llV

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

IN MEMORY OF
EDWIN CORLE

PRESENTED BY
JEAN CORLE

ART IN FRANCE

ARS UNA: SPECIES MILLE
GENERAL HISTORY OK ART

Uniform with this \'olumic

Already Published :—

ART IN GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND.

By Sin Wai.tei; Akmstrcikg.
" We desire to recommend Sir Walter Arm-
strong's book with all the emphasis at our
command. " — l\In>/iiiii^ J^ost.

ART IN NORTHERN ITALY.
l!y CoRK.-\uo Ricci.

"An entirely lucid outline of the develop-
ment of architecture, sculpiure and painting in
Northern Italy. " — Athciiirvm.

For I)niiiediale Publicatioii : —

ART IN FLANDERS.

liy .Monsieur iM.w Roose.s. (Director of
Plantin Moretus Museum, Antwerj).)

ART IN EGYPT.

l!y iMoNsiEi K M.xsi'KUO. (Director of
Ghiz'.'h Museum.)

/// l^ieparalioii : —

BYZANTINE ART.

THE ART OF INDIA.

GERMAN ART.

THE ART OF GREECE.

ART IN HOLLAND.

THE ART OF CHINA AND JAPAN.

ART IN NORTH AMERICA.

ROMAN ART.

THE ART OF SOUTHERN ITALY.

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE ART.

Marquise de BogHofie.
Nattier. (Collection of the Marquis de Chaponay.)

ARS UNA: SPECIES MILLE
GENERAL HISTORY OF ART

ART IN FRANCE

LOUIS H O U R T I C Q

ACKflcA I)K I."UM\EHSrrE
INSPECTOR (II'- KIXE AKIS I.\ THIi CITV OK TAU'IS

p^Ut^- v--«i^-.' :,,-^

LONDON
WILLIAM HP: IN EM ANN

MCMXI

' ^ W

This volume is published iiviiiltaneously in
America by Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York; in Englami by William Heinemann,
London ; also in French by Hachette et Cie.,
Paris; in German by Julius Hoffmann,
Stuttgart; in /talianby thel?.TiTVrolTAi.iAVSo
iJ'Aifri Grafiche, Bergamo; iuSpanishhy the
LiBRERiA Gutenberg de Jose Ruiz, Madrid.

Co/ivright, 191 1.

THE ArMSlLl->. MM EL ul- DolUvWAV l)F THU " OII.DKIJ \II;i,l.\," AMIENS CATI1EIJ1^\L

{Photo. Ncuidein.) Colleg-e

PREFACE -^^"^f:

Certain kindly disposed confreres who have taken an interest in
the following work have asked me now and then whether I intended
to deal with French art in fifty volumes or fifty pages. I have
written a good deal less and a good deal more — too much or too
little, it may be objected. Compared with works which exhaust
the material and those which condense it into a few drops of elixir,
this little book has but one merit — that of existing. For the art of
our country has never been treated as a whole, save in treatises on
universal art, where the French chapters appear in their due order,
or in general histories of France, where the names of artists defile
at the end of a volume, like baggage at the rear of a convoy. Why
has it not been thought necessary to co-ordinate these different
chapters, as has been done so efficiently and so frequently in the
history of our politics and our literature ?

it may be that the very variety of French Art invites to special
studies rather than to general appreciations. It does not present
that unity of character which is so striking in most other countries.
In England, in Germany, in Italy, in Holland, in Spain, art reveals
itself as the work of a single race, and even in some cases of a single
century. In France, artistic continuity embraces very different
styles, all equally original and sincere. No one would hesitate to

1%t^&A^P.

PREFACE

say which has been the golden age of Greece, Italy, Spain, England
or Flanders. In France, it is impossible to pronounce without
scruple ; each century, from Philip Augustus to our own day, has
partisans.

The individuality of France is very ancient. It has been con-
tinually, and sometimes violently modified, but has very rarely shown
signs of exhaustion. Art is distributed throughout its history, and
has always been well adapted to its vicissitudes. It has not, as in
other countries, expanded with that momentary exuberance which
manifests the full vitality of the human plant and exhausts it. It
reveals rather the changing forms of society than a fixed ethnical
type. If there has not always been a French School, or in other
words, a great family of artists and a sort of material kinship founded
upon community of methods, there has always been a French Style,
that is to say, a moral resemblance between works inspired by the
same collective taste.

Art has known periods of magnificent expansion, the bloom and
fruition of a race ; but these have been for the most part brief and
intermittent. France has had such periods ; the years of the past
are full of the work of a society which has always been able to
fashion an adornment to suit its taste ; our active civilization has
never failed to supplement the repose of nature by its industry.
Hence it is very difficult to include the art of France in a statical
definition ; the best that can be given is the very law of its develop-
ment : its essence is that suppleness and fidelity with which it has
always adapted itself to a society in perpetual process of recon-
struction.

Above these minor variations, two great phases are easily
discerned : the Christian, feudal, and communal France of the
Middle Ages created Gothic Art as its form of expression ; the
rationalistic and strongly centralised France of the Middle Ages
adopted the language of Classic Art. These opposite styles express
the successive aspects of the same soul with equal sincerity. Yet
they would seem mutually exclusive ; the Classicists despise the
Middle Ages, and the modern restorers of Gothic taste have not

PREFACE

yet forgiven those who superseded it. A trustworthy book on
French Art is only possible if its writer abandons these exclusive
predilections ; they are natural in artists who must either believe in
the superiority of their ideal, or fall short of it ; they are inexcusable
in the historian, who misses his function altogether if he does not
make the past more intelligible. Our sympathies should follow
French taste in its successive tendencies. To sacrifice Notre Dame
to Versailles, or Poussin to the Master of Moulins is to renounce
one half of the French soul ; our art, by its wealth and variety,
invites its historian to show a supple intelligence and a catholic
taste.

The function of handbooks such as these, which cannot pursue
the phenomena of the artistic spirit into all its objective ramifica-
tions, must be to trace and explain those innate subjective charac-
teristics which no fashion in external forms can wholly disguise.
As we follow its evolution, we shall realise that the underlying
character of French Art is no less persistent and apparent than
that of other nations, and, in spite of those superficial variations
which are so obvious, we shall recognise its essential unity.

LOUIS HOURTICQ.

Paris, 1911.

VII

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE

A survey of the bibliographical history of French Art would suffice in itself to
show us what has been the special conception of art formed by successive genera-
tions. In the Middle Ages, when Art was exclusively the handmaid of Religion,
texts contain only passing allusions to its monuments. After the Renaissance, it
becomes more independent, and a special literature is devoted to it. Finally, in the
nineteenth century, the century of history, not only contemporary art, but all its
manifestations in the past, interested amateurs and scholars.

The most instructive of these works on French Art have been quoted at the
end of each chapter to which they refer, arranged in the following order : original
documents, general works, works on architecture, sculpture, painting, and the
minor arts. Some, by reason of their extensive range, could not be connected with
any special chapter. Such are :

GENERAL WORKS

S. Reinach, .-lpo//o. new edit.. I'aris. 1910; English ed., 1907. C. Bayet, Precis J'Hhtoire
de I Art, new edit., Paris, 1906. K. Woermann, Geschichle der Kunsl alle Zeiten und loll^ern,
Leipzig, 1900-1905, 2 vols, have appeared. X. Kraus, Geschichle der chrisllichen Kunsl.
Freiburg, 1896, 1897, 2 vols. L. Courajod, Lemons professces a I'ccole du Louvre. Paris. 1899-
1903, 3 vols. A. Michel, Hisloire dc I'Arl. published under the direction of A. Michel, Paris,
1903, 6 vols, have appeared. The chapters by S. Rocheblave, in the l' Hisloire de la Lilleralure
francaise. published under the direction of Petit de Julleville and by A. Michel, in I Hisloire de
l-'rance. published under the direction of Lavisse and Rambaud. The chapters relating to Art in
the History of France published by Lavisse The works of S. Reinach, K. Woermann, and
A. Michel quoted above contain important bibliographies.

