Cour Carrée: Difference between revisions
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* [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/merimee_fr?ACTION=RETROUVER&FIELD_1=INSEE&VALUE_1=75101&NUMBER=31&GRP=2&REQ=%28%2875101%29%20%3aINSEE%20%29&USRNAME=nobody&USRPWD=4%24%2534P&SPEC=9&SYN=1&IMLY=&MAX1=1&MAX2=100&MAX3=100&DOM=Tous Ministry of Culture database entry for the Louvre] {{fr icon}} |
* [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/merimee_fr?ACTION=RETROUVER&FIELD_1=INSEE&VALUE_1=75101&NUMBER=31&GRP=2&REQ=%28%2875101%29%20%3aINSEE%20%29&USRNAME=nobody&USRPWD=4%24%2534P&SPEC=9&SYN=1&IMLY=&MAX1=1&MAX2=100&MAX3=100&DOM=Tous Ministry of Culture database entry for the Louvre] {{fr icon}} |
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* [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/memoire_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_5=LBASE&VALUE_5=PA00085992 Ministry of Culture photos] |
* [http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/memoire_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_5=LBASE&VALUE_5=PA00085992 Ministry of Culture photos] |
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* [http://www.virtualparis.fr/en/guide/displayVisit/19 A virtual visit of the Louvre] |
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080331223305/http://www.virtualparis.fr/en/guide/displayVisit/19 A virtual visit of the Louvre] |
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* [http://www.paris-360.com/front/fiche/8-cour-napol%E9on---pyramide-du-louvre.html Panoramic view of the pyramid and the Cour Napoléon] |
* [http://www.paris-360.com/front/fiche/8-cour-napol%E9on---pyramide-du-louvre.html Panoramic view of the pyramid and the Cour Napoléon] |
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Revision as of 20:10, 13 August 2017
This article has been translated from the article Cour carrée in the French Wikipedia, and requires proofreading. |
The Cour Carrée is one of the main courtyards of the Louvre Palace.
It was built steps by steps as the medieval Louvre castle was progressively demolished.
The steps of a progressive construction
Source of the whole paragraph :[1]
From 1190 to 1215, Philip-Augustus built the wall that bears his name around Paris to protect the capital from the English. To reinforce this enclosure on the western side, he built the Louvre Castle, an important fortress with four high walls protected by flooded ditches, towers and a dungeon.
At the time of the King Charles V of France (1364-1380), the population increasing, Paris spread widely beyond the walls of Philip-Augustus. The king build a new enclosure which encompasses these new quarters, and the Louvre castle is now inside this new enclosure. Therefore the castle loses much of its military interest. The king transformed the castle to make it more comfortable with the opening of numerous windows and the addition of chimneys,statues and turrets, creating gardens.
After his return from captivity of two years in Italy and Spain because of the defeat of Pavia (1524), the king Francis I of Francewants to transform the old castle of the Louvre into a palace of Renaissance style like those he experienced during his captivity. In 1528, he knocked down in four months the "Grosse Tour" (=big tower) which served as a keep and occupied with his moat the main part of the court of the castle. In 1546, the King asks the architect Pierre Lescot and the sculptor Jean Goujon to realize this transformation. His son Henri II (1547-1559) continues his work. The west wall is destroyed and rebuilt as a Renaissance palace of the same length from December 1546 to March 1549 : it is the current Lescot Wing. It hosts the "hall of the guards", today "salle des caryatides" which is a room for parties and as ballroom. There will historical events in this room such as the marriage of the King Henri IV, an episode of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the funeral wake of Henry IV, Molière's first performance for the King Louis XIV on the october 16th 1658.
Henry II then destroys and rebuilt the southern wall (1553-1556) with at the corner the creation of the king's pavilion. At this stage, the building is very heterogeneous since two sides are Renaissance-style palaces and the other two remain those of the medieval castle with walls, battlements and towers.
