Parc Monceau

This is a small-ish park in the 8th arrondissement that I didn't know too much about before reading up on the area.  I'd heard of it vaguely but for some reason in my mind it was very connected with bourgeois life at the turn of the century, something that I don't find the most interesting aspect of Parisian history.  I was both correct and incorrect in my assumptions, as we'll see.

The park was first created in the late 18th century by the Duke of Chartres, a cousin of the king.  The duke was an Anglophile and admired the new English garden style, which was more "natural" and disorganized than the French style gardens, which are very orderly and manicured, very obviously designed by people.  English gardens were meant to be a truer representation of nature.  The duke hired a writer/artist to design the park rather than a landscaper.

To illustrate the difference, here are the Luxembourg gardens, then some of the gardens at Versailles.  These are in the French style, popular during the Renaissance and Baroque periods:

 

And here is what much of the Parc Monceau, done in the English style, looks like:

Actually in many ways it reminded me of a mini version of Central Park in Manhattan.  It's well-kept but not very manicured, people hang out on the grass, trees are placed much less strategically, and it's not perfectly flat.  So it was a rather nice change from a lot of the parks in Paris and vicinity, even though those are lovely, too.

The slightly odd thing about the Park Monceau is that it has a whole bunch of follies, or non-functional architectural decorations.  In other words, these are buildings that serve no purpose other than decoration, and they're generally created to give a feeling of another time period or culture.  The most familiar type of folly is the ubiquitous Greek/Roman style "temples" or pavillions in some large parks and gardens.

The Parc Monceau takes the idea much further, however, and a wide range of follies were created at this time, not all of which still exist.  Here are a few: a Roman style colonnade and nearby archway

 

some "ruined" columns of Greek/Roman style

A frankly silly "Egyptian pyramid"

and omething vaguely ancient-looking but commemorating some French philosophers/writers.

There is supposedly a Dutch windmill but I didn't come across it.

Additionally there are these little sections of cultural "environments" (which I believe are more modern), like this "African village"

and this "Japanese garden."

I have to say, though, all these things made for a very interesting walk through the park.  It fits with this quote from the original designer: "It is not necessary for gardens or nature to be presented in the most agreeable forms. It's necessary instead to preserve the charm that one encounters entering the garden, and to renew it with each step, so that the visitor in his soul will have the desire to revisit the garden every day and to possess it for himself. The true art is to know how to keep the visitors there, through a variety of objects, otherwise they will go to the real countryside to find what should be found in this garden; the image of liberty."

Some other interesting pictures from the park: here is the main entrance, featuring an important-looking rotunda that is actually bathrooms

a sign saying you cannot go into this area because there are "dangerous trees"

this little area where the flowers spelled out XXX but I'm not really sure why

and some prettiness.

Although the park was set up in the late 18th century, it wasn't much more of a bourgeois daytrip during that time, because it was rather on the outskirts of the city.

During the Paris Commune of 1871, after this area had become more urban, some of the leaders of the rebellion were executed in the park.  (see this post on Pere Lachaise and the Communards wall for a bit more info on that).  By the turn of the century, though, the park had become a fashionable place for the middle class to come stroll and picnic.  This was mainly due to the re-landscaping of this area of Paris around that time, making the streets and neighborhoods more orderly, carriage-friendly, and expensive.  This was why I had associated it with this time period; it was during this era that the park was most popular, and writers of the time often mentioned it.

Artists were also drawn to the Parc Monceau, and I'll leave it here with a couple of Monet's paintings of the park.