Coypel painted the ceiling of the chapel of Versailles in 1709. In it Coypel turns his back on Rubens and follows a Roman Baroque model, Baciccia's ceiling for the Gesù. Coypel follows his original closely in the general principles of the design, which depends on the most melodramatic forms of trompe-l'oeil, and on the creation of the effect that the celestial world is literally bursting through the vault into the chapel itself. Coypel has even extended the trompe-l'oeil because, whereas in the Gesù the fresco is surrounded with real stucco decoration, at Versailles the architectural setting is entirely painted, in imitation of real vaulting and relief.
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