The Fountain of Latona

The Fountain of Latona
Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages : 297
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780812298376
ISBN-13 : 0812298373
Rating : 4/5 (373 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Fountain of Latona by : Thomas F. Hedin

Download or read book The Fountain of Latona written by Thomas F. Hedin and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2022-05-27 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ovid tells the story of Latona, the mother by Jupiter of Apollo and Diana. In her flight from the jealous Juno, she arrives faint and parched on the coast of Asia Minor. Kneeling to sip from a pond, Latona is met by the local peasants, who not only deny her effort but muddy the water in pure malice. Enraged, Latona calls a curse down upon the stingy peasants, turning them to frogs. In his masterful study, Thomas F. Hedin reveals how and why a fountain of this strange legend was installed in the heart of Versailles in the 1660s, the inaugural decade of Louis XIV’s patronage there. The natural supply of water was scarce and unwieldy, and it took the genius of the king’s hydraulic engineers, working in partnership with the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to exploit it. If Ovid’s peasants were punished for their stubborn denial of water, so too the obstacles of coarse nature at Versailles were conquered; the aquatic iconography of the fountain was equivalent to the aquatic reality of the gardens. Latona was designed by Charles Le Brun, the most powerful artist at the court of Louis XIV, and carried out by Gaspard and Balthazar Marsy. The 1660s were rich in artistic theory in France, and the artists of the fountain delivered substantial lectures at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture on subjects of central concern to their current work. What they professed was what they were visualizing in the gardens. As such, the fountain is an insider’s guide to the leading artistic ideals of the moment. Louis XIV was viewed as the reincarnation of Apollo, the god of creativity, the inspiration of artists and scientists. Hedin’s original argument is that Latona was a double declaration: a glorification of the king and a proud manifesto by artists.


The Fountain of Latona Related Books

The Fountain of Latona
Language: en
Pages: 297
Authors: Thomas F. Hedin
Categories: Architecture
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-05-27 - Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

GET EBOOK

Ovid tells the story of Latona, the mother by Jupiter of Apollo and Diana. In her flight from the jealous Juno, she arrives faint and parched on the coast of As
Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles
Language: en
Pages: 424
Authors: Chandra Mukerji
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 1997-09-25 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

GET EBOOK

In seventeenth-century France, land took on new importance for the practice of politics and rituals of court life. In her major new book, Chandra Mukerji highli
Le bassin de Latone
Language: en
Pages: 82
Authors: Pierre-André Lablaude
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-06-01 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

Key Monuments Of The Baroque
Language: en
Pages: 252
Authors: Laurie Schneider Adams
Categories: Art
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-04-03 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

This book focuses on key monuments of the Baroque style, which varies in different European contexts. It is intended to affirm the existence of individual geniu
History of Art and Architecture
Language: en
Pages: 735
Authors: Joann Lacey
Categories: Art
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-01-23 - Publisher: Sugar Creek

GET EBOOK

This is a survey of the history of art and architecture of Western civilizations. The textbook extends from the age of the Renaissance until the end of the 20th