 Versailles is a unique place in that it was the stage and center for an extravagant scheme which was designed to employ the influence of art against those who opposed the king. The visit to Versailles explores the history and struggles of France but it also reveals the deficiency in the telling of that history. King Louis XIV the sun king used the palace to mold the opinions of his court members and positioned Versailles as the source from which he exercised his power. Working as a mirror to his person the king utilized beauty to intoxicate not only visitors and bureaucrats but to extend his power even to the minds of the peasants under his control. Versailles is full of allusions to gods and goddesses to emphasize to the visitors that he who owned the royal palace was worthy of being among them. In Greek culture Zeus held the highest position of power and was surrounded by other lesser gods and goddesses. The decoration of Versailles glorifies and implies the power the king had through the propaganda provided by the art. In the Salon of Hercules the fresco on the ceiling depicts the rise of Hercules to the position of god after having struggled through various tasks.Versailles is literally able to intoxicate the visitor with beauty the rooms are almost completely devoid of blank spaces and comprise carving in the walls gilded in gold in addition to paintings. The intensified use of art borders on gaudy such as in the salon of abundance where the art is able to easily overwhelm the visitor. The palace and its gardens live up to the Pierre Bourdieu's comment ,that art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not to fulfill a social function of legitimating social differences, in that art as consumed by the visitors to the palace was able to astound by its richness. Even withing the gardens the extravagant art was able to permeate and inundate the psyche of those who visited Versailles and provide to the visitor a clear implication of the wealth of the monarchy. The main objective of visiting Versailles to observe the chambers of the wealthy as well as the form in which the dwelled. Even after the execution of the monarchy Versailles continues to exercise its power as had originally been objective. The history of France's battles are presented in a format which seeks to exalt without providing an unbiased view into its topic. |
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