Fig. 433. Heraldic Decoration at Versailles—Louis Quatorze.
Louis Quatorze, Arch. A style of ornament developed towards the close of the 17th century (1643–1715). It is described as “essentially an ornamental style, its chief aim being effect by a brilliant play of light and shade; colour, or mere beauty of form in detail, having no part in it. This style arose in Italy, and the Chiesa del Gesù at Rome is mentioned as its type or model. The great medium of the Louis Quatorze was gilt stucco-work, which, for a while, seems to have almost wholly superseded decorative painting; and this absence of colour in the principal decorations of the period seems to have led to its more striking characteristic,—infinite play of light and shade.” (Wornum, Analysis of Ornament.) In this style symmetry was first systematically avoided. In the Furniture of the period the characteristic details are the scroll and shell. The classical ornaments and all the elements of the Cinque-cento, from which the Louis Quatorze proceeded, are admitted under peculiar treatment, as accessories; the panels are formed by chains of scrolls, or a combination of the scroll and shell. Versailles is the great repertory of the Louis Quatorze (Fig. [433]), and the designs of Watteau its finest exemplification.
Louis Quinze, Arch. This style (1715–74) is the exaggeration of the Louis Quatorze, rejecting all symmetry, and introducing the elongation of the foliations of the scroll, mixed up with a species of crimped conventional coquillage or shell-work. The style found its culmination in the bizarre absurdities of the Rococo.
Louvre, Arch. The open turret in the roofs of ancient halls, through which the smoke escaped before the introduction of modern chimneys.
Louvre-boarding or Luffer-boarding, Arch. A series of overlapping boards sloping from the top downwards, and from within outwards, and fixed in a framework of timber. They are placed in the apertures of towers and belfries for the sake of ventilating the timbers, and are sloped to prevent rain and snow from penetrating within, and to direct the sound of the bells downwards. Sometimes the wooden boardings are covered with lead, slate, or zinc, in order to preserve them.
Louvre-window, Belfry-arch, Arch. The large lights fitted with louvre-boarding in belfries.
Love-apple. The tomato is so called.
Love-feast. An annual feast celebrated in some parishes in England on the Thursday before Easter. (See Edwards’s Old English Customs.)
Love-in-Idleness, O. E. The heart’s-ease.