Science? Check. Splendour? Definitely!

"Me and the rhinoceros, we still remember you..."

From The Evening Standard:

Visitors to the exhibition may feel wistful contemplating a period when science was allied with the decorative arts, and it was for general consumption, not the preserve of specialists. Looking at the very beautiful scientific instruments and the marvellously accurate and captivating depictions of plants and animals, you’re reminded that science doesn’t have to be bleakly functional, but we have made it so.

And so it was that Hils, Crog, Madam Arcati and I, enticed by the prospect, trolled off last Sunday to the Science Museum ("middle sister" in the triumvirate of magnificent museums in South Kensington, between the Natural History and Victoria and Albert (V&A)) to see for ourselves...

We were not disappointed!

Excellently curated, the exhibition took us on an appropriately educational journey through The Age of Enlightenment, Bourbon royalty-style, starting with a focus on the three imperial monarchs who presided over this era - Louis XIV, XV and XIV - and the (rival, perhaps?) veneration of the intellectual icon of the time, Voltaire.

In the Salon of Madame Geoffrin in 1755. Reading of Voltaire's tragedy The Orphan of China in the salon of Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier.

Louis XIV, not necessarily remembered as particularly "enlightened", nevertheless oversaw the founding of a Royal Academy of Sciences - and it was the assembled thinkers it attracted who enabled him to construct the ultimate vanity project, the Palace of Versailles. Its gardens alone were an engineering project on a scale unprecedented in the 17th century - the instruments that were used to create the symmetry of the layout, its aspect and the perspective that allowed trompes-l'œil galore to be employed for the titillation of the royal court were all on show, as were maps and illustrations of the mighty water-pumping system ("the Marly Machine") that enabled this isolated glittering folly to be supplied with more water than the whole of Paris at the time. Just to power the fountains! [That the King's minions had to artfully keep switching on and off as the royal party passed by, because the pressure was unsustainable.]

Science flourished at Versailles in a dizzying variety of ways: meticulous study of astronomy - even royal princesses were designing their own telescopes - and of the moon aided the accurate calculation of longitude (essential for a global empire), botanical advancements such as hot-houses permitted exotic foods to be grown (like the pineapple) to feed the aristocrats [less so the populace, bien sûr] and for potential medicinal plants to be studied, developments in chemistry (including Jean-Antoine Nollet’s ornate vacuum device) led to breakthroughs such as Lavoisier's treatise on the existence of oxygen, the refinement of microscopes and subsequent microbiolological breakthroughs led to a "craze" for inoculation against smallpox, anatomical study led to a greater understanding of the physiology of animals and humans (which assisted the progression of surgery; the excruciating five-hour operation to repair an anal fistula - without anaesthetic - that was performed on Louis XIV merited whole display of its own!), and the science of cartography [Oh! The globes that were on show were magnificent!] meant the the Cassini Map of France (also on show) was the most accurate ever. [It was in fact so accurate that it reduced the previously-drawn outlines of the French coast and Louis XIV lamented that it "cost me more territory than all my enemies!"]

From mapping continents and weather patterns for the benefits of imperial trade, and experimental designs for coastal defences to... obstetrics! Whoever would have imagined that in the mid-1700s, a midwife (Madame Du Coudray) would have sewn and stitched a model of a womb and foetus as a teaching aid for the safe delivery of babies?!

Or, for that matter, that taxidermy might have been so advanced that Louis XVI's Indian rhinoceros (from his menagerie) could be preserved with scarily accurate detail that has lasted to this day?

Of course, all this illuminating demonstration of human intelligence, inquisitiveness and ingenuity came with an equally impressive level of exquisite ornamentation. The two absolute stunners of the entire exhibition both happened to be timepieces - of significantly different scale and drama! There was of course that watch - designed for Marie Antoinette, and described rather well by historian Mathew Lyons:

...[it was] commissioned for Marie-Antoinette in 1783 from Abraham-Louis Breguet, who was given an unlimited budget. It has 823 parts, many of them in gold or sapphire. With no apparent financial or time constraints, Breguet kept adding new features, new complications, as he developed them. His work might have been a synecdoche for the court’s indifference to anything that lay outside its world view. How long did it take him to create something that articulated so meticulously the exquisite order and perfection through which the kings of Versailles sought to understand reality? Too long. Marie-Antoinette’s hand would never hold it. Breguet’s work was interrupted by the French Revolution and it would be 40 years before his watch was ready for delivery to a long-dead queen of a long-dead court...

...and then there was the massive and breathtaking Clock of the Creation of the World (designed by Claude-Siméon Passemant), possibly the most extravagant and opulent example of mechanical and artistic technique, with its multitude of functions including the massive golden sun picking out midday on a rotating terrestrial globe with its rays, rising opulently from silver and bronze waves. I was utterly awestruck...

I never thought that I would see such a collection of the treasures of the most decadent royal court in European history in the unassuming iron-girdered, solidly-built, somewhat austere environs of the Science Museum.

But I am so glad I/we did!

Versailles: Science and Splendour is only on until Monday 21st April, so you'd better be quick!

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