DICTIONARIES. REVIEWS. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INVENTORIES

Memoires inedils sur la vie el les ouvrages des Membres de I'.Academie. Paris, 1854, 2 vols.
P.-J. Mariette, Abecedario. Paris, 1831 et sq., 6 vols. A. Jal, Dic/ionnoire critique debiographic
et d'histoire. Paris, 1872. L. Dussieux, Les .Artistes fran(;ais a la Eiranger. Paris. 3rd edit.,
1876. E. Bellier de la Chavignerie. Diclionnaire general des Arlisles de I' Ecole francaise. Paris,
1882. 2 vols.

The principal periodicals to consult for French Art history are : Les .4nnales archeologiqucs of
Didron, which no longer appear. La Revue archeologique. La Gazette archeotogique. Le
Bulletin monumental. La Collection des Congrcs archeologiques dc France. La Revue de I'.Art
Chretien. Le Moyen Age. Les .Archives de I' art francais ar\d .\'ouvelles .Archives dc I'.Art
fran(ais (an analytical Table is inserted in vol. xii. of the .Xouvclles .Archives). Les Reunions
des Societies de Beaux- Arts des Dcparlemenls. Les Memoires de la Socicte des .Antiquaires —
Reperlorium far Kunslwisscnschaft. Zeihchrifl fiir chrislliche Kunsl.- R. de Lasteyrie and E.
Lefevre-Ponlalis have undertaken : Bibliographic general des Iravaux hisloriques el archeologiques
publics par les Socielcs savanles de L rancc, I'ark, 1888.

La Revue universelle des .Arts no longer appears, but the Gazette des Beaux-.Arls, with its
supplement : la Chronique des .Arts et de la Curiosite, and the Revue de I'.Art ancien el moderne,
with its supplement: \e Bulletin de I'.Art ancien el moderne. succeed in interesting the general
public in archaeological research and art-history.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE

Ulncenlairc (unfinished) des richesses dart de la France and Y I noenlairc des richesse d art de
la Ville de Paris contains catalogues of the works of art in civil and rehgious buildings.

The titles of publications which have been very frequently quoted have been abbreviated as
follows: R. A. — Revue archeologique ; B. M. = Bijllelin monumental ; A. A. F. -Archii'es de
I' Art franfais; R . S. B. A. D. -^Reunion des Societes des Beaux-Arts des Deparlements ;
G. B. A. = Gazeite des Beaux-Arts ; R. A. A. M. = Revue de I' Art ancien et moderne.

GENERAL WORKS ON THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire de V Architecture fran(;aise, 10 vols., Paris, 1854-1869. — Viollet-
le-Duc, £n/re/(cns sur I' Architecture, 2 \o\s..Par\'i„ 1858-1872. — Planat, £nci/c/opcJ(e d' Archi-
tecture, Paris. W. Liibke, Geschichle der A rchitel(tur, l^eipzig, 1886. A. Choisy, /"/(s/o;re</e
I'Archilecture. Vol. II., Pans, 1900. Lance, Diclionnaire des Architectes de I Ecole franfaise,

2 vols., Paris, 1872. Ch. Bauchal, Nouveau Dictionnaire des Architectes francais, Paris, 1887. —
Archives de la Commission des Monuments historiques, Paris, 1855-1872, 4 vo\s. -Archives de
la Commission des Monuments historiques, published by A. de Baudot and A. Perrault-Dabot,
Paris, 1899 (in course of publication).

GENERAL WORKS ON THE HISTORY OF SCULPTURE

E. David, Histoire de la Sculpture francaise, Paris, 1853. W. hilhke.Geschichte der Plastik,
Paris, 1884. L. Gonse, La Sculpture fran^aise. Paris, 1895. Sl.-Lami, Dictionnaire des
Sculpteurs de I'Ecole francaise jusqu a LouisXIV, Paris, 1898. L. Gonse, LesChe/s-d'CEuvre
des Musees de France : La Sculpture, Paris, 1904.

GENERAL WORKS ON PAINTING

A. Siret, Diclionnaire historique et raisonne des Peinlres, Paris, 1883, 2 vols. Emeric David,
Histoire de la Peinturc au Moyen Age. Paris, 1863. A. Champeaux, Histoire de la Pcinlure
decorative. Pans, 1890. Woltmann and Woermann, Gesc/iic/i/c der Malerei. 1879 et seq. -
Ch. Blanc, Histoire des Peintres, Ecole francaise. Paris, 1862, 3 vols. Paul Manlz, Luc-Olivier
Merson, Henry Marcel, La Peinture en France, Paris (Bibl. de I'Enseignement des Beaux-Arts,

3 vols.). L. Gonse, Les Chefs-d QLuvte des Musees de France, La Peinture, Paris, 1900. -
L. Hourtlcq. Le Peinture des Origines au XV F siecle, Paris, 1908.

GENERAL WORKS ON THE MINOR ARTS

A. Dumesnil, Le Peinlre graveur francaise, Paris, 1835-1871, 1 I vols. -C. Duplessis, Histoire
de la Gravure en /'ranee, Paris, 1861. H. Delaborde, La GVai'urc, Paris, n.d. L.Rosenthal,
La Gravure,' Paris, 1909. Le Musee des Arts decoratifs, published under the direction of
L. Metman ; 2 Albums engraved on wood and I on metal have been published, Viollel-le-Duc,
Dictionnaire du Mobilier francais. 4 vols., Paris. 1855-1873. I.abarte, Histoire des Arts
industries, Paris, 1872-1875. E. Molmier, L'Emailleric, Paris, 1891. E. Molinier, Histoire
generale des A rts appliques a I'industrie du V" a la fin du XUF siecle, Paris, 1 896. E. Molmier,
L'Orfevrerie religieuse du V a la fin du XV' siecle, Paris, n.d. H. Havard, Histoire de
rOrj'eurerie francaise, Paris, 1896. E. Babelon, Histoire de laGravure sur gemmcs en L ranee,
Paris, 1902. J. Guiffrey, La Tapisseric. son histoire deputs le Moyen Age jusqu' a nos jours.
Tours, 1885. G. Migeon, Les Arts du Tissu, Paris, 1909. H. Havard, Diclionnaire de
I 'Ameublemenl et de la Decoration, Paris, n.d., 4 vols. J. Quicheral, Histoire du Costume en
France, Paris. 1876.

CONTENTS

• •A(.E

PART 1
CHRISTIAN ART

CHAPTER I
ROMAN. BARBARIAN. AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS I

CHAPTER II
MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART II

CHAPTER ill
COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC AR T .... . . . 4|

CHAPTER IV

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDI F

AGES .... 84

PART II

CLASSICAL ART

CHAPTER 1
THE TRANSITION FROM THE GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART 132

CHAPTER 11

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART 178

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 111
THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

CHAPTER IV

THE END OF LOUIS XIVS REIGN, AND PARIS UNDER THE
REGENCY

CHAPTER V

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XV AND LOUIS XVI . . .

214

. 237

255

PART III
MODERN ART

CHAPTER 1

THE NEW CLASSICISM DURING THE REVOLUTION AND THE

EMPIRE .... 296

CHAPTER 11
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD ^'^

CHAPTER 111

NATURALISM '^^

ERRATUM.

Page Line

1 3 26, foi " Hughes," read " Hugues."

85 20, fnr " Bastile," read " Bastille."

272 1 . for " Baudouin." rend " Baudoin.'

Kit;. I. — KO.MAN BJilDGi; ON THK \ IDi HKI.K, NKAK I.LNEL. {PllOtO. (lOUZy.)

PART I

CHRISTIAN ART

CHAPTER I

ROMAN, BARBARIAN, AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

Roman Caul : Roads, Towns and Buildings. Remains of Roman Cicilisation in Barbarian
Gaul. Christian Caul. The Great Sani:tuaries. Oriental Influences. Barbaric
Elements.

