André Le Notre

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André Le Nôtre on a painting by Carlo Maratta , 1678

André Le Nôtre (also Le Nostre ; born March 12, 1613 in Paris ; † September 15, 1700 ibid) was an important French landscape and garden designer. As the chief garden architect of Louis XIV , he designed the style of the French baroque garden ( French jardin à la française ) and thus exerted a significant influence on garden art in Europe.

Surname

The replacement of the stretching s by the circumflex did not become common in French spelling until around 1740. During the lifetime of the gardener treated here, the spelling Le Nôtre was unknown; he himself signed Le Nostre. His biographers Ernest de Ganay (1962) and Frank Hamilton Hazlehurst (1980) therefore rightly used the authentic spelling Le Nostre.

Life

André Le Nôtre was the son of Marie Jacquemin and Jean Le Nostre, director of the palace and first gardener of the Tuileries Gardens .

Le Nôtre began studying art around 1630. With Simon Vouet he studied the laws of perspective and optics , with François Mansart , uncle of Jules Hardouin-Mansart , the most important architect of Versailles Palace , he learned the principles of architecture . At the age of 22 he was appointed First Gardener of Gaston d'Orleans ', the brother of Louis XIII. In 1637 he followed his father with a redesign of the Tuileries Gardens . In 1645 he worked in Fontainebleau on the Queen's Garden. In 1649 he was employed as a gardener for the park of the Tuileries Castle.

From 1656 to 1661 he worked with Louis Le Vau and Le Brun at the Vaux-le-Vicomte Castle of Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet . The cost of the entire work and the public display aroused, it is said, the envy and feigned anger of King Louis XIV to such an extent that he had Fouquet arrested and his entire property confiscated. In 1662, Le Nôtre began work on the gardens of the Palace of Versailles in the service of the king , which should surpass all others and which won the full satisfaction of the splendor-loving king. Le Nôtre laid out the gardens of the Trianons and the castles of Meudon , Saint-Cloud , Sceaux and Chantilly and the famous terrace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , which served as models for the gardens of the princes in almost all of the rest of Europe. 1678 to 1679 he was again active in Italy and was by Pope Innocent XI. receive. He also set up the Gardens of Greenwich and St. James's Park in London on behalf of King Charles II of England . He also drew plans for numerous other gardens. Greenwich Park has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1997 .

He was raised to the nobility by Louis XIV in 1675. He died on September 15, 1700 - ten years after the completion of the Versailles gardens - in Paris in his house on the eastern edge of the Tuileries, today's name Pavillon de Marsan. The tomb is under his bust in the Paris parish church of Saint-Roch . He had ordered the bust from the sculptor Antoine Coysevox himself.

family

Le Nôtres grandfather was Pierre Le Nostre. His father was the first royal landscape and garden designer of Louis XIII.

André Le Nôtre was married to Françoise, a daughter of François Langlois. They had several children, all of whom died at a young age. He maintained a close relationship with Claude Desgots , the son of his sister Élisabeth, who also became a gardener of the Tuileries and whom he appointed as heir.

His second sister Françoise married Simon Bouchard , who was in charge of the king's orangery . After his death, Françoise and her two daughters took over this task and worked alongside Le Nôtre.

student

Dominique Girard , who designed the park of Schleissheim Palace and the original baroque garden of Nymphenburg Palace , as well as the park of Augustusburg Palace in Brühl near Cologne belonged to Le Nôtre's students .

Gardens (selection)

Exhibitions

  • Illusion and imagination. André Le Nôtres gardens in the mirror of baroque prints. Benrath Palace , Düsseldorf, September 15, 2013 to November 17, 2013.
  • Le Nôtre en perspectives. Versailles Palace , October 22, 2013 to February 23, 2014.

literature

Movies

  • André Le Nôtre, the king's gardener. (OT: André Le Nôtre en ses jardins .) Documentary film, France, 2013, 52:00 min., Script and direction: Martin Fraudreau, production: Camera Lucida productions, arte France, first broadcast: October 27, 2013 by arte, summary by ARD .
  • Like the country, like the person - Versailles, France. (OT: Versailles .) Documentary, France, 2013, 25 min., Script and direction: Emmanuel Descombes, moderation: Raphaël Hitier, production: System TV, arte France, series: Wie das Land, so der Mensch (OT: Paysages d 'ici et d'ailleurs ), first broadcast: January 8, 2014 by arte, table of contents by ARD .
  • Like the country, like the person - Chantilly, France. (OT: Chantilly .) Documentary, France, 2014, 25:45 min., Written and directed: Emmanuel Descombes, moderation: Raphaël Hitier, production: System TV, arte France, series: Wie das Land, so der Mensch (OT: Paysages d'ici et d'ailleurs ), first broadcast: November 27, 2014 by arte, table of contents by ARD .

Web links

Commons : André Le Nôtre  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Exhibition leaflet : Illusion and Imagination. André Le Nôtres gardens in the mirror of baroque prints. In: schloss-benrath.de , 2013, accessed on September 20, 2019.
  2. ↑ Program: Le château de Versailles présente: André Le Nôtre en perspectives 1613 - 2013, 22 octobre 2013 - 23 février 2014. In: lenotre.chateauversailles.fr , (French), (PDF; 65 p., 2.16 MB) , accessed on September 20, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Le Notre, André
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French garden designer
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1613
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1700
Place of death Paris