My Newest Favourite Thing: Fiona Hall's Wrong Way Time

I have seen the works of Fiona Hall before. I think she is innovative and creative with an ability to execute her ideas in an engaging manner. In 2015 her exhibition Wrong Way Time attracted global attention at the Venice Biennale, and the following year I was lucky enough to see it at the National Gallery of Australia, complemented by a collection of Hall's works mainly from the NGA collection.

In Wrong Way Time, Fiona Hall brings together hundreds of elements, each embedded with layers of meaning. Together, the works focus powerfully on the intersecting themes of global conflict, world finances and the environment, which Hall perceives as a "minefield of madness, badness and sadness in equal measure."

Sasha Grishin wrote in The Canberra Times, "The exhibition's 800 items are presented within a darkened space, with walls painted black, as part of a deeply immersive installation. It is a troubling, dark, gothic experience, where the artist appears as a shaman who, through alchemy, transforms the materials drawn from a commonly experienced reality into mystical and wondrous creations. Wall-pieces create an outer boundary and vitrines, which are set up as wunderkammer-like cases or cabinets of curiosities, frame the central space that is occupied by the installation All the King's men."

This installation includes twenty sculptures, knitted out of shredded camouflage fabric from military uniforms of various countries. Ghostly vestigial bodies hang from oversized disfigured heads, forming a disturbing group that represents the foot-soldiers who are casualties of conflict regardless of nationality. Teeth, bones, horns and found objects adorn the mask-like heads and their spectral skeletal bodies. 

According to curator of the NGA, Leigh Robb, "It is an exemplary manifestation of Hall's maverick powers of material transformation and is the culmination of decades of conceptual and material investigation... These hollow people of war and conflict represent the many who have fallen and those who are yet to fall in the name of nationhood. Fiona Hall has shaped the course of Australian art history. Her enduring vision will help us to understand ourselves, each other and these uncertain times."

Sasha Grishin continues, "A major artistic strategy in Hall's repertoire is that of 'bricolage', where the artist improvises with the materials at hand. It is a sort of DIY approach to art making, where the artist will take aluminium sardine and fish tins, US dollar bills, as well as other foreign banknotes, old clocks, model aeroplanes and ships, damaged books, a carburettor, car light and radiator hose, light switches, driftwood, pool balls, mobile phones, camouflage military garments, deer teeth, a zebra hoof, credit cards, bones and horns, together with coal, bread, perfume bottles and living spiders and employs these to create alternative realities. The French term 'bricolgae' comes from the verb 'bricoler' (to tinker) and in some ways this characterises this artist's method of work."

In Tender she slices up US dollar bills to become the threads out of which to build beautifully designed and realised bird's nests. The banknotes are woven into an 86-piece installation accurately replicating the nests of extinct birds from areas logged by American interests. The nests are now bird-less, silent and deserted. The title itself plays with an array of associations from 'legal tender' to emotional tenderness. 

To make Tender, Hall paid face value for thousands of US dollars and sliced them up to weave the nests. As the US dollar is the most valued currency in Third World countries, this work suggests people hunting for the dollar like a bird scavenging for materials to build its nest. The artists is also commenting on one of the prices paid for capitalism - the destruction of the environment. 

Speaking about Tender in 2006, Fiona Hall said, "I knew that shredding the American dollar was for me conceptually an act of revenge for the sorry state our world is in. I don't mean to direct my wrath towards that to the United States alone, but it's the inevitability of the globalised world that we live in that the environment is under enormous pressure. Socially and globally suddenly we are aware of that in a way that we weren't five years ago when I was still making that work.

"It's amazing how quickly the tide has changed. The power of the greenback has really faded in the last few years. Now the greenback suddenly has perhaps come to represent a world and a system that is foundering; a system that used to be watertight and isn't any longer. Now with the financial downturn globally and with all the other political events of the last few years that have changed the idea of America as being a figurehead nation for the rest of the world to aspire to - all of that has changed in the minds of so many of us and I think that our regard of the American dollar in that context is different now."

The work explores the complex relationship between the natural world and human systems of value, trade and exchange. Hall combines the empirical knowledge of a scientist working in the natural sciences, the creative associative imagination of the artist, together with an obsessive and manual dexterity and technical precision.