Gaul, as a whole, began to participate in antique civilisation
under the Roman rule. A highly centralised administration united
the provinces which extended from the Rhine to the Pyrenees,
from the ocean to the Alps, imposing a common existence and a
common culture ui)on them. When one travels along a Roman
road it is very easy to understand how the dwellers in these
regions were sensible of a distant solidarity. Their roads, even
when disused, are not obliterated ; they still indicate the ancient
route across fields. Stretching in purposeful rigidity from point to
point, regardless of mountains and valleys, they bore the legions to
the frontier, and carried the will of Rome into the interior. Every

ART IN FRANCE

halting-place along them was the nucleus of a future city of France.
At the cross-roads we shall find the active centres of Roman art.

A network of more natural
and less geometrical high-
ways, corresponding to the
local geology, was related
to this vast system of main
roads. And yet the ex-
tremities, from Aries to
Cologne, from Lyons to
Saintes, felt that they were
members of one body.
Thus the solid causeways,
built for eternity, were the
channels of human inter-
course during the Middle
Ages ; they transported
pilgrims and merchants to sanctuaries and fairs respectively. From
Burgundy to Provence, from Tours to Roncevaux, they maintained
uninterrupted communication, even when these provinces were no
longer united by Roman centralisation.

The conquerors brought their Latin habits with them ; buildings
akin to those of Italy rose in the cities where they established them-
selves ; an official art, easily imposed on a country innocent of
architecture, and immune from all local influence, manifested its
identity at Narbonne, Bordeaux, and Reims : it was an urban and
utilitarian art, created for the enjoyment of great cities. After the
decay of Marseilles, Nar-

-KO.MAN THEATRE, ARL ES.

bonne and Frejus rose to
importance, and close at
hand, Orange and Nimes,
whose ancient monuments
are among the finest in the
world. Aries, the Rome
of Gaul, began her glorious
existence as a capital, a
city of luxury, art, and
pleasure. But this muni-
cipal civilisation soon out-
grew Provence. Munici-
palities raised triumphal arches dedicated to emperors ; Treves,
Reims, Besan^on, Langres and Saintes have preserved these proud

-Ti;lUMI'HAI. AUCH OF SAIXT-RK.MY.

ROMAN, BARBARIAN. AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

4.— MAUSOLEUM OF
SAINT-K^MY.

structures. Towns of second and third rate importance had their
amphitheatres ; the more weahhy among them boasted thermae.
Temples were no doubt numerous ; they
disappeared to furnish columns for the new
basilicas of youthful Christianity. Around
the great cities rose the rich villas of the
Gallic aristocracy, and beyond these a
vague population, the Pagani. long re-
calcitrant to Latinism and subsequently to
Christianity. Roman culture had pene-
trated only into the towns ; but monkish
hosts ploughed the fallows of the country-
side ; after the municipal art of the Gallo-
Romans came the rural art of the Roman-
esque epoch.

The Gallo- Roman monuments were of
imperishable strength. The walls and vaults
of the Romans were built with a cement
so solid that the whole structure became
homogeneous as a single rock ; the heavy
rubble-walls were encased in small dressed stones, forming
enormous masses, to which courses of flat bricks or freestone
gave sharp contours, salient ribs and projecting cornices ; upon
this robust masonry pilasters and pediments were applied as
facades, the whole casing reproducing the elegant forms of
Greek architecture. But to raise buildings of this nature, it was
necessary that a powerful authority should exist, able to discipline

armies, to exact forced la-
bour, to subject thousands
of arms to a common enter-
prise. The downfall of the
Empire arrested the great
works of the Gallo- Roman
municipalities. Such of
their buildings as survived
the cataclysms of the Mid-
dle Ages seemed the more
imposing from the ruins
heaped around them.
When in the third cen-
tury the dykes were first broken down on the frontier by the tide
of barbarian invasion, the Gallo-Romans entrenched themselves

3 B 2

5. — IlKIDGE OK S.-\INT-CHAMAS. {Plioto. CotlZy.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 6.-

-AKCH OF IMARIUS, AT ORANGE.

(Photo. Neu7-dein.)

hastily in their towns, and destroyed many a building in order to
throw up ramparts. Among the masonry of these hurriedly con-
structed defences, columns, capitals and statues have been found. But

after the fourth century,
resistance died down, and
no obstacles w ere opposed
to the invaders. The
towns were pillaged, and
it was long before they
recovered the prosperity
^^ of the Pax Romana.

jjA j'^ yija|-: '-ilOl- :-^".j-. i |(|BW ' The ancient cities which
HHIiI ^iW' ^T^" 1 j^iMmBB had been so active and
^*™* .' !if il m ^^BsHnn so opulent during the first

centuries of Christianity,
shrank and shrivelled in
their over-spacious boun-
daries.

Long, empty centuries
succeeded ; yet they
played their part in the development of French art. It was during
this period that antique civilisation, decomposing, combined with new
elements. It will be well to enumerate what these were before they
united to form Romanesque art.

The dominant feature in this slow and confused genesis, was the
tradition of the Empire ;
antique buildings still sub-
sisted amongst the gene-
ral decomposition. Those
who strove to preserve
some little intellectual
culture remained Gallo-
Romans among the bar-
barians ; and when some
one among the new chiefs,
aClovis or a Charlemagne,
desired to consecrate his
power, he donned the
purple and took the title
of Consul or of Augustus.
The barbarian anarchy was dominated by the majesty of such
memories ; the great works left upon French soil by the conquerors

FIG. 7.— GATE OF MAKS, AT KF.IMS.
{Photo. /'. Courlcux.)

ROMAN, BARBARIAN, AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

FIC'S. — KUINS OF THE I'ALACH OK
GALLIENUS, AT BORDEAUX.

still form the setting of human activities. In the regions where
the antique civihsation was most deeply imprinted, there are towns

where the houses are huddled in
the forsaken thermae and amphi-
theatres ; certain quarters of Nimes
and Bordeaux are enclosed by the
boundaries of the arenas. Men
destroyed the temples, but they
used their entablatures for the
adornment of basilicas. Gallo-
Roman centres became the birth-
places of Romanesque art : Tou-
louse, Auvergne, Poitou, Bur-
gundy, and, above all, Provence
and the Rhine valley. In Prov-
ence, the transition from antique
life to that of the Middle Ages
was so insensible, that the Chris-
tians occasionally worshipped in
the old temples after adopting the
new religion. The Romanesque
art of these regions is not always readily distinguished from late
Roman art ; on the banks of the Rhine, again, there was a tardy
but vigorous florescence of the seed sown by the legions. This
fringe of the Empire was more profoundly Romanised than the
interior ; Latin civilisation had flourished more densely here, in
order to oppose a barrier to the advance of Germanism ; the
foundations of the dyke
were not obliterated by
the barbarian flood.

Meanwhile, Christianity
made its way among the
Gallic populations. For
centuries, painters and
architects worked solely
for the Church. Christian-
ity inaugurated the artistic
geography of France. Her
first monuments are no
more. The Merovingian
basilicas, so lovingly described by Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours,
have entirely disappeared ; but traditions, more durable than

FIG. g.

-A(JUEDUCT KNOWN AS THE I'ONT
I)U GAKP.

ART IN FRANCE

buildings, have survived. The conversion of Gaul had begun in

the second century. Certain famous martyrs associated the idea of

evangehsation with that of martyrdom ;
the popular imagination saw torture
and blood in the beginnings of Chris-
tianity. The remains of these martyrs
fixed a religion of transcendent dogma
and strange rites on French soil, and
caused the close relation between the
art of the Middle Ages and the worship
of relics. It was
at this period that
holy places began
to attract the
veneration of
crowds, and to
become the goals
of pilgrimages.
The tradition had
already taken
form in the time
of Gregory of
Tours. " In the

reign of Decius," he writes, " seven men, after

being ordained bishops of Rome, were sent |

to preach the faith in Gaul : Gatianus, at ^

Tours ; Trophimus, at Aries ; Paul, at Nar-
Saturninus, at Toulouse ; Denis, at
Austremonius, in Auvergne ; and
il at Limoges." The addition of a few

KIG. lo. — EX-VOTO, STONE.

(Museum of Saint-Germain.)

(Excavations of Comte Esperandieu

at Mont Auxois.)

bonne
Paris ;
Martial

kk;. II. — i-'iiiui.A

OK CI-OISONNIi GLASS.

