1906
Paper on cardboard, gouache, black ink, pen
49,6 х 67,7

Versailles, a town outside Paris; the 17th–18th centuries saw a majestic palace and park ensemble take shape here, at the main residence of the French kings. Versailles is the perfect embodiment of Benua's favourite age; it became the focal point of the artist's work. During Benua's first visit to Versailles he was struck by "the black cones and cubes of cut thujas, the mirror-like ponds, which reflected the grey towering clouds and dark, smooth bronze deities, which repose on the white-marble fringes of those mirrors". The viewer seems to have landed in an enchanted world of giants and midgets. The true masters of Versailles, who bear on their weather-beaten shoulder the burden of centuries, seem to be the marble colossi, standing in the avenue of philosophers of the palace park. Like stronghold ramparts, the cut thujas raise majestically. Next to them, the courtiers in doublets and wigs seem ridiculous, like toys tousled by wind. For Benua, a regular Versailles park, with its underlying strict geometry, is an epitome of art's triumph over fast-flying time.