Tag: view

Vaux-le-Vicomte

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Vaux le Vicomte, France, 1925, Library of Congress
View from the château, Maincy, France, 1925, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Vaux-le-Vicomte — the château and garden together — was “the first great work of the French baroque,” according to garden historian Tom Turner.

In his book, The Seven Ages of Paris, Alistair Horne tells the story of the estate’s big reveal to Louis XIV, then only 22 years old and struggling with a nearly bankrupt treasury:

Nicolas Fouquet, a vain, ostentatious and ambitious parvenu, had been Louis’s minister superintendent of finance since 1653.  Now aged forty-five, he had just built himself a magnificent mansion at Vaux-le-Vicomte. . . . [O]n 17 August 1661, [he] audaciously invited the King to a lavish gala. . . The massive iron gates gleamed with freshly applied gilt; in the vast gardens laid down by André le Nôtre 200 jets d’eau and fifty fountains spouted on either side of a main alley nearly a kilometer long. For the previous five years, some 18,000 workmen had toiled to produce this wonder of the modern age, eradicating three villages that had happened to be in the way.  Certainly it trumped the modest royal hunting-lodge of the King’s father out at Versailles, which Louis was currently doing up.

Inside the imposing mansion the royal party dined off a magnificent gold service which likewise must have made its impression on the King, who had had to sell off his plate to meet military expenditure. . . . [T]he whole episode outraged him.  At various points in the evening, Louis came close to losing his temper — whispering to his mother, “Madame, shall we make these people disgorge?” . . . Less than three weeks later, just as he was arriving at a meeting in Nantes, Fouquet was arrested by the legendary D’Artagnan of Three Musketeers fame.

After the arrest, Louis took possession of artwork, furniture, and all the orange trees from Vaux-le-Vicomte. More importantly, he sent its architect, Louis Le Vau, and its painter-decorator, Charles Le Brun — and, of course, Le Nôtre — to Versailles. Fouquet died in prison in 1680.

Seven Ages . . . is a very good history to read if you are planning a trip to the Paris.

I have been taught never to brag but now
I cannot help it:  I keep
a beautiful garden, all abundance  .   .   .
I want to take my neighbors into the garden
and show them: Here is consolation.

— Paisley Rekdal, from “Happiness“

Chambord, France

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Chambord, ca. 1920, Arthur Peck Collection, OSU on flickr“View of drive from roof, Chambord,” France, ca. 1920, via Arthur Peck Collection, Oregon State University (OSU) Special Collections & Archives Commons on flickr.

Arthur Peck was a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Oregon Agricultural College* from 1908 to 1948. During his long career, he created a teaching library of 24 boxes of glass lantern slides — now in OSU’s archives.

ADDENDUM: June 2017 — A 14-year-long renovation of the grounds has just been completed.

*The college later became OSU.

The Sunday porch: Kalaupapa, Hawaii

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1 St. Francis Catholic Church, Kalaupapa, HI, HABS, Library of CongressThe west front of St. Francis Catholic Church, Moloka’i Island, Kalaupapa, Hawaii, July 1991, by Jack E. Boucher for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).

2 St. Francis Catholic Church, Kalaupapa, HI, HABS, Library of Congress

The church was built in 1908 to serve the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement, now part of Kalaupapa National Historical Park.

3 St. Francis Catholic Church, Kalaupapa, HI, HABS, Library of Congress

4 St. Francis Catholic Church, Kalaupapa, HI, HABS, Library of Congress

The word porch — “1250-1300; Middle English porche < Old French < Latin porticus porch, portico” — was originally used to indicate the covered entrance to a church, usually on the south side.

Vintage landscape: birds’ house view

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Farmhouse birdhouse, via Library of Congress“Birdhouse and landscape at an old plantation home [probably this one] near Eutaw, Alabama,” May 1941, by Jack Delano, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Farmhouse birdhouse 2, via Library of Congress

As I was reading about the history of birdhouses, I learned that shelters like the one above, which mirror a builder’s own house or other nearby architecture, were common in Turkey from the 15th century (and probably earlier).

Their compassionate purpose was to provide winter protection to non-migratory birds.  Many were quite ornate and built right onto the sides of “mosques, madrasas, libraries, houses, inns, baths, tombs, bridges, churches, synagogues, and even palaces,” according to the Turkish Cultural Foundation website.*

In Europe, during the same period, birdhouses were built from baskets, wood, and clay as traps for collecting eggs or for capturing the birds themselves.

In colonial-era North America, both Native Americans and European settlers used birdhouses to attract and increase the local bird population for hunting and insect control.

Pines in the distance begin to brighten,
deep blue to something like green.

Everything winged must be dreaming.

— Susan Ludvigson, from “Grace“

*There is also a nice photo here of the very large birdhouses that were placed in Istanbul parks in the 1960s. Last December, I saw many small birdhouses in the trees along the Hippodrome, put there by the local government.