Chinese, with a chapter about gardens. The book,was quickly translated into French, Chambers brought to Europe the Chinese idea that gardens should be composed of a series of scenes which evoke different emotions, ranging from enchantment to horror to laughter. Chambers wrote, "The enchanted or romanesque scenes abound in the marvelous. They provoke a series of violent or opposing sensations; footpaths leading down to underground passages where mysterious lights reveal strange groupings; winding roads which pass through beautiful forests leading to precipices or melancholy rivers lined with funerary monuments shaded by laurels and willows. The horrible scenes present hanging rocks, cataracts, caverns, dead tree broken by the storm, burnt or shattered by lightning, and buildings in ruins....The scenes of horror are only one act in a theatrical production that usually ends in a soothing extended perspective, simple forms and beautiful colors. The laughing scenes make one forget the enchantment and the horror of the landscapes that one has passed through."

Chambers became the creator of the first Chinese garden in Europe, complete with a Chinese pagoda, at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, on the southwest of London. The book of Chambers and the Chinese garden he created at Kew Gardens brought Chinese gardens into fashion in both England and France. Landscape gardens in France began to include artificial hills, pagodas, and promenades designed to provoke emotions ranging from melancholy to sadness to joy.

Rousseau's philosophy of the landscape garden

The ideas of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(1712 – 1778) had a major influence on the landscape garden, and he himself was buried in the first important such garden in France, at Ermenonville. Rousseau wrote in 1762, on the "nobility of nature": "Everything is good when it leaves the hand of the creator"; "Everything degenerates in Man's hands." In his novel Rousseau imagined a perfect landscape, where people could be true to themselves. This imaginary garden became a model for French landscape gardens. The French historian Jurgis wrote: "the theme of this Paradise, once restored by setting free flowers, earth and water, was the guiding principle in the development of landscape gardens. It was a glorification of that which had long been denatured by artifice. In opposing his Elysian Fields

Elysium

Elysium is a conception of the afterlife that evolved over time and was maintained by certain Greek religious and philosophical sects, and cults. Initially separate from Hades, admission was initially reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes...

, the Orchard at Clarens

Clarens

Clarens is the name of several places:* Clarens, Free State, a town in Free State Province, South Africa* Clarens, Hautes-Pyrénées, a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department of southwestern France...

to the serried trees sculpted into parasols, fans, marmosets, and dragons, Rousseau reawakes this myth with its new liberties."

Rousseau visited England in 1761 and saw the famous gardens, including that at Stowe

Stowe House

, but he criticized the mish-mash of different styles there. "It is composed of very beautiful and picturesque places, of which different features have been chosen from different countries," he wrote. "It all seems natural, except the assembly."

René Louis de Girardin

René Louis de Girardin

René Louis de Girardin , Marquis of Vauvray, was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's last pupil. He created the first French landscape garden at Ermenonville. It was inspired by Rousseau's ideas...

, who created the garden at Ermenonville, was an avid pupil of Rousseau. He designed the garden to illustrate the idyllic landscapes described in Rousseau's books. He travelled to Paris, was introduced to Rousseau, and persuaded him to visit the garden and stay in a small cottage designed to resemble the house of Julie, called Elysee, described in Rousseau's novel La Nouvelle Heloise . Rousseau came to visit in May 1778 and returned frequently. He stayed a the estate frequently, and was writing and the ' onMouseout='HidePop("92608")' href="/topics/French_Revolution">French Revolution

French Revolution

.

Girardin made the park at Ermenonville a living illustration of Rousseau's ideas; making carefully constructed landscapes, like paintings, designed to invite the visitor to take long walks and to feel pure and simple emotions. Perhaps the best English equivalent would be Capability Brown

Capability Brown

The paths were designed to follow the hillsides, climbing up and down, to give a various view, from shadows of groves of trees to sunlight, and meandering to let the viewer delight the scene from different angles and light. Girardin described the purpose of his garden in a book called (:
The principles taken from Rousseau and transformed into avenues and landscapes by Girardin and other garden designers were copied in landscape gardens around France.

Painters and the Symbolism of the Landscape Garden

The views in landscape gardens were rarely copied from real nature; they were more often inspired by romantic paintings, particularly those of Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

, Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic.-Early life:...

and Claude Lorrain

Claude Lorrain

, who depicted Arcadian landscapes with mythological scenes. In France they were influenced by the paintings and drawings of Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...

