André Le Nôtre 与 40 年凡尔赛造园工程
1661 年路易十四委派造园师 André Le Nôtre 主持凡尔赛花园的设计与翻新，并将其与宫殿置于同等重要的地位。工程与 Le Vau 主持的宫殿同步推进，先后持续约 40 年，期间 Le Nôtre 与掌玺大臣 Jean-Baptiste Colbert（1664–1683 主管皇家建筑事务）及首席画师 Charles Le Brun（1664 年获封）紧密协作；Le Brun 提供了大量雕像与喷泉的图稿，每项方案最终由路易十四本人亲自审定。为了平整地面、营造花圃、挖掘水渠与运河，工程调动了大量人力，甚至动用整建制部队，把数百万立方米的土壤从周边高地搬运至原沼泽地。如今凡尔赛花园与园林面积约 800 公顷，分为大花圃区 (Grands Parterres)、运河区 (Grand Canal) 与 Petit Parc 园中林三大块，是欧洲现存最完整的勒诺特尔式 (jardin à la française) 园林之一。
橘园、运河与几何花圃：园林水石骨架
几何骨架是凡尔赛园林的灵魂：南北主轴从宫殿延伸至 Grand Canal（长 1.6 公里、宽 62 米的十字形人工运河），中央铺展 335 米 × 40 米的 Tapis Vert 绿色绒毯大草坪，两侧分列 Latona Basin（拉冬娜水池）、Apollo Basin（阿波罗战车喷泉）与数十座 bosquet 园中林。其中最有代表性的 Water Parterre（北花圃）和 Flower Parterre（南花圃）严格遵循 Le Nôtre 的对称草图，每年更换约 20 万株时令花卉，全部由凡尔赛国家宫殿博物馆下属的苗圃 (Les Serres de Versailles) 在温室里提前栽培。Le Nôtre 之后，1684 年起接任建筑总监的 Jules Hardouin-Mansart 在保留几何主轴的同时，对橘园进行了长度与宽度的双倍扩建：中央大厅长逾 150 米、拱顶高 13 米，两侧由百步台阶覆盖，4–5 米厚的双层玻璃墙使其冬季室温不低于 5 °C，足以让原产南欧的柑橘类安然越冬。
Petit Parc 园中林与水剧场 Grove 复兴
在主轴两侧、运河以南的 Petit Parc 区域，分布着 Le Nôtre 时代营造的十余座园中林 (bosquets)：Dauphin Grove、Three Fountains Grove、Girandole Grove、Salle de Bal、Salle des Antiques 等，它们以黄杨、紫杉和椴树构成几何隔墙，再以雕像、镜池、水剧场和喷泉收束视线。1999 年 12 月那场毁灭性风暴吹倒了约 10,000 株树木，损失估计达 2.5 亿法郎，整个 Petit Parc 几乎需要全面重建。2000 年起通过国际募捐，按 Le Nôtre 17 世纪的原图陆续再植 Girandole、Dauphin 和 Three Fountains 等园中林；其中 Water Theatre Grove 在 2015 年由景观设计师 Louis Benech 与艺术家 Jean-Michel Othoniel 合作完成当代再诠释，让这座 17 世纪的喷泉剧场在保留几何骨架的同时，被注入一组镜面雕塑、橙色玻璃球与金属丝网装置，重新成为夏夜音乐喷泉表演的核心场景。
植物收藏：王家橘树、柠檬、棕榈与宫苑温室
凡尔赛的王家植物收藏以橘园为主体：Louis XIV 把分散在各皇家行宫的橙树全部集中到凡尔赛，并从意大利、西班牙、葡萄牙与中欧大规模采购新植株，宫廷贵胄也以向国王进献自家橙树为荣——彼时御花园的橙树规模据称是全欧洲最大。如今橘园夏季户外花圃摆放 1,055 盆容器，栽植橙树、柠檬树、棕榈、夹竹桃、石榴与 Eugenia 灌木，部分植株树龄已逾 200 年；冬季则全部移入室内大厅过冬。橘园旁的 Potager du Roi（王家菜园，1678–1683 由 La Quintinie 设计，紧邻 Saint-Germain-en-Laye 一侧）则以 9 公顷墙垣内的几何菜畦栽培 400 余种果蔬，专供宫廷厨房。除温室外，凡尔赛还运营着 Musée de l’Orangerie 与 Les Serres de Versailles 苗圃，对外展示季节性柑橘、地中海植物与皇室温室培育技术，延续着 17 世纪以来以橘树为象征的太阳王园林语言。
玛丽·安托瓦内特与特里亚农：英式花园转向
路易十六时期（1774 起）凡尔赛造园语言发生重大转向。1774 年路易十六把 Petit Trianon（路易十五原为蓬巴杜夫人建造的小特里亚农宫）赠予王后玛丽·安托瓦内特，她随即命人将原本的法式几何花圃局部改作英式自然风景园 (jardin anglais)，并于 1783 年由建筑师 Richard Mique 在 Trianon 园林深处建造了著名的 Hameau de la Reine（王后农庄）——一座仿诺曼底村庄的小屋群，配以人工湖、磨坊、奶牛场与菜畦，王后本人身穿薄纱衣裙在牧场中牧羊的形象成为 18 世纪欧洲宫廷生活最著名的图像之一。这一英中式牧场花园是欧洲最早把英国自然风景园语言引入皇家园林的案例之一，也使凡尔赛从单一勒诺特尔式主轴，扩展为法式 + 英式并置的双园林体系，并深刻影响了 19 世纪欧洲大陆园林的造园方向。
André Le Nôtre and Forty Years of Garden Making
In 1661 Louis XIV entrusted André Le Nôtre with the design of the gardens at Versailles, treating them as equal in importance to the palace itself. The work proceeded in parallel with Le Vau’s palace building campaign and lasted roughly forty years. Le Nôtre worked closely with Superintendant of Buildings Jean-Baptiste Colbert (in office 1664–1683) and First Painter Charles Le Brun (appointed January 1664); Le Brun supplied drawings for many of the statues and fountains, and every project was reviewed in detail by the King. To level the ground, lay out the parterres, dig the basins and canals, the project mobilised very large workforces and at times entire regiments, shifting millions of cubic metres of soil from the surrounding hills onto the former marshland. Today the palace gardens and park cover some 800 hectares and are divided into the Grands Parterres, the Grand Canal and the Petit Parc groves, making them one of the most complete surviving examples of the French formal jardin à la française.