Another example of her work combining the natural world with capitalism is Leaf Litter (1999-2003) in which paper money or bank notes are used as canvases for delicate x-ray-like paintings of leaves. While money is the bottom line in our contemporary economy and overrides crucial environmental concerns, plants are often the raw material for generating income (and money, made from paper, is also produced from plants). Fiona Hall's witty and elegant work captures this perfectly.

Also adding to the Venice exhibition is the earlier work, Paradisus terrestris (1989-90), made from sardine tins and aluminium cans over a fifteen year period. These otherwise discarded materials have been transformed into beautiful objects as each sardine tin has been wound down to reveal within an embossed depiction of the human form. At the top of the tin grows botanically correct representations of flora; the plant and the body interconnected in form. The connection we as humans have with our natural world is emphasised through ideas of fertility and reproduction, growth and natural cycles.

Holdfast (Macrosystis angustifolia; giant kelp)

As seen in Holdfast (Macrosystis angustifolia; giant kelp), part of the object emulates the natural and jagged textures of foliage, seen branching outwards, growing from the unraveling tin can. The text imprinted on the tin is a jarring reminder of the artificiality of the sculpture.

In a similar vein, endangered marine species have been hand-carved out of single sardine tins and each painted with maritime signal flags to comprise the work, Fleet. 

Fleet

Vaporised

I loved the way many of the exhibitions were displayed as items in curiosity cabinets. These cabinets of curiosities (wunderkammer) originated in Renaissance Europe as a way of cataloguing the world (or communicating one version of it). Glass cabinets also recall coffins and embalmed corpses; captured forms that we have killed so we can study. It creates a sombre atmosphere, in keeping with the subject matter. In one case (Vaporised) sits a collection of small glass perfume bottles on which are painted skulls to represent disappeared Tamils in Sri Lanka. Fiona Hall writes,

"The world is a very curious place. It's an amazing place and it's filled with curious things in the best sense of the word. And that seems to be accentuated by the way that objects have been displayed in cabinets; an innocent idea that you could actually put all these things in a museum display and you could comprehend the world. In a sense the museum cabinet makes the world somehow more incomprehensible rather than more comprehensible because you've just taken little fragments of it and conveniently left aside the context. And I find that curious as well; the implications of what's not in the cabinet; that are pointed out because of their absence; because of what has been put in the cabinet."  

I also really enjoyed the section of the exhibition, Crust, in which a series of small sculptures carved from baked bread installed on an open atlas represent various tragedies - environmental, cultural and militaristic - that occurred in the region on which it sits. One bread carving is of intricate barbed wire; another, an exploded village on a map of Syria, with tiny bricks of bread strewn across it. Dr Deborah Hart, senior curator at the National Gallery describes the sculpture as, "one of the great miracles of the show that made it through customs. Even Fiona was quite amazed that these had arrived in tact."

The exhibition investigates global politics, world finances and the environment. Other areas of interest for Hall include post-colonial issues, the relationship between culture and nature and the human condition. Hart describes Wrong Way Time as a "very dense exhibition" as it involves works made from an assortment of media including bread, banknotes, cork, aluminium and cuckoo clocks. These curious configurations speak deeply of Hall's practice, which continues to transcend fluidly without restriction.

The artist's choice of materials is never arbitrary, nor are the newly created forms. The large, dramatic wall-piece, Manuhiri (Travellers), looks from a distance like a collection of bones in the form of a strange organic installation. On closer inspection it turns out to be made from driftwood, arranged in a loose mandorla-like pattern.

The artist explains that she collected the driftwood from a beach at Awanui on New Zealand's East Cape, where the Waiapu River flows into the sea. Over-farming has led to wide-spread erosion and the trees have fallen and been swept out to sea, while the waves and tide have returned them to the shore in the form of driftwood. Manuhiri is like a shrine or graveyard of the forest, or in the artist's words, these bits of driftwood appear like "travellers from a former forest life reshaped by the ocean currents and now journeying to another life back in the world of the living."

