- Rendez-vous de l'Institut
- Conference
La Fabrique des ruines : Hubert Robert et la composition des jardins aristocratiques by Gabriel WICK – Château de Bénouville
The Folly of Ruins : Hubert and aristocratic garden composition
Although a few accounts by his contemporaries bear witness to the “painter of ruins”, Hubert Robert’s work (1733-1808) as a garden designer and the nature of his interventions for his friends and patrons remain largely unknown. It is all the more difficult to ascertain the role he played in the composition of views or of fabriques (follies), of which only fragments remain among the gardens for which he is believed to have worked and no plans or working drawings by the artist have ever been found.
Nevertheless, thanks to certain elements we do have in our possession (lists, contemporary descriptions, mapped representations or hand-drafted drawings and tables), we can reproduce the sites on which Hubert Robert is said to have worked. This conference will present the latest research conducted on four little-known landscapes composed under the painter’s influence: the Château de La Roche-Guyon, the Château du Val, the Hôtel de Noailles in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Betz Park.
These discoveries offer improved understanding of unfamiliar aspects of the artist’s work and enable us to better grasp the nature of his contributions, in association as much with architects and sculptors as with his clients.Indeed, as from the 1770s, when considered within a social and political context, landscape composition became a distinct activity for aware aristocrats, for it enabled them to express a personal vision that reflected their sensitivity, their finesse and their sophistication.
Gabriel Wick
Born in England in 1977, Gabriel Wick studied landscaping at the University of California, Berkeley. He moved to Paris in 2006, to study for a professional Master’s Degree two years later in “Historic gardens, heritage and landscape” at the National School of Architecture in Versailles, under Monique Mosser’s direction. He is currently a PhD student in history at the Queen Mary University of London. Gabriel Wick is also commissioner for the “Hubert Robert et la fabrique des jardins” (Hubert Robert and the folly of gardens) exhibition, which will be held at the Château de la Roche-Guyon in the autumn of 2017. He is the author of Un Paysage des Lumières : le jardin anglais du château de La Roche-Guyon (Paris, Artlys, 2014) and co-editor with Françoise Brissard of Une Maison de Plaisance au dix-huitième siècle : l’hôtel de Noailles à Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Paris, Artlys, 2016).. He also teaches history of art and architecture at the American University of Paris and at Parsons / The New School – Paris.
Further reading :
Un paysage des Lumières : le jardin anglais du château de La Roche-Guyon, Art Lys, 2014