(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

GATE OF SAINT-ANDR^, AT AU'IXR.

(Fhoto. Nciircicin.')

more names — St.
Eutropius of Saintes, St.
Julian of Brioude, St. Be-
nignus of Dijon, St. Ger-
main of Pans, and, above
all, St. Martin of Tours
— would make this list of
evangelists synonymous
with that of the principal
sanctuaries of Gaul, and
incidentally, with that of
the principal monuments
of Romanesque art.

ROMAN, BARBARIAN, AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

The question of Oriental influences in western art remains very
obscure. Antique art in its Byzantine form had wilted, but it had
at least survived, together with the
political organisation, whereas in the
West it had succumbed with the
rest of the Empire. When it came
to life again among the Gallo-
Franks, at first artificially, at the
will of Charlemagne, and then en-
durmgly in the Romanesque period,
it manifested an undeniable affinity
with Byzantine works. Gaul had
known a Greek culture before her
Latin civilisation. Hellenist navi-
gators had settled in Provence long
before the Roman legions had
marched from Italy. After, as be-
fore the conquest, it was her
Mediterranean face that Gaul
turned towards the common civilisa-
tion, and on that face that she
received some rays of Oriental
light. Marseilles was a Greek

colony ; Nimes retains in her coat of arms the palm-tree and the
crocodile which recall her Graeco-Egyptian origin. Christianity was
but one of the treasures that Syria and Greece deposited on the
Gallic shores. Among the
earliest texts of our Chris-
tian records is an address
from the communities of
Lyons and Vienne to
" their brethren of Asia
and Phrygia." The first
Gallic martyrs, the Bishop
Pothinus, Attalus of
Pergamus, Alexander of
Phrygia the physician,
came from Asia ; at a
much later period, the time
of Gregory of Tours,

Syrians were numerous in many cities in the heart of Gaul. But,
above all, pilgrims began to wend their way to the holy regions

I'U;. 13. — HYCililA OR DEMKIHN.

(Museum of Saint-Germain.)

(Excavations of Comte Kspiiraiulieu at

Mont Auxois.)

IIAI'IISTKKV OF SAINT-JEAX, AT
rolTIEKS.

ART IN FRANCE

where the new God had risen on the world. As it gradually
converted mankind so, too, Christianity turned men's souls to Greece

and to Asia. The plastic arts were
then but a consequence of the establish-
ment of the faith ; the religious con-
quest brought Byzantine images in its
wake.

The part played by the barbarian
populations is more difficult to define,
and those who cling to preconceived
ideas may exaggerate or minimise it
at will, for material evidences are lack-
ing. In the buildings that were raised,
Roman or Byzantine traditions were
at first predominant ; nevertheless, a
strange and fantastic decoration makes
its appearance here and there, a
decoration analogous to that of bar-
baric jewels, to cer-

tain northern wood-
carvings, and to the
miniatures of Saxon
manuscripts. Mon-
sters entwined among interlacing ornament like

wild beasts caught in nets, roll, writhe, and bite

each other, and these violent forms are found in

Romanesque sculpture, perfectly distinct from

Byzantine fancies, which were conventionalised

with greater science and seventy.

The barbarians were skilful smiths, and excellent

goldsmiths ; they were expert in the use of fire and

metal. They set uncut gems in gold ; they not

only forged swords and lances ; they also, it seems,

brought with them the art of decorating crosses,

chalices, reliquaries, and book-covers with large

cabochons. The goldsmiths' work of the Mero-
vingian period was renowned throughout the

Middle Ages ; inventories make frequent mention

of " the work of St. Eloi (Eligius)." St. Eloi

became the patron saint of goldsmiths, and his

native place, Limousin, the centre of the enamel industry. But the

barbarians, coming from thickly wooded regions, were rather wood-

FIG. 15. — STATUETTE OF

CHARLEMAGNE FROM THE CATHEDKAL

OF METZ.

(Carnavalet Museum, Paris.)

Fir,. 16. — CROWK OF
KING RECESWINTHE.

(Cluny Museum,
Paris.)

ROMAN, BARBARIAN, AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

HG. 17. — COVER OF A I'SAI.TER OK CHARLES THE liALD S,
IX THE Bir.I.IOTHliyUE NATIONAI.K. (I'/lOtO. Bcrthliud)

men and carpenters than masons or architects. They built wooden
churches, castles and towns, no vestiges of which remain. If these
structures made way
for Gallo- Roman ma-
sonry, the magnificent
timber framework of
the lofty roofs survived
throughout the Mid-
dle Ages. The high
towers, the spires, all
those pointed forms
which soared heaven-
wards in the mediaeval
town were reared by
daring carpenters on
the massive structures
of Roman architecture.

Houses with pointed roofs and houses with flat roofs distinguish the

France of the north and the France of the
south respectively. After the Renaissance,
the French roof gradually became less lofty ;
nevertheless, even in the seventeenth century,
\vhat most surprised an Italian after he had
crossed the Alps was the height of the roofs.

But on the whole, the barbarians probably
constructed less than they destroyed. The
rare buildings of the confused Merovingian
civilisation which survive show how the Chris-
tian spirit adapted itself to ancient customs.
The Baptistery of St. Jean at Poitiers, the
Chapel of St. Laurent at Grenoble, are antique
structures adapted to the use of the new re-
ligion. The oldest parts of the " Temple St.
Jean " show the small dressed stones of the
Roman builders, among which freestone and
brick supply the modest decoration ; the deli-
cate cornices and the pediments preserve the
ancient forms, which Poitevin architects were
not to forget. The first converts baptised in
this building might have fancied themselves in
the hall of some Roman thermae ; after the tenth century it became a
little church decorated in the Romanesque style. In St. Laurent of

KIG. IS. — CAROLlN(;iA.V

IMI.I.AK IN THE CHUKCH

OK CRAVANT.

{P/ioto. Mts. ///s/i>r/i/tU-S.)

ART IN FRANCE

Grenoble, the capitals surmounted by heavy impost blocks recall the
art of Ravenna and Constantmople. The Carolmgian buildings of
Germigny and Aix-la-Chapelle are also Byzantme. Nothmg durable
save the Roman monuments has survived from these periods, in
which art was almost non-existent ; the antique civilisation, as it
decomposed, evolved in a Latin, and then in a Byzantine form. The
founders of mediaeval art were to work upon the basis of a Roman
building.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

S. Reinach, Description raisonnee dii Musee de Saint'Gcrmain, Paris, 1894 ; Lc% Gaulois dans
I'Art antique. Paris, 1889. E. Esperandieu, Recueil general des bas-reliefs de la Gaule romaine
(Collection of unpublished Documents), Paris, 1907, 2 vols, have appeared. C. Barriere Flavy,Les
Arts industrieh de la Gaule du V" au VH'^ siecle, 3 vols., Toulouse, 1901. Leon Joulin, Les
Etablissements gallo-romains de la plaine de MartresTolosanes.Parh. \90\. C. Jullian, /^oufes
romaines el routes de France iRev. de Paris, 1900). J. Quicheral, Melanges d Archeologie et
d Histoire, Paris, 1886. R. de Lasteyrie, La Basilique de Saint-Martin de Tours, Paris, 1892. —
Marcel Reymond, La Chapelle Sainl-LaurenI de Grenoble, Pans, 1896. A. Marignan. Un
Historien de I'Art franfais: Louis Courajod, les Temps francs, Paris, 1889. L. Brehier,
Les Colonies d'Orientaux en Occident au commencement du Moyen Age (.Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, 1903).

FK-.. ig. — CLDISIHRS Hi- MUISSAC.

CHAPTER II

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

Monastic Life : the Benedictines of Cluny and Citeaux. The Propagation of Art by means of
Pilgrimages. The Origin of Romanesque Architecture. Regional Types : Aucergne-
Langucdoc, Burgundy-Provence, Poilou-Saintonge, .Northern France. The Communilij of
Religious Iconography and Regional Moliccs. The Continuity of Painting. The
Renaissance of Sculpture ' Classic and Byzantine Influences: Decorative Richness;
Dramatic Compositions. I he Romanesque Style the first Dcjinite lorm of French Art.