Manuhiri (Travellers)

One of the strongest parts of the show is Kuka irititja (Animals from another time), where Hall collaborated with 12 women artists from the Tjanpi Desert Weavers of the Central and Western Desert region of Australia: Roma Butler, Stacia Lewis, Rene Nelson, Takiriya Tjawina Roberts, Angkaliya Nelson, Sandra Peterman, Yangi Yangi Fox, Molly Miller, Nyanu Watson, Rene Kulitja, Niningka Lewis and Mary Pan. These women have  long history of making animals woven from the local grasses and other materials from their country, and Fiona suggested they work together to weave a 40-piece installation representing a group of native animals, most of which are extinct in the wild. 

The work was created in June 2014 at an artist camp at a place near Pilakatilyuru (in the tri-state border region of Western Australia where it meets South Australia and the Northern Territory). The Tjanpi artists have a deep and intricate understanding of their country and were able to incorporate this knowledge into the woven pieces. They drew upon the interrelatedness of people, place and ancestral stories they call Tjukurpa (Dreaming), and from their intimate knowledge of hunting, tracks, and animal behaviour - including that of the predatory feral cat, the top killer of native Australian animals. Fiona as a non-Indigenous Australian brought her own thoughts about the impacts of colonisation on our environment and the animals that inhabit it.

Both the Tjanpi weavers and Fiona Hall share a mastery of weaving with various materials and this shared skill helped to inform the collaboration. The Tjanpi weavers harvested tjanpi (grass) and Fiona supplied Australian and British military printed camouflage fabric to incorporate into the works registering the damaging effects of British colonialisation including atomic testing in the 1950s and 60s on the fragile desert ecosystem and the lives of the Aboriginal people. The artists used each other’s fibres and also added in other found materials to create the final group of work. They are strange, whimsical creations that serve as a commentary on loss and absence.  

A woven helicopter seems incongruous until we read that Hall uses this to refer to the nuclear tests that were carried out at Maralinga by the British Government, with the agreement and support of the Australian Government, between 1952 and 1963. The toxic fallout is believed to be responsible for widespread illnesses across desert communities, the deaths of the weavers' parents and relatives, and the extinction of animal species.  

The exhibition also features several recent works on loan from the artist that were shown in dOCUMENTA 13 (2012). Kassle, Germany. These relate to endangered birds and animals from around the world. Hall reflects on the troubled times we are facing and this concern is ingrained in many of the pieces. The works from Fall Prey incorporate military camouflage material from the country in which the species is found on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) List of Threatened Species, and found objects to create curious hunting trophies; a macabre menagerie of near extinction promoting environmental vigilance.

Macromia Splendens/ splendid cruiser,France (2009-11) IUCN threat status: vulnerable

Polyommatus humedase/ Piedmont anomalous blue butterfly, Italy (2012) IUCN threat status: endangered

Cervus elaphus/ red deer, Europe, North America (2012) IUCN threat status: least concern

Another few works that stand out to me are the coal and aluminium sculpture, Untitled, with its implications of seaweed, branches, and lungs breathing pollutants that have come from natural sources, and the potato print and watercolour on khadi paper, Mob Rot, which speaks for itself in a fundamental earthy commentary on corruption and exploitation.  

Untitled (2015)

Mob Rot (2015)

Another exhibit which was not part of the Vienna Biennale, but which I enjoyed all the same, was Morality Dolls - the seven deadly sins (1984). This series of marionette dolls, based on the theme of the seven deadly sins are grotesque yet captivating, assembled from a variety of photocopied anatomical diagrams. Each figure anthropomorphises a vice, with body parts acting as metaphors for each sin. Hall's use of antique medical imagery alludes to the historic nature of these sins. The fanciful forms satirise basic human characteristics which continue to be relevant in a contemporary context. There is a sense of inexorability as these beasts are controlled by someone else pulling the strings. 

It's hard to explain the visceral hold this art has on me, as it appeals to and repels me at the same time. I will leave the last words to a local art reviewer, Sasha Grishin in the Canberra Times.