The queen Catherine de' Medici favores the construction of her Tuileries Palace. And Henry IV privileges his "gallery along the river", that is to say the link between the Louvre and the Tuileries. But he already intends to quadruple the size of the courtyard of the Louvre castle with the extension of the buildings already built.
It is Louis XIII who destroys the north wall of the castle (1624). The Lescot Wing wa built for a court with the size of the one of the castle. It was not easy to integrate it into a courtyard whose sides would be twice as long. The idea of the new architect Jacques Lemercier is to duplicate this wing to the north : it will be the present Lemercier Wing (1636). And to install a pavilion between the two : the Pavillon de l’Horloge, today pavilion Sully.
Louis XIV knocks down the east wall by the architect Louis Le Vau. The last two walls slaughtered (north and east) were simply shaved and the ditches filled. Their foundations remained intact. This is what will make it possible to rediscover them in the nineteenth century (1866) and to update their base during the works of the Grand Louvre : it is the current collection of the Medieval Louvre.
Louis XIV doubles the length of the south wing and build the north wing. Three of the sides of the square yard are then in place. It remains to build the east wing which is important because it faces the city whose houses and buildings are close. It must be the new main entrance to the Louvre. After a contest launched by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the king decides the construction of the Perrault's Colonnade on the east side outside [1665] by Claude Perrault and Louis le Vau . The work drags on because it is necessary to buy the land and the houses before the future colonnade to clear the view (the king does not have the power of expropriation). Moreover, the king privileges the Palace of Versailles from 1674.
Louis XIV also decided to double the width of the south wing (1670). This is why today we have two series of rooms : on the side of the courtyard side, the rooms of the Charles X museum ; on the side of Seine river, the rooms of the Campana gallery with essentially Greek potteries. But this work of the south wing will not be completed until a century later.
After the departure of the royal court for Versailles, the unfinished buildings host artists. Heterogeneous constructions appear in the courtyard.
After the abandonment and degradation of the Revolution, Louis XVIII restored the Louvre and placed his monogram on the three exterior facades of the cour Carrée (including the colonnade), with his monogram (two L's of stick characters turning their backs) whereas he only restored them.
Description
The buildings form a square of about 160 meters on each side. They are articulated on eight Wings that punctuate eight Pavilions from northwest to west
- the pavillon de Beauvais ;
- the pavillon de Marengo, to the north;
- the pavillon nord-est ;
- the pavillon central (or pavillon Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois ), to the east, bordered on the outside by the Colonnade ;
- the pavillon sud-est ;
- the pavillon des Arts, au sud ;
- the pavillon du Roi (=King's Pavilion) ;
- the pavillon Sully (formerly known as pavillon de l’Horloge), to the west, recognizable by its clock, its four groups of monumental caryatids, its friezes of children and its high domed roof, the prototype of all the domes of the Louvre, in harmony sought after by successive architects.
On either side of the Sully pavilion there are:
- The Lescot Wing, built from 1546 to 1558, up to the King's Pavilion on the left.
- The Lemercier Wing, built in 1639, up to the pavilion de Beauvais on the right.
At the center of this courtyard there is a fountain.
Although the buildings were built over a period of 250 years, they show great homogeneity. The ground floor and the two storeys have successions of windows, bas-reliefs, statues in niches. The sovereigns wanted to leave their monogram on the parts they built. It is thus that we find those of Henri II, Charles IX, Henri IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV. This helps to track the history of construction.
The Republic did not want to be outdone and installed a rooster in the fronton of the central wing of the east wing.
Example of sculptures
All the reliefs and statues of the cour carrée courtyard represent specific allegories or figures.
Here is the example of the first window on the left of the 2nd floor of the wing Lemercier, so close to the pavillon de l'Horloge. Above the window, an allegory of the Law. Then, at the level of the window from left to right: Moses with the tables of the law, the Egyptian goddess Isis with a sister, the Inca emperor Manco Cápac with the sun whose he is the son, Numa Pompilius the second king of the Roman monarchy.
References
- ^ DVD les batailles du Louvre (=the battles of the Louvre) episode 1/2 www.artevod.com ARTE-615337