The refined activity which gives birth to the arts is only possible
m a well-organised society ; the best society in the eleventh century
was that of the monks. Until the formation of the populous communes
of Northern France, civilisation took refuge in the great monasteries.
The southern cities which had preserved or developed within their
walls some of the refinements of the antique world left no trace of
it save in their gallant verses ; the plastic arts, after the downfall of
paganism, existed only for the new religion.

It was within the narrow limits of over-populous and strictly
enclosed monasteries that the manual and intellectual activity
necessary to the existence of art was concentrated. Architecture,
sculpture, illumination, and painted glass during the Romanesque
period were so many blossoms of the cloister. The monastery
preserved the germs of the antique culture ; it received and kept
alive some sparks from Byzantine altars ; elsewhere they were
quenched in the whirlwind of a world of anarchy. The monastery
was akin to the classic villa ; its cloistered court was an enlargement

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 20. — APSE OF NOTRE-

UAME-DU-PORT, AT

CLERMONT-FERRAND.

of the ancient peristyle ; the monk's gown, his shaven face and close
cropped head retained their Gallo- Roman cast among barbarian

fashions. Even at the present day the old

monasteries of Moissac, Toulouse and
Aries remind us what places of tranquil
happiness, what oases of sweetness and
peace they were during the rude life of
the age. Those who circulated under the
beautiful arcades, around the little grassy
courts, were attached to their domicile by
all the more lofty aspirations of their souls ;
they forgot the world, its tumults and
adventures, and among their methods of
singing God's praises, we must reckon that
of the illuminators who carefully copied
Byzantine miniatures ; that of the sculptors
and glass-painters who patiently transferred
these little scenes to the stone of capitals
and the windows of churches. The monas-
tery formed a city which had its individual
means of existence and its industry. Difficult
arts, such as that of the goldsmith, were at home there. Romanesque
art betrays to some extent the fact that it was evolved m monastic
cells ; it lacks youth and freshness ; its sincerest sentiments often
take on a traditional form, like the phrases of prayers ; the most
violent energy does not
always succeed in break-
ing down the discipline of
the rule.

The monks were also
architects, and were the
first who built vast, ele-
gant and solid sanctuaries.
The most important and
the most richly decorated
of the Romanesque
Churches were the Ab-
beys. To travel through
France to see the finest
monuments of Roman-
esque architecture or decoration is to make a pilgrimage to the most
famous Benedictine Abbeys, from St. Germain of Paris to St.

21. — CHURCH OF SAINT-NECTAIRE.

{Photo. NcHrdi:in.)

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

■•^^S^

-AI'SK OK SAlNT-SIiNMN,
AT TOULOUSE.

Etienne of Caen, from St. Benigne of Dijon to the Madeleine of
Vezelay, from St. Trophime of Aries to St. Gilles, from St. Sernm
of Toulouse to Ste. Croix of Bordeaux, to St. Martial of Limoges,

to Souillac, to Beaulieu, to Issoire,

to St. Savm of Poitiers. The most
powerful of these Abbeys have dis-
appeared, Cluny, which in the
eleventh century gave the law to
Christendom, and Citeaux, which
was predominant in the twelfth.
Amidst the general anarchy, they
formed mighty organisations ; and
the black monks of Cluny, and
later, the white monks of Citeaux,
spread their skilful architecture and
propagated the motives of their
iconography throughout Gaul and
even beyond its frontiers.

It was in the wake of the monks
that Romanesque art extended over the territory of ancient Gaul.
The civilisation of the period was less brilliant, no doubt, than that
of the third century A.D., but it was no longer entirely confined to
the towns ; the monks had turned aside from the great highways
to penetrate into the quarters of the pagani, ploughing up the soil
and sowing the seed of Christianity. " They decorate the deserts
with their holy perfections," writes Hughes de Saint Victor ; " they

adorn solitudes with their
justice, their pious enter-
prises, their good exam-
ples." They also took into
these deserts the arts of
building, carving and paint-
ing.

The relative community
of style in an art so wide-
ly disseminated as that of
the eleventh and twelfth
centuries would be inex-
plicable, if we did not
remember that the princi-
pal buildings marked the stages of a society always in movement.
The whole of Romanesque art was born of the worship of relics.

FK;. 23. — CHUKCH OK KDV.AT.

{P/io/o. Xcufiichi.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 24. — NAVE OF SAINT-SERNIN,
AT TOULOUSE.

FIG. 25. — FACADE OF NOTRE-DAIME-DU-

ruv. (Photo. Neurdein.)

It was necessary to take the pilgrim's staff continually in order to
pay homage to them. The important rites of his existence brought
man perpetually before tombs and shrines. Contact with these gave

solemnity to an oath, and healed the sick ;
a long and difficult pilgrimage atoned for
serious faults and soothed troubled con-
sciences. The more famous sanctuaries
attracted so many of the faithful that
the aisles of churches had to be en-
larged and ambulatories created ; build-
ings were made more spacious to receive
the crowds who were huddled together
in the small churches of the early
Romanesque style. The imposing archi-
tecture of Vezelay and Autun, of St.
Gilles or Aries, is infinitely too vast for
the requirements of an ordinary abbey
church ; it was intended to serve wor-
shippers far beyond the parochial limits,
those itinerant populations which came
to pray to the Magdalen, Lazarus, St.
Gilles or St. Trophime. Offerings
enriched the sanctuaries ; cures and miracles paid for costly
churches, their sculptures, their goldsmiths' work, their ivories and

^lii

^^^' '^ ^^Ksf!^^ si^H^^^^^I

||if(

^^^^^HSj^^. '"' -^ ' -

26. — HOTEL DE VILLE OF
SAINT-ANTONIN.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

FIG. 27.

-THE CI.OISTKR OF ELNES, NEAK I'EKl'H.N AN.

{Photo. Neiirdehi.)

precious stuffs. The bones of Sainte Foy, stolen and transported to
Conques, kindled an altar-fire of Romanesque art in the heart of the
desert ; a bold building,
decked with sculptures
and guarding a treasure.
When the precious
monolithic columns taken
from the ancient monu-
ments came to an end, as
the art of turning them
was lost, wooden posts or
pillars of masonry were
used to support the roofs
of the basilicas ; for the
same reason, the arch of
small dressed stones took
the place of the ancient
entablature made of long,

rigid slabs. Then the Latin basilica underwent the transformations
which gradually developed into the Romanesque style. The build-
ing, still serving the same purposes, retained its original plan, but
the new method of construction was to change its appearance
entirely. To the architecture which normally set a timber roof
upon slight columns and walls succeeded that of the Etruscans
and Romans, which set a roof with an oblique thrust upon massive

walls.

In the Carolmgian
period, the basilica was
slill covered with a timber
roof after the antique
fashion ; it was only in
certain crypts that a low,
narrow vault rested heavi-
ly on sturdy pillars. It
was not until the beginning
of the eleventh century
that architects began to
suppress the timber roof
and build their churches
entirely of stone. Christi-
anity then set to work to renew its churches. " About three
years after A.D. 1000. the basilicas were renewed almost throughout

•'U;. 2{5.- NA\K 111" THE MADEI.EIM;

((joTnic ciiiiiic). {Photo. Ncurdciu.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIi;. 29. — KOIMANES()UE HOUSE
AT SAINT-GILLES (gARD).

(^Plioto. NeHtdein.')

the universe, especially in Italy and in Gaul, although the greater

part of these were still sufficiently fine to need no repairs. But the

Christian nations seemed to rival each

other in magnificence, in order to raise the

most elegant churches. Then the faithful

improved {in meliora permutavere) the

metropolitan churches, as well as the

abbeys, and the oratories of the smaller

towns. " This famous text of a Burgundian

Benedictine, Raoul Glaber, clearly states

that the churches were not rebuilt of

necessity, but because a new type of struc-
ture had made its appearance, beside which

the old seemed out of date. What was

this " amelioration " ? It was, no doubt,

building with dressed stones, and the use

of the vault.