"Throughout the exhibition there is a combination of immediate high visual impact followed by a slow release of associative meanings that each individual viewer brings to the experience. Although it has become fashionable to speak of 'slow art' , where beyond the immediate 'wow factor' there lies a rich, slowly developing cultural response, Hall's art creeps along at a subversive pace. The high-[pitched dramatic, emotional and intuitive level in her art is to some extent supplemented by its cerebral and philosophical content. It is art that is simultaneously visually exciting and at times intellectually profound." 

There is one more major part of Wrong Way Time, which is Wrong Way Clocks, a body of work that I feel deserves its own post. So I'll get on to that next.

Impressions of Paris: Honore-Victorin Daumier

Some time ago I went to an exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia called Impressions of Paris: Lautrec, Degas, Daumier. These men, each a generation apart, are credited with being consummate draughtsmen whose innovative compositions and embrace of modern subject matter played a significant role in artistic developments in France over the nineteenth century.

I have previously seen a lot of Lautrec and Degas, but I was not so familiar with Honoré-Victorin Daumier, although it is clear to see, looking at his prints and lithographs, how he inspired the later artists. During the 1800s Paris had witnessed the remarkable growth of the popular press. The technique of lithography, invented at the turn of the eighteenth century, was adopted by practicing artists as it was a printmaking technique conducive to drawing freely and directly.

Daumier's knowledge of the Romantic artists, including Delacroix is evident in these sometimes complex structural arrangements of figures, and the sense of movement in the compositions. His understanding and application of the lessons learnt from the study of earlier artists sets him apart from other less talented caricaturists of his era. 

Battle between the schools: Idealism vs Realism from Le Charivari, 24 April 1855

For publishers of newspapers, lithography allowed for larger print runs compared to earlier printing methods. Newspapers and journals began to include serialisation of novels by writers like Emile Zola as well as caricatures by artists such as Daumier, which were often satiric and of a contemporary social or political nature. All of these factors helped to sell newspapers and journals to a growing and appreciative audience. 

Many of Daumier's caricatures reveal his mastery of depicting the human figure, his skill in foreshortening and ability to suggest movement. Daumier created a huge pool of imagery in his many witty, sometimes acerbic, series of themes devoted to French society, produced over many years. 

The orchestra during the performance of a tragedy from Le Charivari, 5 April 1852

The generation of French artists who followed Daumier in the nineteenth century were inspired by his observations, which became an extraordinary reservoir of ideas. Both Degas and then Lautrec were enthusiastic admirers of French caricature, delighting in its animated qualities, stylistic freedoms and contemporary themes. 

Degas was much taken with Daumier's skill as a draughtsman, and held him in high regard. He was particularly inspired by his interest in physiognomy (including the theory that appearance reveals character), his expressive qualities and modern themes, many of which Degas then adapted. Lautrec also assimilated lessons from Degas, borrowing themes and compositions from his idol. Lautrec admired and emulated Degas, which is evident in his compositions of drinkers at bars, dancers on stage, cabaret scenes and courtesans. 

A queen preparing for her big speech from Le Charivari, 24 September 1856

One thing I did find interesting is that for all his innovation and political freedom, Daumier still was far from believing in granting equality to half of the human race. He did not see assertive women as seekers of liberty and equality; rather they represented an aspect of self-obsessed bourgeois behaviour. In the series, Blue Stockings, educated women and aspiring authors  appear to be oblivious to the predicament of a child in an upturned bucket or to fellow readers in a library.

The mother is in the fire of composition, the baby is in the water of the bath from Le Charivari, 26 February 1844 

Women railing for their right to divorce and justice are seen as formidable figures in the full fury of their quest, or in celebratory mode toasting their emancipation. And women smoking after attending the public baths also satirise the 'new woman' of France.

 

A toast to the emancipation of Women, being drunk by women who are already tremendously emancipated from Le Charivari, 12 October 1848 

Daumier's legacy may have a been a brilliant journalistic record of the modern capital as he contributed to an era in France ripe for a new art, but he wasn't prepared to stray too far from convention. As far as he was concerned, art, emancipation, literature and life were still clearly boys' clubs.

Versailles: A Palace for a King

When I lived in France I went to Versailles several times. A couple of times I went inside the palace and gawped at all the opulence, but most of the time I just strolled around the gardens, sat by the fountains and enjoyed the more intimate surroundings of the Petit Trianon. When I heard that an exhibition was coming to the National Gallery of Australia 'featuring the treasures of the palace', I went along to see how these objects would reveal themselves out of context.

