Le Nôtre, André [key], 1613–1700, the most famous landscape architect in French history, b. near the Tuileries; studied drawing with Simon Vouet at the Louvre. Le Nôtre's first important design, the park of Vaux-le-Vicomte, attracted the attention of Louis XIV, who then entrusted him with the direction of nearly all the royal parks and gardens. He brought to full development that type of spacious formal garden, characterized by extensive unbroken vistas, that so accurately expressed the grandeur of his period. The gardens of the palace of Versailles, on which he collaborated with the painter Charles Le Brun, are his most celebrated work. In 1664 he transformed the palace gardens of the Tuileries. He also designed parks for Saint-Cloud, Marly-le-Roi, Chantilly, Fontainebleau, and Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His principles in garden design dominated throughout Europe until the rise of the English school of informal and naturalistic gardens in the 18th cent.
See biography by H. Fox (1962) and E. Orsenna (2001); study by F. H. Hazlehurst (1980); E. T. Haskell and M. Kenna, Le Notre's Gardens (2d ed., 1999); I. Thompson, The Sun King's Garden (2006); P. Bouchenot-Déchin and G. Farhat, ed., André Le Nôtre in Perspective (2014).
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