The French Garden
Garden art
The French garden style is forever associated with the name of André Le Nôtre and the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte, which were the first example of this style, followed by those at Versailles, where it found its most grandiose expression. The result of the evolution of Italian gardens, the French garden is characterised by the codification of its layout, making it a space where reason dominates.
The origins of the French garden style
The French garden style, so characteristic today, came into its own with the famous master of garden design, André Le Nôtre, and the design of the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles. But its origins are actually Italian. Indeed, the Italian artists invited to the court of Francis I, and later to that of Henry II, brought refinement to all areas of the arts. They influenced the taste of the nobility, and Catherine de Médicis, married to Henry II and Italian by birth, made a major contribution to this. From their many trips to Italy, the nobility returned with the desire to create ornamental gardens around their castles as sophisticated as those at the Villa d’Este or the Villa Medici. Most of these Italian gardens were laid out on hillsides, with a succession of terraces featuring extensive statuary and an impressive number of fountains. Lawns lined with boxwood and flowering shrubs and citrus trees completed the ensemble.
The ‘French garden’ style: Topiaries and plant architecture
In France, the gardens were laid out over huge areas of land that were remodelled and levelled out around the residences. Lawns, ponds, fountains and statuary took their place, along with a variety of parterres combining English, Italian and French influences. André Le Nôtre, who succeeded his father and grandfather as the King’s gardener, gave a new dimension to this domesticated nature. Having studied painting at Simon Vouet’s studio and then architecture with François Mansart, he used perspective as a guiding principle around which the garden was organised, creating a central axis running through the residence and then oblique and perpendicular axes governing the layout of the flowerbeds.
The central perspective had to extend beyond the garden, as far as possible through the woods and fields, to give the impression that man was in total control of nature. Within the garden, he replaced some of the statuary with topiary forms to punctuate the geometric layout and, above all, to amplify the perspectives through differentiated sizes: the further one moved away from the château, the smaller the plant forms were to make the area appear larger. The rigorous pruning of the hornbeam hedges framing the gardens contributed to the overall perspective, drawing the eye into the distance. These hedges eventually became veritable plant walls, whose elegance became one of the hallmarks of the ‘à la française’ style. Today, they are still the key feature of many of these gardens, alongside the parterres de broderies.
The ‘French garden’ style: Parterres and embroidery
Parterres adorn French gardens, just as mixed borders adorn English gardens. However, from the 15th century to the end of the 17th century, several styles of parterres were juxtaposed to offer a most precious picture to the eye. The ‘knot garden’ in vogue in 16th-century England was revived and improved: it gave rise to parterres with compartments reproducing a symmetrical geometric design in all directions. This boxwood design is filled with flowers to create sumptuous tableaux in the gardens of Villandry.
The parterre de broderie, developed in France at the end of the 16th century, in turn consisted of a design based on the embroidery used on rich fabrics and lace. The lines of the design are made of boxwood or flowers of the same variety, laid on a background of sand, gravel or crushed brick. The parterres à l’anglaise are designed in boxwood on a grassy background.
The 17th century was the heyday of French-style gardens, before the vogue for English-style parks with their more romantic sinuous contours marked the decline of this style, which had been honoured throughout Europe by Le Nôtre. Many gardens were transformed to suit new tastes, but many retained their original layout and have been restored.
New formal gardens have also sprung up in our time, such as at Eyrignac and Champ de Bataille, much to the delight of lovers of this refined style.
