End of the fairy tale

 PART SIX of THEATRES OF POWER 1580-1780

There was a torture chamber hidden under the fairytale palaces, the vanishing flower-garlanded places where laughing, well-fed putti eternally play after the people, surfeited on Rococo, have died or fled.

Apollo with the Graces and Muses painted for the ceiling of the Théâtre de la reine, at Trianon,

 Versailles, by Jean-Jacques Lagrenée, 1779. Image source: Wikipedia

The restrained imagery of the later Stuart monarchy reflected the bloodless 1688 revolution in political realities. Baroque was sobered down, mannered. Its architecture was perceived as heavy and florid, and was already going out of fashion by the time its last great palace, Blenheim, was finished in 1716, to complaints from the owner, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, about the impracticalities of the design. The architect, John Vanbrugh, whose other most famous building is the fairy tale Castle Howard, a fantastical stage set on the Yorkshire moors, was....

Absolutism and Revolution

Part Five of THEATRES OF POWER

Engraving by Le Pautre of the performance of Lully's Alceste in the cour de marbre, the first of six fêtes, Les Divertissments de Versailles, held in 1674 to celebrate one of Louis XIV's military conquests. "I have loved war too much", confessed the dying king, forty two years later, when his mania for glory had bankrupted the state.

In the second half of the 17th century, court ballet, inspired by Louis XIV's example, continued to be a ritualized, exquisitely designed declaration of political agenda and ideology, occasions prickling with controversy, just as much as the Jacobean court masques and the dumb-show of Hamlet's play within the play. 

Contemporary princes were expected to use theatrical performance to make a political point, even if by nature they were not talented....

Wedding of the Gods

 PART FOUR of THEATRES OF POWER

Stefano della Bella (1610-1664) Scene Five, "Hell", of a set of stage designs 

for Le Nozze degli Dei, 1637. 

Image copyright The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

The origins of the theatrical spectaculars of the Baroque and our own time, and of classical ballet and opera, are usually traced by academics to the "magnifences" of Catherine de Medici, who, out of dire political necessity during the Wars of Religion, built on two traditions, the Valois court entertainments and the intermezzi of her own family’s court in Florence, to devise cultural showcases for dynastic policies. 

Dynasty: Catherine de Medici and her husband, Henri II, at the centre of family satellites 

in France and other European states. 

Miniatures by Clouet. Image source: WGA

Two engravings by Jacques Callot in the Courtauld exhibition gave an idea of the ambitious scale of the entertainments laid on by the Medici, including a mock water battle to celebrate the visit of the Prince of Urbino in 1619, which was watched by 30,000 people. In modern terms, these huge events were the equivalent of staging the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, and the intermezzi are comparable to.....