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French Garden

The French formal garden, also called the jardin la franaise (literally, "garden in the French
manner" in French), is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on
nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th
century by the landscape architect Andr Le Ntre for Louis XIV and widely copied by other
European courts. The form of the French garden was strongly influenced by the Italian gardens of
the Renaissance, and was largely fixed by the middle of the 17th century.


Vaux-le-Vicomte (1660)

Versailles (1670-1690)



Components of the French Garden
PARTERRE. A planting bed, usually square or rectangular, containing an ornamental design
made with low closely clipped hedges, colored gravel, and sometimes flowers. Parterres
were usually laid out in geometric patterns, divided by gravel paths. They were intended
seen from above from a house or terrace. Aparterre de gazonwas made of turf with a
pattern cut out and filled with gravel.
Parterre Bosquet

BOSQUET. A small group of trees, usually some distance from the house, designed as an
ornamental backdrop.
ALLE. A straight PATH, often lined with trees.

Allee Topiary

TOPIARY. Trees or bushes trimmed into ornamental shapes. In French gardens, they were
usually trimmed into geometric shapes.
GOOSE FOOT PATTED'OIE. Three or five paths or which spread outward from a single
point.

GOOSE FOOT PATTED'OIE


The Principles of the French Garden

A geometric plan using the most recent discoveries of perspective and optics.
A terrace overlooking the garden, allowing the visitor to see all at once the entire garden.
All vegetation is constrained and architecturally designed, to demonstrate the mastery of
man over nature. Trees are planted in straight lines, and carefully trimmed at a set height.
The house/ palace/ chateaux serves as the central point of the garden, and its central
ornament. No trees are planted close to the house; rather, the house is set apart by low
parterres and trimmed bushes.
A central axis, or perspective, perpendicular to the facade of the house, on the side opposite
the front entrance. The axis extends either all the way to the horizon (Versailles) or to piece
of statuary or architecture (Vaux-le-Vicomte). The axis faces either South (Vaux-le-Vicomte,
Meudon) or east-west (Tuileries, Clagny, Trianon, Sceaux).
This principle axis is composed of a grass, or a basin of water, bordered by trees. The
principle axis is crossed by one or more perpendicular perspectives and alleys.
The most elaborate parterres, or planting beds, in the shape of squares, ovals, circles or
scrolls, are placed in a regular and geometric order close to the house, to complement the
architecture and to be seen from above from the reception rooms of the house.
The parterres near the residence are filled with broderies, designs created with low
boxwood to resemble the patterns of a carpet, and given a polychrome effect by plantings of
flowers, or by coloured brick, gravel or sand.
Bodies of water (canals, basins) serve as mirrors, doubling the size of the house or the trees.
The garden is animated with pieces of sculpture, usually on mythological themes, which
either underline or punctuate the perspectives, and mark the intersections of the axes, and
by moving water in the form of cascades and fountains.


Gardens of Versailles

The Gardens of Versailles, created by Andr Le Ntre between 1662 and 1700, were the
greatest achievement of the Garden la francaise. They were the largest gardens in Europe -
with an area of 15000 hectares, and were laid out on an east-west axis followed the course
of the sun: the sun rose over the Court of Honor, lit the Marble Court, crossed the Chateau
and lit the bedroom of the King, and set at the end of the Grand Canal, reflected in the
mirrors of the Hall of Mirrors. In contrast with the grand perspectives, reaching to the
horizon, the garden was full of surprises - fountains, small gardens fill with statuary, which
provided a more human scale and intimate spaces.
The central symbol of the Garden was the sun; the emblem of Louis XIV, illustrated by the
statue of Apollo in the central fountain of the garden. "The views and perspectives, to and
from the palace, continued to infinity. The king ruled over nature, recreating in the garden
not only his domination of his territories, but over the court and his subjects."


The Fountain de Latone, Versailles (1678)


Parterres of the Orangerie at the Palace of Versailles.

Gardens of the Palace of Versailles.



Plan Of Versailles

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