The plan of the ancient basilica was

retained ; a wide nave, sometimes double

side-aisles, at the entrance a porch or

narthex, and behind the choir, an apse ;

in front of the choir the nave was traversed by the transept, which

gave the church the form of a great cross laid upon the ground.

But there is an essential difference between the Latin basilica and

the Romanesque church ;
the weight of the stone
vault, and the pressure it
brought to bear upon its
points of support necessi-
tated the use of massive
pillars and thick, low
walls, capable of resisting
an oblique thrust. The
whole building seems to
gather itself together to
support this solid masonry.
The system of stability
obtained simply by the
verticality of the walls was
replaced by another equi-
librium, resulting from counterbalancing lateral forces. The antique

temple rose from the ground, clear cut, alert, but without any

FIG. 30. — CI.OI!,TEKS OF .Muls J .M.iJUU K

(nOUCHES-DU-KHONE).

(Photo. Neiirdt-iii).

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

HG. 31. — KACADE OF NOTEiK-DAMt-LA-
GRANDE, AT I'OITIEKS.

exaggerated elasticity or excessive lightness, as befits an architecture

which is not concerned to minimise weight. The Romanesque

church, not as yet freed from this

servitude, rises with a certain

timidity ; the walls betray the effort ;

they rest heavily upon the soil ;

they are sturdy and massive ; they

reveal a kind of struggle between

matter and form ; the history of

this struggle is that of architecture

in the Middle Ages ; in the eleventh

century, it was the material which

gave its aspect to architecture ; in

the Gothic period, the constructor

had mastered it ; from the inert

mass he had disengaged a resistant

ossature ; he reared a giddy vault

upon the eviscerated walls.

The earliest architects did not at

first venture to throw walls and pillars into space ; their buildings

keep close to the ground, as if they feared to lose contact with the

soil. They built empirically, without nicely calculating the forces

of the over-thick walls. And yet the vault is often badly fixed.

Here and there, it has bent under its own weight, and has thrust

away its points of support ; it has been necessary to shore up walls

whose loins were broken ; if we may trust the ancient records, there

were many collapses ; the Romanesque churches which survive at

present rarely date from the beginning of the eleventh century ; they

replaced an earlier
generation of Roman-
esque churches, those
Raoul Glaber saw built,
which are unknown to us.
But progress was rapid.
Very soon, the mediaeval
architects recognised the
mechanically essential
points ; they reinforced
them, and lightened the
building in its passive

parts. To prevent subsidences and cracks in the barrel vault, they

reinforced it at intervals by projecting transverse arches, or arcs

17 c

^u ^...

12. — t'DKCH Ol' S.\1.N l-OlLLtS.
{P/lo/o. Xciirtfii'/l)

ART IN FRANCE

—NAVE OF SAIN'I-l'lEK
AT ANGOULEME.

IE,

douhleaux. These arches rested in the interior on dosserets, or

impost blocks, and were strengthened on the exterior by buttresses.

The long nave, divided into bays,
was thus enclosed from place to
place in a framework of arches
and buttresses. Other systems of
vaulting were employed. The
vault on intersecting arches ; the
groined vault, formed by the inter-
penetration of two deml-cylmders.
The cupola was employed more
especially among the Byzantines.
Spherical triangles, or pendentives,
form the transition between its base
and the square plan of the bay
of the nave which it had to cover,
or more frequently, corbels sustain
the cupola when it reaches the
angles. At the junction between
two ribbed vaults or two cupolas,
a strongly projecting transverse

arch {arc doubleau) receives its share of the thrust and transmits

it to the buttresses.

Nevertheless, the building failed to conceal effort. The lateral

aisles, which in the ancient basilicas were designed to add to the

proportions of the nave, now served to buttress it by means of

their half-barrel vaults ;

the thickness of the walls

and pillars made the free

space appear yet more

confined. The outline of

the exterior tended to be-
come pyramidal ; the base

of the edifice is broad and

spreading ; the central

nave rests upon the side-

aisles, and the apse extends

to the apsidal chapels

which it throws out around

it. The architect recog-
nises the organs which need strengthening, but as yet he dares not

attempt what the architects of the thirteenth century were to do :

kk;. 34. — roHCH ok sainte-ckoix, at uokueaux.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

KIG. 35. — FAVAUIi OF SAINT-I'IEKKK,
AT AN<;i)L'M*;.Mi:.

i.e., detach the buttresses from the mass ; on the contrary, he dis-
simulates them as much as he can, transforms them into decorations,
hnks them together by arcades, or
rounds them, givmg them the ap-
pearance of engaged columns ; the
Romanesque builder loved curvmg
lines, full and convex contours.
This marvellous mason, the inventor
of a new system of construction, was
careful to conceal his innovations
under traditional forms. Neverthe-
less, a few towers begin to rise to
the sky from his fac^ades or the
crossings of his transepts. They
become lighter as they mount ; the
upper storeys are pierced with win-
dows and throw out a bold spire.
The Romanesque belfrey soars thus
proudly because it is independent of
the compact structure, and detached
from the system of equilibrium.
Sometimes it suffices to change the character of the church, reveal-
ing a heavenward impulse in the stolid creation.

Romanesque architecture, extending over the entire surface of
ancient Gaul, accommodated itself to the material resources of each
region, and the local habits of its builders. Art reveals regional

individualities at the very
moment when the great
feudal divisions begin to
play an important part in
history.

It was in Auvergne,
on that plateau at first re-
calcitrant to Latin civilisa-
tion, but afterwards one
of Its most faithful guar-
dians, that Romanesque
architecture produced its
most masterly buildings.
Notre Dame du Port, at
Clermont-Ferrand, or the Church of St. Nectairc, are examples of
robust buildings, finely proportioned, carved from a granite that

19 c 2

FIG. 36. — N.'WK OK SAINT-KKONT, AT I'lvRIGb'EllX.

iPhoto. Nciirtiein. )

ART IN FRANCE

HG. 37.— SAI.N 1-WAKllN, AT
BOSCHEKVILLE.

makes admirable walls and coarse
sculptures. The Auvergnate Church
IS the most complete of Romanesque
organisms ; its side-aisles with their
ribbed vaults support tribunes with
half-barrelled vaults, and from the
ambulatory that surrounds the choir,
apsidal chapels radiate in graceful
symmetry. At the crossing of the
transept rises an octagonal tower,
which elevates and lightens the
massive body. These vigorous build-
ings multiplied on the slopes of the
central plateau. They are to be
found in the valley which was tra-
versed by the main road of Cler-
mont and Brioude, in Limousin, in
Quercy, and in Languedoc. Tou-
louse, inaugurating her architectonic activity at this early period,
transposed the stone masonry of the day into brick. Piles of bricks
give a very individual character to the belfries of Languedoc. This
influence was felt very far afield.
Saint-Sernin at Toulouse inspired
the plan of the original church of
St. lago at Compostella. The pil-
grim, lost and strange in remote
regions, hailed the Romanesque
sanctuary of his native land at
successive stages of his road, and
recognised his religion in unknown
provinces. (Figs. 19 to 26.)

The close affinity between the
churches of Burgundy and those of
Provence recalls the relation be-
tween North and South in the basin
of the Rhone ; the kingdom of
Aries at one time united Burgundy
and Provence. The great Burgun-
dian sanctuaries contained Provencal
relics ; the Magdalen and Lazarus,

who had landed of old at Camargue, had left relics at Vezelay and
at Autun. The grandiose abbey of Cluny has perished almost

KIG. 38. — FAfADE OF LA TRINITIi
(AIIBAYE AUX DAMES), AT CAEN.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

KK;. 39. — Al'SE 1>I' THK. CHURCH Ol-
ALLNAY, IN SAINTONGE.

entirely ; the churches which have
survived attest that their architects
were audacious enough at times to
sacrifice soHdity. They reared their
vauhs boldly, throwing out their walls
and buttressing them only by means
of low side-aisles without galleries.
They thus reserved a space for light-
ing the nave directly with lofty
windows. The Proven^aux built in
the Burgundian manner, but they
gave greater height to their side-
aisles, and the dazzling southern sun-
light entered through windows much
reduced in size. The builders of
these churches, which often replaced
Roman temples, utilised the ruins of the
latter. Carved friezes and columns,

imbedded in the Romanesque decoration, still remind us that antique

art reigned upon this soil before Christian civilisation. (Figs. 28

and 32.)