I had always found the grandiose nature of the palace quite oppressive and it's hard to focus on single objects when surrounded by such glittering wealth and shiny bling. Those who have never been there could get a feel for the place by standing against a backdrop of the Hall of Mirrors.

Louis XIV transformed Versailles from a humble hunting lodge built by his father into a vast luxurious palace. The construction took place over nearly half a century from 1662, in times of peace with pauses during the many wars of this period. The architect was Louis Le Vau; the overall designer and decorator was Charles Le Brun, the King's First Painter; and the gardens were designed by Andre Le Notre.

Louis XIV's image as an absolute monarch was reinforced throughout Versailles with royal insignia, allegorical reference and classical iconography. The king is shown in the guise of Apollo, the ancient Greek God of the sun - hence his title, The Sun King - or represented as a Roman Emperor.

At Versailles, Charles Le Brun's designs included every detail, from great ceilings enriched with stucco and paintings, to polychrome marble panelling and gilded wooden doors, down to intricate handles and locks. The highest standard of materials were employed: porphyry; alabaster; coloured marbles; ebony; and other precious woods, silver, gilding and mirrors.

Sculptures appear everywhere. Reliefs are set into the building's interiors and exterior. Portrait busts or life-size figures, often from antique models, stand in niches or adorn corridors, tabletops and mantles. A large number of bronzes and marble works are featured in the gardens. As well as Apollo, we find examples of classical mythology, such as Latona, Flora, Ceres, Bacchus and Saturn.

A guiding principle of Versailles was that it must, above all, represent French taste, design and craftsmanship. The palace was inspired by Italianate traditions and, although many of the artists commissioned by Louis XIV were Italian or Flemish, the King's patronage was essential in establishing France as a centre for arts and culture. Versailles became an ideal to which the rest of Europe could aspire. I recently enjoyed watching Season One of Versailles. It is probably woefully historically inaccurate but it casts the Palace as a character itself as Louis XIV dreams of building a monument to the glory of France surtout. My affection for the place enables me to overlook the series' faults,

In 1662 Louis XIV acquired the great Gobelins workshop and supported it with major royal commissions such as tapestries and carpets. These tapestries and paintings record some of the interiors and spectacular works of art at Versailles, many of which no longer exist. When a coalition of European powers joined forces against France in December 1689, the king was obliged to melt down his famous silver collection to fund the war effort.

Louis XIV visits the Gobelins with Colbert, 15 October 1667 - The tapestry is from the series Histoire du Roi commissioned by Charles Le Brun and woven between 1667 and 1672. 

In 1665 six bronze vases were commissioned by Louis XIV to house orange trees. Janus heads, sphinxes, satyrs and chimeras demonstrate the king's enthusiasm for classical images and motifs drawn from mythology. While none of Versailles' famous silver furniture survives, these vases offer a rare glimpse of the goldsmith's craftsmanship and convey an idea of the lost furniture.

 

Unlike the Sun King whose entire life was on display, Louis XV and his grandson Louis XVI preferred to live more privately at Versailles. On the death of his great-grandfather in 1715, Louis XV took up residence in Paris but returned with his court to Versailles in 1722. New suites of apartments were constructed, deliberately conceived as private spaces with a skillfully devised system of concealed doors set into the wood panelling or behind hangings. Access to Louis XV's Petits Apartments was restricted to a few favoured courtiers.

Madame Adelaide at her writing table in her apartments at Versailles (1776) - Louis-Lie Perin-Salbreux

New informality and  domesticity appear in images of the royal family and aristocracy. We see people promenading, enjoying music and relaxed dinners, and partaking in fashionable indulgences such as drinking chocolate. Changing styles and an enthusiasm for new technology and the exotic is reflected in furniture and other objects. Cold marble is replaced by the warmth of wood in all its forms: parquetry; wall panelling; gilded scrolls; and the combination of colours and patterns used in cabinetry.  

