Resumen de Politique des arts et pratiques artistiques: le rôle de la surintendance des Bâtiments du roi
Policy of the arts and artistic practices: the role of the Superintendence of the King's Buildings.
The Superintendence of the King's Buildings is an administration whose origins go back to the 16th century and whose main object is to supervise work carried out in the royal residences. During the 17th century, the expansion of its powers led to a new role, that of directing the artistic production and the artists who worked for the king. From 1664 to 1683, Jean-Baptiste Colbert made it into a sort of "ministry of Fine Arts", creating a constellation of institutions whose productions were dedicated to his policy of the celebration of the glory of the king. How did his successors assume this double heritage? Based on recent research and publications concreting the King's Buildings ("Bâtiments du roi") and on its dependent cultural institutions, this article seeks to shed light on the political, administrative, human and esthetic evolutions of the institutional framework of artistic production from 1683 to 1715.