In the south-west, from the Loire to

the Pyrenees, the Poitevins and the Sain-

tongeais reared innumerable churches, in

which the lofty lateral aisles cling closely

to the sides of the nave. The light

struggles dimly into the constricted central

space. But on the fac^ade and sometimes

on the lateral porches, the sculptors

lavished exquisite decoration. The close

and tender gram of limestone lent itself to

the carving of delicate images and supple

arabesques, and thus the somewhat loaded

construction is worked as richly as an

ivory casket. in this region many

churches, both very vast and very hum-
ble, are crowned with cupolas, for the '-

most part concealed by gable roofs ;

but at the Church of St. Front at

Perigueux, the spherical domes are

visible, and cover the four equal arms of a Greek cross ; the

Oriental aspect of this architecture inevitably evokes memories

rl<;. 40. — KACAI>K OK SAI.NT-

KTIKNMC (AliBAVK AV\ HO.MMES),

AT CAEN.

ART IN FRANCE

H./^i^M-%/i^7<

fTfwm M

FIG. 41.— WII.I.IAIM THE CONQH-'EKOR S ARMY IN CAMl'. BAYEUX TAPESTRY.

of Byzantium, and the plan of the church is identical with that
of St. Mark's at Venice. (Figs. 31 to 36.)

These Romanesque
constructions appear
more robust and flourish-
ing in the provinces, where
the ancient culture had
left the strongest impress
on the soil. The northern
provinces never raised
such perfect buildings as
the churches of Auvergne
and Languedoc. It was
not for lack of courage.
On the contrary, the Nor-
mans undertook construc-
tions of such audacity that
It was not possible to cover them with stone vaults ; the over-lofty
walls could not have sus-
tained their weight. Car-
penters completed the
work of the masons. The
proud churches of the
Abbaye aux Flommes and
the Abbaye aux Dames at
Caen were begun in the
Romanesque manner, but
they had to await the
Gothic vault for their com-
pletion. (Figs. 37 to 40.)
During this same
Romanesque period, Chris-

KIG. 42. — SCENE FROM THE Al'OCALYPSE ; PORCH OF
SAINT-SAVIN, NEAR POITIERS.

(Bibliotheque Nationale, Print Room.)

FIG. 48. — GOD CREATING THE SUN AND THE MOON,
NAVE OF SAINT-SAVIN, NEAR POITIERS.

(Bibliotheiiue Nationale, Print Room.)

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

f^C^fe^J^A

FIG. 44. — El'ISODE 0|- THE BATTLE OK HASTINIIS. BAVICUX TAPESTKV.

tianity further gave rise to a vigorous development of imagery. It
had first evolved a very copious iconography, which for centuries
was perpetuated by miniatures,
mural painting, sculpture, enamel,
and stained glass. After practically
suppressing sculpture as an art too
deeply impregnated with paganism,
it had countenanced a prodigious
pictorial florescence, and had in-
vented a dogma of imagery to
illustrate the written dogma. Re-
ligious subjects were stereotyped, so
to speak, in Eastern art in a large
range of clearly defined compositions,
which spread from monastery to
monastery, thanks above all to the
illuminated manuscript. It was on
this common ground that Christian
art was henceforth to exercise itself

i-U;. 45. — Ki:l.ll,)L AKV HEAD OK SAINT
liAUDIMK.

(Clnircli of Snim-Ncrtaiic.)

it is found al the source of

m-M

FIG. 46. — FK.AC.MENTS OF STAINED GLASS OF NOIKE-IiAMK-UE-CIl AKTKES.
THE ANNUNCIATION. — THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEIMIERUS. — THE NATIVITY.

(Uibliothcque Nationale.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 47. — SATAN AMONGST THE
DAllNED. APOCALVPSE OF SAINT

sf;ver.

(Latin Manuscript in the BibliothtKiue

Nationale.) [Flwto. Bert/iaud.)

the pictorial arts of all Europe, like an original language the roots

of which bear fruit in different dialects.

Pictorial themes were transmitted
even more readily than architectural
forms ; Christian iconography, like
the Christian religion itself, was almost
entirely borrowed from the East.
The earliest motives treated by the
painters of the catacombs and the
sculptors of sarcophagi among the
Christians of the West — certain Old
Testament episodes, such as the
Israelites crossing the Red Sea,
Daniel, Jonah, etc. — seem to have
disappeared m the copious repertory
introduced by the Benedictine minia-
turists. In the Merovingian period
and afterwards in the time of Charle-
magne, certain painters no doubt
showed some originality of invention,
for they depicted the Life of St.
Martin in the famous basilica of Tours,

and in the palace of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, they glorified

the race and the reign of the Emperor. But all that survives of

these manifestations is the

record of them in the

pages of historians or poets.

This pictorial tradition

was annihilated with the

Carolingian civilisation,

and when art began to

live again at the close of

the eleventh century,

French artists seem to

have adopted Byzantine

forms almost exclusively.
These painters were

quite untouched by any

sort of realistic inspiration.

They borrowed fixed
images and made no attempt to transform them into representations
of the world in which they lived. And yet even in the twelfth

FIG. 48. — THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE.

(Ciiurch of INIontniorillon.)

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

K:G. 4g.--ADAM, EVE, AND THE
ANfiEL. CAPITAL OF NOTRE-DA.ME-
DU-l'OKT, AT CI.EK.MONT-FERKAND.

century, this iconography lost something of its uniformity when it

estabhshed itself on French soil. The sculptors who transposed

Byzantine motives into their carvings
had not the same habits in every region ;
they did not work the same stone, nor
use the same instruments. The Pro-
vencals bored their marble with the
auger, like the antique sculptors ; the
Burgundian monks hewed out long, flat
silhouettes, the Languedocians robust
figures ; the Auvergnats carved their
hard granite with infinite labour, whereas
the men of Poitou and of Saintonge
treated their docile limestone freely and
fancifully. Hence we distinguish pro-
vincial styles in the borrowed forms of
this art, as, no doubt, we should recog-
nise them in the painting of the day, if

more specimens of this had survived. Moreover, if they showed

little invention, every monastery and every church selected from the

common repertory the themes most in harmony with local devotion.

Innumerable pilgrims flocked to Provence to pay homage to the

relics of the three Marys, which had

been landed at the mouth of the Rhone

together with Lazarus. The great sanc-
tuaries of Provence show their effigies on

every hand. They are to be seen on the

door of St. Gilles, and in St. Trophime at

Aries, going to the tomb which Jesus has

just abandoned, straight and rigid, draped

in long Syrian robes, all holding their

vases of spices in their hands with the

same gesture. The Resurrection of

Lazarus was also a favourite theme with

the painters of Aix and Avignon in the

fifteenth century.

In the regions of the West, on the

great highway which leads towards St.

lago of Compostella through Poitou and

Saintonge by Blaye, Bordeaux and Ron-

cevaux, the churches also show a very characteristic motive : a

knight bearing down a vanquished foe. The Gestes of Roland

Kl<;. 50. — BAS-KELIEK IN IS.WEUX
C.\l HEDKAL.

ART IN FRANCE

and of Turpin represent
this region as wrested foot
by foot from the Saracen
by Charlemagne and his
companions. Every church
and monastery invited the
pilgrim to halt before some
relic of warriors slam fight-
ing against the Infidel ;
archaeologists now recog-
nise a Byzantine Constan-
tine, where the men of

FIG. 51.— CAPITAL FEOM THE CHURCH OF SAINT-

SERNIN OF TOULOUSE, PRESERVED IN THE MUSEE DES

AUCUSTINS.