, who depicted romantic scenes of crumbling antique ruins seen during his visits to Italy. Robert himself became a garden designer himself, contributing to the landscape garden at Betz and the Hameau de la reine at Versailles.

Landscape Gardens were designed to be allegories; taken from literature and painting, and filled with symbols and messages. They were usually either recreations of the Garden of Paradise, or of the pastoral Arcadia

Arcadia

Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...

of Roman myths, or they were designed to offer a visual tour of the history of mankind or of all the world. The landscape was not enough - it had to have architecture. The French gardens were filled with fabriques, imitations of Roman temples

Roman gardens

Roman gardens and ornamental horticulture became highly developed during the history of Roman civilization. The Gardens of Lucullus on the Pincian Hill at the edge of Rome introduced the Persian garden to Europe, around 60 BC...

or ruins or tombs. At Ermenonville, the gardens were ornamented with fabriques representing a Gothic tower, an obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

, the Temple of Philosophy (left unfinished to represent the incompleteness of human knowledge); and a hermit's hut.

The gardens at Betz, created by the Duc d'Harcourt and the painter Hubert Robert for the Princess of Monaco, were supposed to be a journey around the world. The different parts of the world were represented by an obelisk, a Doric temple

Greek gardens

A distinction is made between Greek gardens, made in ancient Greece, and Hellenistic gardens, made under the influence of Greek culture in late classical times...

, a Chinese kiosk, a Druid

Druid

A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....

temple and the ruins of a medieval chapel. The gardens of the Bagatelle at Paris contained fabriques in the form of the temple of the God Pan, the house of the Chinese philosopher, a Pharaoh's tomb, and a hermit's cell. As the architect Carmontelle wrote about the garden he created at Monceau, "Let us vary the regions so that we may forget where we are. Let us change the scenes of a garden like the decors at the Opera; let us show what the most able painters can offer as decoration; all periods and all places.".

The Influence of Explorers and Botanists on the French Landscape Garden

The 18th and early 19th century was an age of discovery and enormous activity in the natural sciences, botany and horticulture. Explorers, diplomats and missionaries were instructed to bring new species of plants to France, where they were acclimated in special gardens at the seaports. In 1764 the larch

Larch

Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south...

tree was imported from England to France, soon after the Cedar of Lebanon. The dahlia

Dahlia

Dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, perennial plants native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. There are at least 36 species of dahlia, some like D. imperialis up to 10 metres tall. Dahlia hybrids are commonly grown as garden plants...

and the chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemums, often called mums or chrysanths, are of the genus constituting approximately 30 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Asteraceae which is native to Asia and northeastern Europe.-Etymology:...

, hydrangea

Hydrangea

Hydrangea is a genus of about 70 to 75 species of flowering plants native to southern and eastern Asia and North and South America. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China, Japan, and Korea...

and mimosa

Mimosa

Mimosa is a genus of about 400 species of herbs and shrubs, in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the legume family Fabaceae. The generic name is derived from the Greek word μιμος , meaning "mimic."...

were imported from Mexico to France. The reverend Charles Plumier

Charles Plumier

Charles Plumier was a French botanist, after whom the Frangipani genus Plumeria is named. Plumier is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time...

(1646–1704) brought back the magnolia

Magnolia

Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol....

, the fuchsia

Fuchsia

Fuchsia is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1703 by the French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier...

and the begonia

Begonia

Begonia is a genus in the flowering plant family Begoniaceae and is a perennial. The only other members of the family Begoniaceae are Hillebrandia, a genus with a single species in the Hawaiian Islands, and the genus Symbegonia which more recently was included in Begonia...

from Latin America. Louis Feuilée (1660–1732) brought the calceolaria

Calceolaria

Calceolaria L. , also called Lady's purse, Slipper flower and Pocketbook flower, or Slipperwort, is a genus of plants in the Calceolariaceae family, sometimes classified in Scrophulariaceae by some authors...

, capucines, oxalis

Oxalis

Oxalis is by far the largest genus in the wood-sorrel family Oxalidaceae: of the approximately 900 known species in the Oxalidaceae, 800 belong here...

