Versailles and the Louvre are both popular sites filled with history from wall to wall. These two grand locations are located in Paris, France. Both are recommended places to visit, but for the best experience understanding their backgrounds significance is essential.
The Louvre, currently a national art museum, was originally built as a protective fortress for King Phillipe Auguste in 1190. The use of this building has changed over time, becoming a residence for the royal families in 1364. From then on, the royal families developed and altered the palace as a living place through each of the generations, slowly forming it into the building known as the Louvre today.
Currently, there are architectural and artistic presences from many periods throughout history because of its varied inhabitants. This move also gave opportunity to the artists to do personal work in the now-empty palace. The pieces that are featured in this museum cover the times in history when human anatomy was popular and when religion was a huge part of the social and governmental part of light.
The pieces on display are incredibly detailed, with the lines and curves making the sculptures look realistic. Painting wise, the use of shade and color had drastically improved during the 1500’s. Evidence of the change in painting styles is shown clearly by the Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. The Mona Lisa has since become famous for the technique used and its optical effects.
Versailles has a connection with the Louvre as it was built to replace the Louvre as the primary royal residence. Versailles was built a bit outside of Paris so that the King could isolate his court from the people. This residence was ultimately meant to give absolute monarchy over France to the King’s court. It is incredibly extravagant in accommodation with the wants of Louis XIV, also known as the “Sun King.” Huge amounts of money and much labor was put into building the palace, even during times of financial crisis.
Versailles continued to be used until the French Revolution in 1789 when the king and queen were kicked out of their positions as rulers. Currently, Versailles is a museum of art and history as it holds many of the original furniture pieces and many more pieces of art. Two of the more popular rooms are the King and Queen’s rooms. Both rooms hold many precious fabrics and are decorated with paintings, gold and other precious materials.
The Louvre was used as a royal residence up until the rule of Louis XIV in 1682, who moved the royal court to Versailles as he wanted more space. From then on it was abandoned, save a few resident artists. It was not until the
French Revolution in 1793, when the Louvre opened as a museum of arts for public viewing. During the rule of Napoleon, it was expanded and used as a storage building for the spoils from the many wars France won.
Today it is open for public viewing and people from all over the world travel to see the 35,000 works of art that the Louvre holds.
Both Versailles and the Louvre are important, as they give insight into times throughout history. They both allow people to get a view into what the lives of people in history may have been like and help them understand why certain events were so influential.
