03 — ARTWORK
Interior view
- MEDIUM
- Photo
- TYPE
- Other
PALETTE
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- FILE
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COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
For over a century, the immense château in Versailles became a laboratory for decorative arts in France. At a cost sometimes deemed outrageous, the highest quality craftsmanship ever attained in France was achieved and maintained. Despite incessant and haphazard modifications, the essential features of the château, such as the Cour de Marbre and the Galerie des Glaces, were spared, in view of their symbolic significance.
The Cour the Marbre (Marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. Court) is the courtyard of the palace built in 1623 by Louis XIII. It is paved with black and white marble which came from the castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte. In the 1660s, the façades have been remodeled and enriched with balustrades, busts, statues and vases, by Le Vau and Hardouin-Mansart. The three arched windows of the King's room open to the first floor of the central forecourt, behind a gilded balcony supported by eight marble columns.
The courtyard was modified in the nineteenth century, but it was restored to its original state in the 1980s.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r47ae10209237d4,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Interior view by ARCHITECT, French},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/architect-french-rdae55df3ad7702/interior-view-r47ae10209237d4},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
