La couleur des palais royaux espagnols du xvie au xviiie siècle

Abstract

In Spain, the monochromatic architecture of royal chateaux placed no real aesthetic importance on colour. The El Escurial monastery, also a royal palace, used the colour grey (a tone somewhat modified today) to provide an architectural uniformity. But during the seventeenth century the facades of the new Buen Retiro palace were given a discreet colouring that aimed to enhance them. Colour began to be used by architects, and widely so in the eighteenth century, as we will see with the royal palaces of Madrid, El Pardo, Riofrío and La Granja de San Ildefonso – contradicting the initial theory that colour was absent from the royal residences of Spain. This development was a result of the European influence on Spanish art.

Keywords

• ardoise
• palais d’Aranjuez
• palais de la Almudaina
• Escurial
• palais de la Granja
• Francesco Sabatini