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| A bust of Marie Antoinette looking at a portrait of Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon |
Looking back at our trip to the Palace of Versailles, and
many of the images I took there, I realized how much I was trying to
disassemble such a large, grandiose, and overwhelming place. The splendor was
unfathomable, and the context in which the palace was constructed creates an
even more baffling experience.
Only when I was away from the palace and the manicured gardens,
did I feel myself relax—I watched residents of the town of Versailles use the
grounds for their morning runs and a place to walk their dogs, and I thought
what an interesting notion of how the grounds have been returned to the people.
Visiting the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon could not
prepare me for the crushing spectacle and madness of the main palace—endless
hoards of people storming into the rooms, seizing what they can with their
cameras, ipads, video cameras, pressing up on each other eager to capture a
prize, oblivious to those who were around them. The tighter the crush, the
higher my anxiety ratcheted, the more sour my experience. Seeing the photos I
took, I realized I wanted as little of context of where I was as possible and I
wanted to find the imperfections and humor in order to ground myself in the
overwhelming experience.
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