The Louis XVI style was a reaction to and transition the
French Baroque style, which had dominated French architecture, decoration and art since the mid-17th century, and partly from a desire to establish a new
Beau idéal, or ideal of beauty, based on the purity and grandeur of the art of the Ancient Romans and Greeks. In 1754 The French engraver, painter and art critic
Charles-Nicolas Cochin denounced the curves and undulations of the predominant
rocaille style: "Don't torture without reason those things which could be straight, and come back to the good sense which is the beginning of good taste." Louis XVI himself showed little enthusiasm for art or architecture. He left the management of these to
Charles-Claude Flahaut de la Billaderie, the Count of Angiviller, who was made Director General of the
Bâtiments du Roi. Angeviller, for financial reasons, postponed a grand enlargement of the
Palace of Versailles, but completed the new
Château de Compiègne (1751–1783), begun by
Louis XV, and decorated it from 1782 to 1786. The King's principal architectural addition to Versailles was the new library on the first floor (begun 1774). He was much more generous to Queen Marie Antoinette; she redecorated the Grand Apartments of the Queen at Versailles in 1785, and carried out important works on her apartments at the
Palace of Fontainebleau and Compiègne, as well as new apartments in the
Tuileries Palace. The King also gave the Queen the
Petit Trianon at Versailles, and in 1785 bought a new château for her at
St. Cloud.
Classicism, based Roman and Greek models had been used in French architecture since the time of
Louis XIV; he rejected a plan by
Gian Lorenzo Bernini for a baroque façade of the
Louvre Palace, and chose instead a classical façade with a colonnade and pediment. The architects of Louis XIV,
Jules Hardouin-Mansart and
Jacques Lemercier, turned away from the gothic and renaissance style and used a baroque version of the Roman dome on the new churches at
Val-de-Grace and
Les Invalides. Louis XV and his chief architects,
Jacques Ange Gabriel and
Jacques-Germain Soufflot continued the style of architecture based upon symmetry and the straight line. Gabriel created the ensemble of classical buildings around the
Place de la Concorde while Soufflot designed the
Panthéon (1758–1790) on the Roman model. An influential building from the late Louis XV period was the
Petit Trianon at Versailles (1762–1764), by
Jacques Ange Gabriel, built for the mistress of the King,
Madame de Pompadour. Its cubic form, symmetric facade and Corinthian peristyle, similar to the villas of Palladio, made it model for the following Louis XVI style. Another notable influence on the style was the architecture of the Renaissance architect
Andrea Palladio, which influenced the building of country houses in England, as well as the French architect
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736–1806). Palladio's ideas were the inspiration for the
Château de Louveciennes, and its neoclassical music pavilion (1770–1771) built by
Claude Nicolas Ledoux for the mistress of Louis XV,
Madame du Barry. The pavilion is cubic in form, with a facade of four
pilasters supporting the architrave and the pilaster of the terrace. It became the model for similar houses under Louis XVI. File:West facade of Petit Trianon 002.JPG|The
Petit Trianon at Versailles (1762–1764) by
Jacques Ange Gabriel File:PavillonDeMusique.jpg|Music pavilion at the
Château de Louveciennes (1770–1771) by
Claude Nicolas Ledoux == Motifs and ornaments ==