Atlas Trail
France and Its Echoes: Eight Styles from the Merovingians to the Rothschilds
This trail follows French taste through eight styles recorded in the atlas, from the Frankish stone carving of Gaul to the French-inspired houses and interiors built abroad. It moves in rough order of the French period named, then shows how the Empire, Second Empire and Provincial looks were carried into Vienna, Britain, the United States and the great banking houses.
Stop 1 of 8.
Styles and Movements
Start in Gaul between the fifth and eighth centuries. Merovingian work blended Germanic animal-style decoration with Late Antique motifs, and because large secular buildings do not survive, the period is known mainly through stone carving on sarcophagi, altars and church furnishings.
Stop 2 of 8.
Styles and Movements
The official style of the French crown from 1643 to 1715, imposed through the Academie royale d architecture and the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Its middle phase, from 1660 to 1690, produced Versailles, and its courtly model was copied from Prussia to Russia.
Stop 3 of 8.
Styles and Movements
Developed during the reign of Louis XVI from 1774 to 1792 as a reaction against Baroque ornament. Inspired by the rediscovered Roman remains at Herculaneum and Pompeii, it favored the straight column and the plain post and lintel, while still giving new weight to intimate interiors.
Stop 4 of 8.
Styles and Movements
A short transitional style tied to the French Directory, from November 1795 to November 1799. It used Neoclassical forms with minimal carving and planar expanses of grained veneer, and its principal designers were the architects Charles Percier and Pierre-Francois-Leonard Fontaine.
Stop 5 of 8.
Styles and Movements
The Empire style crosses the Atlantic. American Empire drew on the look introduced under Napoleon, and gained its greatest popularity in the United States after 1820, with its most elaborate work made around 1815 to 1825. The Red Room at the White House stands as an architectural example.
Stop 6 of 8.
Styles and Movements
Widely popular in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and especially associated with Paris and Vienna. Mansard roofs and low square-based domes are its signature, and the Palais Garnier shows the Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque detailing it produced.
Stop 7 of 8.
Styles and Movements
A style of interior decoration developed by the Rothschild banking family, drawing on eighteenth-century French furniture from Louis XIV to Louis XVI. Waddesdon Manor and Mentmore Towers in England and the Chateau de Ferrieres in France are named examples, and the taste shaped the American Gilded Age.
Stop 8 of 8.
Styles and Movements
The trail ends with a revival based on the manor houses and chateaux built by French aristocrats beginning in the 1600s. It reached the United States after American servicemen returned from fighting in France in the First World War, and is marked by arched doorways and steep hipped roofs.
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