The Royal Family in 1782

 

 

The dauphin's desk was part of a refurbishment of the South Wing apartments for the marriage of Louis-Ferdinand to his cousin Marie-Therese Raphaela of Spain in 1745. It was used for barely two years. Following his wife's sudden death in July 1746, the dauphin was obliged to remarry and the apartments were again fitted out.

 

There are some really rather gorgeous pieces, such as this clock and this whatever-it-is decorated with a crab. When seen all together they are often too much, but in this isolation, they are simply splendid.

Versaille's Labyrinth was located west of the Orangerie in the southern part of the gardens. Originally conceived by Andre le Notre in 1665 as an undecorated maze, the crossroads of each path were furnished in the 1670s with 39 fountains decorated with 330 painted lead animals illustrating classic parables. These new additions were inspired by the publication of Jean de La Fontaine's Fables 1668, dedicated to Louis XIV's six-year-old heir.

About twenty artists worked on the fountain sculptures; the naturalism of the figures produced suggests they were likely inspired by the animals in the nearby Menagerie. Each group was accompanied by Isaac de Benserade's verse summarising the fables. The Labyrinth was one of the most popular parts of the garden. Visitors could find moral truths hidden within the remarkable scenes. Among these were that all people were not created equal and the evils of social ambition.

After years of neglect the maze was replaced in 1774 by the Queen's Garden. Only thirty-five animals, and the statues of Aesop and Cupid from the entrance, survive. Fortunately the maze was immortalised in Labyrinthe de Versailles 1679, which includes descriptions, Benserade's poems and Sebastien Leclerc's etchings of each fountain group.

 

Gardens were Louis XIV's passion. In less than twenty years the unpromising site of Versailles was transformed into a showcase of France's wealth, power and prestige. During the ancien regime the estate of Versailles occupied 15,000 hectares: the formal garden around the palace; the Petit Parc for carriage rides around the Grand Canal; and the Great Parc reserved for the hunt. The palace grounds now cover an area of 815 hectares, the area of the old Petit Parc.

Andre le Notre, Louis XIV's first landscape designer, included fifteen groves laid out on either side of the Royal Avenue. These secluded 'salons of greenery', garden rooms contained by densely-planted trees and hedges, were settings for activities such as walking, dining, music, play, and entertainment. Subject to changes in taste and fashion over the years, areas of the gardens were constantly altered and rebuilt - even demolished and replaced. In 1676 Jules Hardouin-Mansart began redesigning the garden. He created new groves with a marked architectural character, including the Colonnade Grove built in 1684. Three hundred sculptures decorated the parterres, avenues and groves, creating an open-air museum in the park of Versailles.

Perspective View of the Three Fountains at Versailles (1689-91) - Jean Cotelle

The kings of France had a passion for hunting. The sport served to initiate young princes and to educate them in the art of war. As a child Louis XIV developed a fondness for his father's hunting estate and the forest of Versailles. With its long wooded avenues suitable for galloping, the Grand Parc spread far beyond the boundaries of the Petit Parc. Many types of hunting were practiced: falconry; shooting with dogs to flush out pheasants, partridges or hares; and big game such as deer, boar and wolves.

Hunting was considered an entertainment on par with theatre, ballet and opera. On average Louis XIV, XV and XVI hunted every third day. An invitation to join the king was considered a mark of favour as court customs dictated that members of the royal family hunted only with those closest to them. As a result, being permitted to share the king's intimacy and take part in the traditional débotté or removal of boots was much coveted, as was the meal served in his private chambers on return from the hunt.

The grand dauphin's hunting dogs (1702) - Alexandre-Francois Desportes

Versailles was conceived to host celebrations, showing the king in all his magnificence. Courtiers and foreign visitors were drawn to the royal residence as witness to these events. Numerous engravings assured the fame of the king's 'divertissments', recording the feasts, fireworks and other activities in their most remarkable and yet ephemeral of moments. The management of the king's entertainment required a special department, the office of the Menus-Plaisirs (royal entertainment).

Military or diplomatic victories, births or marriages of princes gave occasion for the most extravagant of celebrations. Over the span of several days feasts alternated with dinners, masked balls and fancy dress, plays and operas, lotteries and carousels, and finished with fireworks and illuminations. The fireworks astonished with flashes of silver and gold, their frightening thundering noise sometimes amplified by the sound of canons. 

