Jardin du Luxembourg

Coordinates: 48°50′49″N 2°20′14″E / 48.84694°N 2.33722°E / 48.84694; 2.33722
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Luxembourg Garden
)

For the Joe Dassin album, see Le Jardin du Luxembourg.
Montparnasse Tower
The Luxembourg Palace and the Grand Bassin

The Jardin du Luxembourg (French pronunciation: [ʒaʁdɛ̃ dy lyksɑ̃buʁ]), known in English as the Luxembourg Garden, colloquially referred to as the Jardin du Sénat (Senate Garden), is located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. The creation of the garden began in 1612 when Marie de' Medici, the widow of King Henry IV, constructed the Luxembourg Palace as her new residence. The garden today is owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace. It covers 23 hectares (56.8 acres) and is known for its lawns, tree-lined promenades, tennis courts, flowerbeds, model sailboats on its octagonal Grand Bassin, as well as picturesque Medici Fountain, built in 1620.[1] The name Luxembourg comes from the Latin Mons Lucotitius, the name of the hill where the garden is located.[2]

History

In 1611,

Tommaso Francini, to build a park in the style she had known as a child in Florence.[3] Francini planned two terraces with balustrades and parterres laid out along the axis of the château, aligned around a circular basin. He also built the Medici Fountain to the east of the palace as a nympheum, an artificial grotto and fountain, without its present pond and statuary. The original garden was just eight hectares in size.[4]

In 1630 she bought additional land and enlarged the garden to thirty hectares, and entrusted the work to

Tuileries and the early garden of Versailles. He was one of the early theorists of the new and more formal garden à la française, and he laid out a series of squares along an east–west alley closed at the east end by the Medici Fountain, and a rectangle of parterres with broderies of flowers and hedges in front of the palace. In the center he placed an octagonal basin with a fountain, with a perspective toward what is now the Paris Observatory
.

Later monarchs largely neglected the garden. In 1780, the Comte de Provence, the future

Carthusian monks. The architect Jean Chalgrin, the architect of the Arc de Triomphe
, took on the task of restoring the garden. He remade the Medici Fountain and laid out a long perspective from the palace to the observatory. He preserved the famous pepiniere, or nursery garden of the Carthusian order, and the old vineyards, and kept the garden in a formal French style.

During and after the July Monarchy of 1848, the park became the home of a large population of statues; first the Queens and famous women of France, lined along the terraces; then, in 1880s and 1890s, monuments to writers and artists, a small-scale model by Bartholdi of his Liberty Enlightening the World (commonly known as the Statue of Liberty) and one modern sculpture by Zadkine.

In 1865, during the reconstruction of Paris by

Louis Napoleon
, the rue de l'Abbé de l'Épée, (now rue Auguste-Comte) was extended into the park, cutting off about seven hectares, including a large part of the old nursery garden. The building of new streets next to the park also required moving and rebuilding the Medici Fountain to its present location. The long basin of the fountain was added at this time, along with the statues at the foot of the fountain.

The Luxembourg Gardens by Albert Edelfelt, 1887

During this reconstruction, the chief architect of parks and promenades of Paris,

Pantheon
.

The garden in the late nineteenth century contained a marionette theater, a music kiosk, greenhouses, an apiary (or bee-house); an orangerie also used for displaying sculpture and modern art (used until the 1930s); a rose garden, the fruit orchard, and about seventy works of sculpture.[5]

Features

Plan of the Jardin du Luxembourg.
No Worries Paris: a photographic walking guide contains directions to the Luxembourg Garden.
Vintage metal chairs invite visitors to prolong their stay in Paris's Luxembourg Garden.

The garden is largely devoted to a green

puppet theatre). The gardens include a large fenced-in playground for young children and their parents and a vintage carousel. In addition, free musical performances are presented in a gazebo on the grounds and there is a small cafe restaurant nearby, under the trees, with both indoor and outdoor seating from which many people enjoy the music over a glass of wine. The orangerie displays art, photography and sculptures. The model boat pond in Conservatory Water in Central Park in Manhattan, New York City, is loosely based on that of one in the Jardin du Luxembourg.[7][8]

The

Odéon
theatre stand next to the Luxembourg Garden.

Fountain of the Observatory

The central axis of the garden is extended, beyond its wrought iron grill and gates opening to rue Auguste Comte, by the central esplanade of the rue de l'Observatoire, officially the Jardin Marco Polo, where sculptures of the four Times of Day alternate with columns and culminate at the southern end with the 1874 "Fountain of the Observatory", also known as the "Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde" or the "Carpeaux Fountain", for its sculptures by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. It was installed as part of the development of the avenue de l'Observatoire by Gabriel Davioud in 1867.

The bronze fountain represents the work of four sculptors: Louis Vuillemot carved the garlands and festoons around the pedestal,

Four Continents
of classical iconography.