, opuntia

Opuntia

Opuntia, also known as nopales or paddle cactus , is a genus in the cactus family, Cactaceae.Currently, only prickly pears are included in this genus of about 200 species distributed throughout most of the Americas. Chollas are now separated into the genus Cylindropuntia, which some still consider...

and papaya

Papaya

The papaya , papaw, or pawpaw is the fruit of the plant Carica papaya, the sole species in the genus Carica of the plant family Caricaceae...

. Pierre Nicholas Le Chéron d'Incarville (1706–1757) introduced the Sophora japonica. Bernard de Jussieu

Bernard de Jussieu

Bernard de Jussieu was a French naturalist, younger brother of Antoine de Jussieu.Bernard de Jussieu was born in Lyon...

(1699–1777) brought the first cedar

Lebanon Cedar

Cedrus libani is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region.There are two distinct types that are considered to be different subspecies or varieties. Lebanon cedar or Cedar of Lebanon Cedrus libani is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean...

to be planted in France (1734), while his brother Joseph de Jussieu

Joseph De Jussieu

Joseph de Jussieu, , was a French botanist, member of the Jussieu family. He introduced the common garden heliotrope into Europe.He was the brother of Bernard and Antoine de Jussieu,...

(1704–1779) introduced the heliotrope

Heliotropium

Heliotropium is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae. There are 250 to 300 species in this genus, which are commonly known as heliotropes ....

. The explorers Bougainville

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of James Cook, he took part in the French and Indian War and the unsuccessful French attempt to defend Canada from Britain...

(1729–1811) and La Pérouse

Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse

Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was a French Navy officer and explorer whose expedition vanished in Oceania.-Early career:...

(1741–1788) brought back numerous plants which made their way into French gardens.Thanks to their discoveries, the French landscape gardens soon were ornamented with exotic trees and colorful flowers not seen before in Europe.

The Moulin Joli (1754-1772)

The Moulin Joli ("The pretty mill"), designed by the landscape architect Claude-Henri Watelet

Claude-Henri Watelet

Claude-Henri Watelet was a rich French fermier-général who was an amateur painter, a well-respected etcher, a writer on the arts and a connoisseur of gardens. Watelet's inherited privilege of farming taxes in the Orléanais left him free to pursue his avocations, art and literature and gardens...

, was probably the first garden in France designed in the new style. It was located along the Seine

Seine

The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...

between Colombes

Colombes

Colombes is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-History:On 13 March 1896, 17% of the territory of Colombes was detached and became the commune of Bois-Colombes ....

and Argenteuil

Argenteuil

Argenteuil is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil....

. Watelet discovered the site during a walk, bought it, and created a garden which preserved its natural beauty. It consisted of three islands, with a rustic house, a grotto, shelters for animals, a Chinese bridge, a Dutch bridge and a floating bridge; a mill, and a garden with a traditional layout. Watelet, who called the garden "L'isle enchantée," wrote that his garden was "in a pastoral style following the long tradition born in antiquity and carried on by the Italian and French Renaissance.". Visitors to the garden included the painters Boucher

François Boucher

François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...

, Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...

and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

visited several times.

Ermenonville, Oise

Ermenonville Park was designed by René Louis de Girardin

René Louis de Girardin

René Louis de Girardin , Marquis of Vauvray, was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's last pupil. He created the first French landscape garden at Ermenonville. It was inspired by Rousseau's ideas...

, who spent time as an officer in the army of Louis XV before retiring to his estate. He had visited Italy, Switzerland, Germany and England, and was familiar with the early English landscape gardens. He was particularly inspired by the garden of the British poet William Shenstone

William Shenstone

William Shenstone was an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening through the development of his estate, The Leasowes.-Life:...

, Leasowes, which became the model for Ermenonville.

In 1776 Girardin published a book, ("On the Composition of Landscapes"), which laid out his theories of gardens. These themselves quoted the French translation of a book on gardening by Thomas Whateley and the of Jean-Marie Morel

Jean-Marie Morel

Jean-Marie Morel , the author of La Théorie des Jardins , was a trained architect and surveyor, who produced a substantial and popular work advocating the "natural" landscape style of gardening in France, a French landscape garden...

(1776).

