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France: A History of Art

By: Alya Korman


Prehistoric Art to Medieval Art


The history of art in France dates to prehistory, evident by the cave paintings at le Chauvet in the Ardèche, which date back from around 30,000 BC and are among the world's oldest forms of art. Little remains of French painting dating before the year 1000 AD. Prior to that, the great centers of painting and art in Europe were located in Italy, Byzantium and to a lesser degree Spain. It was only with the emergence of medieval Europe from the tenth century onwards that France instituted itself as a constant and continuous presence in art and painting.


The development of the Romanesque art style, known as the Norman style in England, gave new meaning and importance to the art of painting in France. Many, if not most, of France's fine new Romanesque churches were lavishly decorated with frescoes and murals; classic early examples are to be found at Saint Savin sur Gartempeand. In the 11th century, frescoes decorated the 9th century Baptistry at Poitiers, France's oldest surviving church.

However, the Romanesque style in architecture was gradually superseded by the Gothic style from the 12th century onwards. France has relatively little in the way of painting from the early Gothic period; the finest examples of early French Gothic art - as opposed to architecture - are in the form of stained glass, as in the cathedrals at Chartres or Loan or Bourges, or sculpture, notably the many fine examples of gothic sculpture adorning French cathedrals.

Example of Cave Art in France from the prehistoric period

Renaissance Art


While the rest of Europe experimented and implored the Gothic art style, Italy had developed a new type of art, inspired by the Classical heritage. The first flowering of the Italian Renaissance came in the early years of the fifteenth century; but it was not for another hundred years, when the Renaissance was well established in Italy, that it began to fully flourish in France.


The earliest Renaissance architecture in France can be identified in parts of the Loire Valley château at Amboise, which King Charles VIII began to rebuild in the "Italian manner" from 1495, employing the Italian architect Domenico da Cortona.


It was under François 1, king of France from 1515 to 1547, that Renaissance art and architecture first blossomed in France. Shortly after becoming King, François, a cultured and intelligent monarch, invited the elderly Leonardo da Vinci to come and work in France. When Leonardo da Vinci began to reside in Amboise, he transferred the paintings he had composed, many of which still remain. The Louvre in France has the world's largest collection of Leonardo's paintings, including the Mona Lisa, known La Joconde in French.


François 1 encouraged the Renaissance style of art in France, reflected through his initiatives, and thereby influencing Renaissance buildings in his capital city, and outside it. The most magnificent examples of early French Renaissance architecture are the royal château at Chambord, in the Loire valley, and the rebuilding of the royal palace at Fontainebleau south of Paris. The design of the château at Chambord is attributed to da Cortona, though it is also suggested that Leonardo da Vinci, who was then living nearby, had a part in the plan. For Fontainebleau, François relied on the French mason Gilles le Breton and French architect Philippe Delorme, who had studied in Italy.


The Renaissance took hold throughout France and fine Renaissance buildings were put up in towns and cities across the land. In Besançon, capital of Franche-Comté, now France but then part of the Hapsburg empire, Cardinal Granvelle, the Chancellor to François' arch rival the Emperor Charles V (Charles Quint), built himself a small but impressive Renaissance palace which stands to this day. In nearby Burgundy, the château of Ancy le Franc is one of the purest Renaissance chateaux in France. The Renaissance even reached the farthest corners of Brittany, where for instance the mid 16th century chateau de Kerjean is a fine example of French Renaissance architecture.


17th and 18th Centuries


By the end of the 16th century, the French Renaissance was coming to an end as authors, artists, philosophers and architects moved on to explore new horizons. As with the Renaissance, the new directions in French art were inspired initially by what was going on in Italy. Here, innovative artists had long since moved on from the naturalism of High Renaissance art, into a more exaggerated style known as Mannerism, as exemplified in the works of Bronzino or Tintoretto. Then, by the end of the 16th century, French art moved towards a new type of effusive classicism, later known as "baroque art".


Baroque was not a break from Renaissance classicism, it was much more of a development. During this time period, architectures and artists alike were a development. At the time, the artists and architects who mastered the Italian baroque art saw themselves as painting and working in a new phase of classicism, one that emphasized emotions, apprehension, movement and vitality. Baroque was a new classicism exaggerated by intense light and shadow, dramatic perspectives. The opposing side Renaissance art reflected a much more exaggerated style, known as Mannerism.

Palace of Versailles in France

References

French Renaissance. www.hisour.com/french-renaissance-30716/. Accessed 22 June

2021.

"The Renaissance outside Italy." Britannica Original Sources, www.britannica.com/

art/Western-architecture/Mannerism. Accessed 22 June 2021.


 
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