Orangery, Canal and the Geometric Parterre Skeleton
The geometric skeleton is the soul of Versailles: a north–south axis runs from the palace to the Grand Canal (a 1.6-kilometre, 62-metre-wide cruciform sheet of water), with the 335 × 40-metre Tapis Vert green carpet at its centre, flanked on either side by the Latona Basin, the Apollo Fountain basin and a constellation of bosquets. The flagship Water Parterre to the north and Flower Parterre to the south follow Le Nôtre’s symmetrical drawings to the centimetre and are replanted with roughly 200,000 seasonal plants every year, all raised under glass in the on-site nursery (Les Serres de Versailles) so the garden is always in flower from spring to first frost. From 1684 Jules Hardouin-Mansart, First Architect to the King, retained the central axis while doubling the length and breadth of Le Vau’s 1663 Orangery, producing a central gallery more than 150 metres long beneath a 13-metre vaulted ceiling and flanked by the Hundred Steps staircases; the 4-to-5-metre-thick walls, double windows and south-facing aspect keep the interior above 5 °C in winter, warm enough for Mediterranean citrus to overwinter in containers.
The Petit Parc Groves and the Water Theatre Restoration
South of the Grand Canal lies the Petit Parc, where Le Nôtre laid out a constellation of bosquets — the Dauphin Grove, Three Fountains Grove, Girandole Grove, Salle de Bal and Salle des Antiques among them — each enclosed by clipped hornbeam, yew and lime hedges that frame a programme of statuary, mirror pools, water theatres and fountains. The devastating December 1999 storm felled around ten thousand trees and is estimated to have cost 250 million francs of damage; the Petit Parc almost had to be rebuilt from scratch. An international subscription launched in January 2000 has since replanted the Girandole, Dauphin and Three Fountains groves to Le Nôtre’s original layout, and in 2015 landscape designer Louis Benech and artist Jean-Michel Othoniel delivered a contemporary reinterpretation of the Water Theatre Grove — keeping the 17th-century geometric frame while inserting mirror sculptures, orange blown-glass spheres and metallic mesh installations that now anchor the summer Musical Fountains Show.
Plant Collection: Orangers, Lemons, Palms and Royal Glasshouses
Versailles’s living plant collection centres on the Orangery. Louis XIV gathered the orange trees from every royal residence and acquired new specimens from Italy, Spain, Portugal and central Europe; courtiers routinely offered their own orange trees to the King, and the orangery is said to have held the largest collection in Europe. Today the Orangery parterre holds 1,055 containers of orange trees, lemon trees, palm trees, oleander, pomegranate and Eugenia bushes, some over 200 years old, which are brought under glass each winter. Adjacent to the Orangery lies the Potager du Roi, the royal kitchen garden laid out between 1678 and 1683 by La Quintinie on nine walled hectares close to Saint-Germain-en-Laye: its geometric beds produce more than 400 fruit and vegetable varieties for the palace kitchens. Beyond the Orangery and the Potager, the estate operates Les Serres de Versailles (the palace nursery) and the attached Musée de l’Orangerie, exhibiting seasonal citrus, Mediterranean plants and the history of royal glasshouse cultivation, and keeping alive the 17th-century language of the Sun King’s orangers as the signature living emblem of Versailles.
Marie-Antoinette and the Trianons: The English Garden Turn
A decisive shift in garden language occurred under Louis XVI from 1774 onwards. In that year the King gave the Petit Trianon — a small château originally built by Louis XV for Madame de Pompadour and later occupied by Madame du Barry — to Marie-Antoinette, who promptly had parts of its French formal parterre replaced by an English landscape garden (jardin anglais). In 1783 she commissioned architect Richard Mique to build the celebrated Hameau de la Reine, a Norman-style hamlet with thatched-roof cottages, an artificial lake, a dairy, a watermill and productive kitchen gardens, where she famously posed in muslin milking her own cows. The Hameau is one of the earliest examples of an English-style pleasure garden inside a European royal estate and transformed Versailles from a single Le Nôtre-style axis into a dual system of French formal and English informal garden — a hybrid that strongly influenced nineteenth-century European landscape design.
发表回复