Girardin created the garden at Ermenonville to be a series of tableaux to be seen from various points at different times of day. The artist Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...

contributed drawings for its design. The park occupied 100 hectares (247.1 acre), laying in a valley along the River Launette. It took ten years to build the garden; ponds needed to be drained and the river had to be diverted. The 17th-century mansion sat on an island in is middle; northwards was all farmland, and to the west, towards the village, was , a wildlife garden Girardin filled the garden with metaphors representing philosophical, Renaissance

French Renaissance

French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century...

and Mediaeval themes.

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

spent the last weeks of his life in a cottage in that garden, a part that had been inspired by his novel (Julie, or the New Heloise). He was buried on an island in the river.

Because of its connection with Rousseau, the garden has attracted many famous visitors, including Joseph II of Austria, King Gustave III

Gustav III of Sweden

Gustav III was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Adolph Frederick and Queen Louise Ulrica of Sweden, she a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia....

, the future Czar, Paul I of Russia

Paul I of Russia

Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...

, Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

, Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, Danton

Georges Danton

Georges Jacques Danton was leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in theoverthrow of the monarchy and the...

, Robespierre, Chateaubriand, Queen Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette

and Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Chateau de Pompignan (works 1745-1780, garden mainly 1766-1774)

This landscape garden with its follies

Folly

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...

was built by Jean-Jacques Lefranc de Pompignan, a friend of Rousseau. It featured picturesque structures and mysterious ruins, and the walks and views took advantage of the park's site on a hillside overlooking the Garonne

Garonne

The Garonne is a river in southwest France and northern Spain, with a length of .-Source:The Garonne's headwaters are to be found in the Aran Valley in the Pyrenees, though three different locations have been proposed as the true source: the Uelh deth Garona at Plan de Beret , the Ratera-Saboredo...

valley and, in the far distance, the chain of the Pyrenees

Pyrenees

The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...

, stretched out along the southern horizon. The chateau is still inhabited, and although the parc has been neglected for a very long time, vestiges of the works and walks are still to be seen.

Parc Monceau, Paris (1773-1778)

Parc Monceau was designed by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle

Louis Carrogis Carmontelle

Louis Carrogis Carmontelle was a French dramatist, painter, architect, set designer and author, and designer of one of the earliest examples of the French landscape garden, Parc Monceau in Paris...

(15 August 1717 – 26 December 1806), a French dramatist, painter, architect, set designer and author. In 1773, he was asked by the Duc de Chartres

Duc de Chartres

- Carolingian Counts :* 882-886 Hastings, Norman Chief, beat Carloman II of France in 879, agreed to settle and receives County of Chartres. He sells in 886 to finance an expedition in which he disappears.- House of Blois :...

, the son of Louis-Philippe d'Orléans and the future Philippe Egalité, to design a garden around a small house that he was building to the northwest of Paris. Between 1773 and 1778, he created the folie de Chartres, (now Parc Monceau), one of the most famous French landscape gardens of the time. It departed from the more natural English landscape gardens of the time by presenting a series of fantastic scenes designed "to unite in one garden all places and all times."[3]. It included a series of fabriques, or architectural structures, while illustrated all the styles known at the time; antiquity, exoticism, Chinese, Turkish, ruins, tombs, and rustic landscapes, all created to surprise and divert the visitor.

Désert de Retz, Yvelines (1774-1782)

The garden was created by François Racine de Monville

François Racine de Monville

François Racine de Monville was a French aristocrat, musician, architect and landscape designer, best known for his French landscape garden, Le Désert de Retz, which influenced Thomas Jefferson and other later architects....

(1734 – 1797), a French aristocrat, musician, architect and landscape designer. In 1774, de Monville bought a country estate at Saint-Jacques-de-Retz, which had a farm, lands, and a formal garden à la française

Garden à la française

. He resolved to create a new garden in the new English style. He called the garden le Désert de Retz, and planted it with four thousand trees from the royal greenhouses, and rerouted a river and created several ponds.

The garden, completed in 1785, contained twenty-one fabriques, or architectural constructions, representing different periods of history and parts of the world; they included an artificial rock, a temple of rest, a theater, a Chinese house, a tomb, a ruined Gothic church, a ruined altar, an obelisk, a temple to the god Pan

Pan (mythology)

Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...

, a Siamese tent, and an ice-house in the form of a pyramid. The best-known feature was the ruined classical column, large enough to hold a residence inside.

