Charles Le Brun - A "realistic allegory" on the ceiling of the Galerie de Versailles: L' 'Ordre Retabli dans les Finances'

On the ceiling of the Galerie de Versailles, Le Brun turned to allegory to represent, in all their complexity, the civil, diplomatic and military events that marked the opening years of Louis XIVs personal reign. Does such a combination of history and fable work? By retracing the various aspects of financial reform, represented in one of the ceiling medallions, it is possible to show that Le Brun was able to illustrated the essential features with an economy of means. The ease with which the artist has managed to give pictorial representation to abstract or multifarious phenomena required a sound understanding of the reform process itself as welll as a consummate grasp of allegorical language.