Gardens in revolution : landscapes & political culture in France, 1760-1792 / Gabriel Wick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wick, Gabriel, author.

Series:

Early modern gardens and landscapes

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political culture--France--History--18th century.

Political culture.

Cultural landscapes--France--History--18th century.

Cultural landscapes.

Gardens--France--History--18th century.

Gardens.

Physical Description:

384 pages : color illustrations ; 29 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; Turnhout : Harvey Miller Publishers, [2025]

Summary:

France in the mid-1760s witnessed what the aphorist and garden lover the prince de Ligne hailed as "La révolution du goût" - the revolution of taste. A small number of dissident and philosophically minded aristocrats remade their gardens in the bizarre and eccentric manner of the English. The informality and apparent naturalism of these jardins anglais stood in marked contrast to the symmetry, regularity, and proudly assumed artifice of the jardins à la française, the century-old legacy of André Le Nôtre and his master Louis XIV. The English-inflected aesthetic was all the more controversial because France had just suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of England in the Seven Years' War. Landscape gardens formed part of a broader taste for English fashions, pastimes, and mindsets that was derisively termed Anglomania by traditionalists. Louis XVI opined to his brother-in-law Joseph II that anglomanie was the most pernicious threat to the well-being of France. What did it mean for the kingdom's great dynasts to reframe their identities in the image of the nation's rival? Were these aesthetic developments simply a question of fashion or did they portend a deeper instability and discontentment in the upper echelons of the Bourbon monarchy? How did new English-inflected settings allow aristocrats and the people to interact differently? Gardens in Revolution argues that royal, aristocratic and public gardens were catalysts in early modern political culture: settings that allowed dynasts to redefine their identities, transform their interactions with the press and the people, and in so doing contest the limited influence and autonomy afforded them within the Bourbon state. Covering the three decades from the end of the Seven Years' War to the abolition of the monarchy, it charts how estates and gardens like Marie-Antoinette's Petit-Trianon and Saint-Cloud, the comte d'Artois' Bagatelle, or the duc d'Orléans' Monceau and Le Raincy served as instruments of communication, self-expression and self-representation. It argues that English-inflected aesthetics were a critical means for grandees to manifest their "affabiliteì," or openness to the public, and their dissatisfaction with the current political order.

Contents:

In the gardens of the princes patriotes: the princes de Conti and Condé and the Duc d'Orléans

Triumph through disgrace: the Duc de Choiseul at Chanteloup

Révolte à l'Anglaise: The Duc de Chartres at Monceau and Saint-Leu

A revolution at court: Marie-Antoinette, the Petit-Trianon, and the reinvention of the royal garden

Prince of the public sphere: the Comte d'Artois' landscapes

The crown's new estates: Rambouillet and Saint-Cloud

A modern domain for a republican prine: Orléans and Le Raincy

Conclusion: the king's last garden: Tuileries.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-379) and index.

ISBN:

191548751X

9781915487513

OCLC:

1512898628