The rustic village as garden feature (hameau)

Along with the development of the French landscape garden, there was a parallel development in the 18th century of ornamental farms and picturesque "villages." The first such ornamental farm in France was the Moulin Joli, but there were similar rustic buildings at Ermenonville

Ermenonville

Ermenonville is a small village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.Ermenonville is notable for its park named for Jean-Jacques Rousseau by René Louis de Girardin...

, Parc Monceau

Parc Monceau

Parc Monceau is a semi-public park situated in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, at the junction of Boulevard de Courcelles, Rue de Prony and Rue Georges Berger. At the main entrance is a rotunda. The park covers an area of 8.2 hectares ....

, and the Domaine de Raincy. In 1774, the Prince de Condé conceived an entire rustic village, the Hameau de Chantilly

Hameau de Chantilly

The Hameau de Chantilly is a folly in the park of the Château de Chantilly built in 1774 and consisting of seven rustic thatched cottages with luxurious interiors set in a garden....

, for his estate at the Château de Chantilly

Château de Chantilly

The Château de Chantilly is a historic château located in the town of Chantilly, France. It comprises two attached buildings; the Grand Château, destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1870s, and the Petit Château which was built around 1560 for Anne de Montmorency...

. The little village was modeled on a farm in Normandy

Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...

, and had seven buildings with thatched roofs, designed by architect Jean-François Leroy

Jean-François Leroy

Jean-François Leroy was a French architect. For the Prince of Condé, he worked on the Château of Chantilly, the Palais Bourbon, and the Hôtel de Lassay, where he replaced Claude Billard Bélisard in 1780.- Biography :...

. The exteriors were rustic, but the interiors were extremely elegant, and used for concerts, games, and dinners. They were used for a reception for members of the Russian imperial court in 1782.

Jardin de la reine, Versailles, (1774-1779)

In 1749 Louis XV had created a "jardin d'instruction" next to the gardens of Versailles, with domestic animals, a kitchen garden, and a botanical garden of plants brought from around the world. In 1750, he added a pavilion, designed by Jacques-Ange Gabriel, with a formal garden, and a few winding paths and bousquets of trees in the new style. In 1774, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon

Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon is a small château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France.-Design and construction:...

to Queen Marie-Antoinette, and she commanded that a new garden be built in the new landscape garden style. The garden was designed by Richard Mique

Richard Mique

Richard Mique was a neoclassical French architect born in Lorraine. He is most remembered for his picturesque hamlet, the Hameau de la reine — not particularly characteristic of his working style — for Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon gardens within the estate of Palace of...

, Antoine Richard

Antoine Richard

Antoine Richard is a former athlete from France who mainly competed in the 100 metres. He was French 100 metre champion on 5 Occasions, and also 200 metre winner in 1985.He also won the French 60 metres title 5 times as well....

, and painter Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...

. Richard was responsible for the choice of trees and plants, and Mique and Robert took charge of the composition and the fabriques, or architectural constructions.

The garden was conceived as a small stream whose source was in a grotto of rocks. On one side was a butte with an octagonal Belvedere on top. The Belevedere was also known as the pavilion of music, and was decorated with murals inspired by the paintings of Pompeii

Pompeii

The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...

. The stream wound through the garden, and was crossed by bridges or stones. It formed an island on which was placed the temple de l'Amour.

The construction of the garden required the destruction of the old botanical gardens and greenhouses, but some of the plants were incorporated into the gardens.

Gardens of the Château de Bagatelle
Château de Bagatelle
The Château de Bagatelle is a small neoclassical château with a French landscape garden in the Bois de Boulogne in the XVIe arrondissement of Paris...

, Paris (1777–1784)
The Folie Saint James
Folie Saint James
The Folie St. James was a French landscape garden created between 1777 and 1780 in the Paris suburb of Neuilly by Claude Baudard de Saint James, the treasurer of the French Navy under Louis XVI of France. It was the work of landscape architect François-Joseph Bélanger, who had designed the garden...

, Paris, (1777–1780)
Hameau de la reine, Versailles (1783–1789)
Château de Méréville
Château de Méréville
The Château de Méréville is a chateau in Méréville in the valley of the Juine, France. It is the rival of the Désert de Retz as two of the most extensive Landscape Gardens provided with follies and picturesque features — parcs à fabriques — made in the late eighteenth century...

, Essonne, (1784–1786)

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