Art News

Takashi Murakami’s Brightly-Colored Pop Art Arrives at the Château de Versailles

PARIS.- Versailles has always brought together the greatest creative artists. Louis XIV brought Louis Le Vau, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Charles Le Brun, André Le Nôtre, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Michel-Richard de Lalande, Molière, Carlo Vigarini, François Francine and Gianlorenzo Bernini, who created great works here. Subsequent rulers invited Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Jean-Marc Nattier, Jean-Henri Riesener, Richard Mique, Jacques-Ange Gabriel, Hubert Robert, André Ernest Modeste Grétry and many others. Louis Philippe, who established the Musée de l’Histoire de France (Museum of the History of France) at Versailles, made use of the most illustrious artists of his era. We owe some of the masterpieces of the Galerie des Batailles and the Salles des Croisades, to such artists as Eugène Delacroix, Horace Vernet and Louis-Ernest Meissonnier. It is in keeping with this spirit of openness to creativity that the Et