Fifth Day: Fireworks on the Canal at Versailles - Jean Lepautre

These events reached their peak in 1674 when the Grand Canal was lined with magical scenes all lit up at the same instant by a regiment of soldiers. In 1770 for the wedding of the dauphin and Marie-Antoinette, the entire gardens were illuminated by 16,000 lamps lit in less than three minutes.

The Masked Ball given in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, 25 February 1745 - Charles-Nicolas Cochin

On the marriage of the dauphin to Marie-Therese, Infanta of Spain, Louis XV had the grand Apartment decked out for a masked ball. He dressed as a topiaried tree (accompanied by seven courtiers dressed in identical fashion) surrounded by figures in a range of fancy dress, including those in bizarre Turkish-style costume with over-sized heads.

Under Louis XVI when celebrations became less frequent at Versailles, royal entertainment centred on the Petit Trianon. Marie-Antoinette hosted music and theatrical events, opening her estate to visiting guests who experienced 'divertissments' on a more intimate scale.

Marie-Antoinette's night festivities at the Petit Trianon (1785)- Claude-Louis Chatelet

Louis XV and his mistresses, first Madame de Pompadour then Madame Du Barry, spent considerable time at the 'Marble Trianon' or Grand Trianon. Built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the Grand Trianon was a place for parties and country outings. With suites opening directly onto the parterres, boundaries between the inside and outside dissolved. The flower garden, a tribute to the goddess, Flora, housed the rarest blooms. The king's interest in science led him to botany and in 1750 his three gardens housed more than 4,000 plant species.

In 1762 Louis XV had Ange-Jacques Gabriel design a new small house, the Petit Trianon in the emerging neoclassical style. The square exterior has Corinthian columns and plasters on the facades. Flowers dominated the interior - on the wood and upholstery of chairs, on the inlaid furniture, on bronze and porcelain - designed to please the king's new favourite - Madame Du Barry.

 

However at the death of Louis XV in 1774, Marie-Antoinette took possession of the Petit Trianon. Its modernity and remoteness from the main palace and court etiquette appealed to the new queen. She spent increasing amounts of time there with only her closest friends. The last phase of the Petit Trianon was the Queen's Hamlet, a series of buildings with a rustic character: farm, cottage, mill, dairy, barn and dovecot. In this reconstructed pastoral idyll Marie-Antoinette indulged in simple pleasures such as drinking milk, fishing and walking in the fields. 

Queen Marie-Antoinette (1783)

Part of the 'Pearls and Cornflower' service

The Pearls and Cornflower service commissioned by Marie-Antoinette in 1781 was probably intended for the Petit Trianon. The service comprised 283 pieces - required for a full French-style dinner suite for 24 people - and took many months to complete. Cornflowers were the queen's favoured motif and appear throughout the decoration at the Petit Trianon.

The Palace at Versailles epitomises the complex absolute monarchy created by Louis XIV, elements of which continued through the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. However, the extravagance proved unsustainable and, although the king attempted reforms, it was too late. By 1788 France was bankrupt. 

Through the formation of the National Assembly in 1789, political power shifted to the people. On 20th June 1789 the deputies of the National Assembly congregated in an indoor tennis court in the district of Versailles and, in what was to become a pivotal moment in the history of the French Revolution, pledged an oath 'not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established.'

The Oath of the Tennis Court at Versailles, 20 June 1789 - Jacques-Louis David

In October the Palace was stormed and the king and queen were forced to live in Paris under a kind of house arrest. The royal family never again occupied Versailles. The monarchy was formally abolished in September 1972. Many items from the palace were dispersed, including at auctions between 1793 and 1794. Versailles was designated a museum in 1797 and later, in the 1830s, became the Museum of the History of France. 

The Palace and its gardens were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 and, from 2003, have been the subject of an ambitious restoration and renovation programme. Many objects have been returned, either from the holdings of public museums or purchased from private collectors. The interiors and gardens of Versailles continue to reflect the glamour and opulence of court life under Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Louis XVI writing his testament in the Temple tower, 20 January 1793 - Henri-Pierre Danloux