Open hours for the Luxembourg Garden depend on the month: opening between 7:30 and 8:15 am; closing at dusk between 4:45 and 9:45 pm.

Statuary

The garden contains just over a hundred statues, monuments, and fountains, scattered throughout the grounds. Surrounding the central green space are twenty figures of

Saint Bathild, Saint Clotilde, Saint Genevieve, and Valentina Visconti
.

  • Location of the series Reines de France et Femmes illustres (Queens of France and Famous Women) around the central basin.
    Location of the series Reines de France et Femmes illustres (Queens of France and Famous Women) around the central basin.
  • Liberty Enlightening the World in Jardin du Luxembourg in front of an autumnal tree
    Liberty Enlightening the World in Jardin du Luxembourg in front of an autumnal tree
  • Monument to Jean-Antoine Watteau, by Henri Désiré Gauquié, 1896
    Monument to
    Jean-Antoine Watteau
    , by Henri Désiré Gauquié, 1896

Other sculpted work includes:

Medici Fountain

The

Acis and Galatea, by French classical sculptor Auguste Ottin, were added to the grotto's rockwork.[9]

Hidden behind the Medici Fountain is the

Louis Napoleon, the fountain was preserved and moved in 1866 to the Luxembourg Gardens and attached to the back of the Medici Fountain.[10]

In popular culture

The gardens are featured prominently in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. It is here that the principal love story of the novel unfolds, as the characters Marius Pontmercy and Cosette first meet. Several scenes of André Gide's novel The Counterfeiters also take place in the gardens.

Henry James also uses the gardens, in The Ambassadors, as the place in which his character Lambert Strether has an epiphany about his identity. The final scene of William Faulkner's novel Sanctuary is set in the gardens. Patrick Modiano heard the news he had won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature via a mobile phone call from his daughter while he was walking through Paris "just next to the Jardin du Luxembourg".[11]

Non-literary references include as the setting for a few episodes of French in Action, the 10th Joe Dassin's 1976 studio album Le Jardin du Luxembourg, the cover of Tame Impala's 2012 album Lonerism, the title of a song by the band The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger and the gardens and palace being added as a mission in the video game Assassin's Creed Unity.

Images

  • Gardens in front of the Palais du Luxembourg
    Gardens in front of the Palais du Luxembourg
  • Panoramic view of the Jardin du Luxembourg
    Panoramic view of the Jardin du Luxembourg
  • Marie de Médicis' fountain, now with Polyphemus Surprising Acis and Galatea, by Auguste Ottin (1866)
    Marie de Médicis' fountain, now with Polyphemus Surprising
    Acis and Galatea, by Auguste Ottin
    (1866)
  • Borders of annuals in August
    Borders of annuals in August
  • A version of the Arrotino under a beech
    A version of the Arrotino under a beech
  • Fontaine de l'Observatoire, at southern end
    Fontaine de l'Observatoire, at southern end
  • Original model of Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty
    Original model of Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty
  • Statue of Gustave Flaubert by Auguste Clésinger
    Statue of Gustave Flaubert by Auguste Clésinger
  • The Pool in front of the Palais de Luxembourg
    The Pool in front of the Palais de Luxembourg
  • View through the gates on Rue Auguste Compte
    View through the gates on Rue Auguste Compte

See also

References

  1. ^ Jarrasse, Dominique, Grammaire des jardins Parisiens, p. 65-70
  2. ^ "Luxembourg Gardens, romance in Paris". Paris Digest. 2018. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  3. ^ Dominique Jarrassé, Grammaire des Jardins Parisiens, Parigramme, Paris, 2007, pg. 65
  4. ^ Jarrassé, pg. 66.
  5. ^ Jarrassé, pg. 68.
  6. ^ Plan of the Gardens, identifying sculptures Archived 28 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ^ Sergey Kadinsky (2016). Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs
  8. ^ Dorling Kindersley (2012). Eyewitness Travel Family Guide New York City
  9. ^ Paris et ses fontaines, de la Renaissance à nos jours, texts assembled by Dominque Massounie, Pauline-Prevost-Marcilhacy and Daniel Rabreau, Délegation a l'action artistique de la Ville de Paris, and Yves-Marie Allain and Janine Christiany, L'art des jardins en Europe, Citadelles & Mazenod, Paris, 2006.
  10. ^ Katia Frey, L'enterprise napoleonienne, p. 115 in Paris et ses Fontaines.
  11. ^ "Interview with Patrick Modiano". Nobelprize. Retrieved 9 October 2014.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jardin du Luxembourg.

48°50′49″N 2°20′14″E / 48.84694°N 2.33722°E / 48.84694; 2.33722

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jardin_du_Luxembourg&oldid=1202013681"