FIG. 52. — THE SIGN OF THE
I.ION AND THE RAM, FROM
SAINT-SERNIN OF TOULOUSE,
PRESERVED IN THE MUSEE
DES AUGUSTINS.

old no doubt saw the Emperor, "slayer of
the Moors," whose exploits were recounted
and whose advance was traced in contem-
porary song. The tradition lingered long ;
an incontestable Charlemagne was carved at
Saintes, in the fifteenth century, on the door
of the cathedral. The venerable relics of
St. Martin of Tours attracted many pilgrims.
The churches in western France dedicated
to him are innumerable. In the sanctuaries
which stud the highway, on painted window
or capital, we often find the figure of the
horseman dividing his cloak.

But these examples, in spite of many others
that might be cited, are exceptions. As a
whole, a religious iconography uniform with
the dog-

ma it
accom-
panied,

was propagated. In spite of its
Oriental origin, it flourished
well in France. It did not
take the place of an earlier
art ; it responded to the crav-
ings of religious sensibility ; it
gave to Christians the concrete
images which enabled them to
picture to themselves Jesus,
the Virgin, the Apostles, the

FIG.

53-

-CAPITAL OF THE CLOISTER, MOISSAC.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

FK;. 54. — I'ROl'HET.
CIIUNCFI OK SOUII.LAC

marvellous or artless stories of
the Gospel, and the fantastic
visions of the Apocalypse ;
they saw more clearly that
source of light the beams of
which irradiated their whole
life. For a time, the Chris-
tians of the Romanesque
period were content to repro-
duce the Byzantine images,
just as they repeated the sacred
legends, without any sort of
modification. But in these
congealed forms there were
latent forces which were
later to wake to life ; the
Romanesque sculptors were
to animate these figures, and
this hieratic iconography was to end in realism.

Imagery came from the East in the form of
painting, and in the Romanesque period, painting
was the natural complement of architecture ;
vaults and solid walls afforded it vast surfaces.
The monks of the eleventh and twelfth centuries illuminated their
churches like their manuscripts. The rude masonry disappeared
under enlarged miniatures which recalled the distant legends of
dawning Christianity, and the expected terrors of the end of the
world. These have disappeared for the most part, but an attentive

eye will sometimes discover on
the vault of some dark crypt,
bistre lines which indicate long
silhouettes of Byzantine figures
and the familiar attitudes of the
Annunciation or the Flight into
Egypt. The pilgrims who came
of old to venerate the relics of
the Saint were able to admire
clearly defined forms and bril-
liant colours, by the light of the
tapers.

The half-effaced frescoes to
be found in certain churches,

'■"■• 55- — IMl.LAK

\V1 in CIllMKKAS.

Cni^K'CH OK SOUIl.I.AC.

50.— CAiri AI. OK THli CmibTliR OF
MOISSAC.

ART IN FRANCE

Fic. 57.-

-THE LAST JUDGMENT. I'OKCH OF THE
CHURCH OF 13EAULIEU.

especially in the region of Poitou, give us some idea of the nature
of Romanesque painting. The decorators used fresco as the ancients
had done, and as the
Byzantines were still do-
ing. A monk, Theophilus,
has described the process
in a treatise : Dioersarum
artium schedula, a manual
of the arts of this period.
The colours are laid on flat
and surrounded by hard
outlines ; modelling is re-
duced to a few white
hatchings in the lights and
a few dark blotches in the
shadows. This drawing,
impoverished and re-
stricted for centuries by the monks, was adopted by the Roman-
esque painters and applied sometimes with a brutal hand. If the
lines were tortured, the attitudes violent, the bodies distorted, it
was because a violent energy had laid hold rudely of these drowsy
effigies, and had shaken their torpid limbs. The most important

relic of Romanesque painting is pre-
served at St. Savin, near Poitiers.
Episodes from the Book of Genesis
are painted on a barrel vault.
These vast compositions are carried
out m pale tints, among which
greens, and red and yellow ochres
predominate. The vivacity of the
execution forbids us to look upon
the design as mere trace-work.
Other remains of frescoes near St.
Savin, at Montmonllon, at Poitiers,
at Montoire (Loir et Cher), at Le
Liget (Indre et Loire), seem to
prove that this region of richly
sculptured churches was also the
most fertile in paintings. But this
mural decoration was soon to be
transposed into glass-painting ; the glass-painters were to adopt all
those picturesque compositions which the Romanesque walls were

FIG. 58.-

-PORCH OF THE CHURCH OF
MOISSAC.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

unable to preserve. Some of them do not belong to the ordinary
cycle of Christian painting, in St. Julien at Brioude, there are

remnants of a fading vision of
Hell, conceived and painted
by men who followed no
Byzantine tradition. A mon-
strous Devil gambols in the
flames surrounded by little
terrified figures, a barbarous
and chaotic nightmare which
has nothing in common with
the hieratic and theatrical
compositions of Oriental
art. It was no doubt
familiar to the Romanesque
imagination, and recalls the
terrors of those monks
of Satan (Figs. 42, 43,

59--

-IlEKOUS FliAST. CAl'lTAL KKO.M .SAI.NI
I^rrrENNK, TOIII.OUSE MUSEUM.

the claws

who felt themselves in
47, 48.)

The sculpture of the twelfth century, like the architecture of the
same period, is marked by a charac-
teristic peculiarity, in that it was an
art at once very ancient and very
novel, an art of primitives struggling
with material as yet unsubdued, yet a
decadent art, in which antiquated
forms and superannuated customs still
survived. It combines a strange
rudeness with subtle refinements. It
IS awkward and contorted, because
for the most part the twelfth century
sculptors simply transposed into relief
what Byzantine artists had designed
for painting.

Antique statuary, a pagan art.
had disappeared completely together
with the worship of which it had
been an accessory. Statuary intro-
duces concrete beings ; it is the art of
idolatry ; painting is but an illusion,

and lends itself less to a confusion of the divinity and his image.
Nevertheless, in certain districts where the antique civilisation had

lie. 6o. — JESUS GIVING .\UTHoKlTY TO

IHE AroSTI.ES. TV.MrANU.\T OK THE

CHURCH OK vfiZEI.AV.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 6l. — GOD APPEARING AT THE END OF THE

WORLD. TY.MPANUM OF THE PORCH OF ST.-PIERUE,

AT MOISSAC.

penetrated most deeply, statues still survived. At the beginning
of the eleventh century, Bernard, a scholar of Chartres, on making

a third pilgrimage to Con-
ques, found in Auvergne
certain reliquary statues
which were venerated by
the natives. He was scan-
dalised by this survival of
pagan custom ; he derides
the men who pray to
a dumb and senseless
thing; rem mutam insen-
satamque. The miracles
wrought by the little
statue of St. Foy were
necessary to efface his first
impressions and calm his
scruples ; in common with
the men of his day and of his creed, he considered statues of
gypsum, wood, or brass, absurd and sacrilegious, save as applied
to the crucifix. But if the worship of relics tended occasionally to
revive this statuary which the detestation of idols had destroyed,
it was, no doubt, only in order to give a human form to certain costly
reliquaries of gold or silver. These works in precious metals were
merely the luxuries of rich monasteries, and an art, if it is to live,
requires deeper roots and
a more extensive develop-
ment. (Figs. 45, 75.)

The beginnings of sculp-
ture at the dawn of the
twelfth century were un-
certain and uneasy mani-
festations in unfavourable
surroundings. It did not
develop normally, like
Greek sculpture, which
disengaged a human body
from a tree-trunk or a
block of stone, afterwards
attached limbs to it, and gradually gave the suppleness of life to
the whole. The motives of Romanesque art had long been
established by painters when sculptors began to treat them. The

FIG. 62. — THE LAST JUDGMENT. TYMPANUM OF
THE I'OKCII OF THE CHURCH OF CONQUES.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

KIG. 63. — THE LAST JUDGMENT. TYMTANUM Ol-'
I'OKCH OF THE CATHKUUAI. OK AUTUN.

{Photo. Neiirdiiii.)

first Romanesque sculptures are merely transpositions mto low relief
of the images of Byzantine miniature, and the vivid colours which

formerly covered the tym-
pana of Vezelay or Mois-
sac must originally have
emphasised the fidelity of
these transpositions. Their
authors, too, ventured upon
strange audacities. They
attempted the most com-
plex compositions of By-
zantine painting with the
rudimentary resources at
their disposal ; and their
childish awkwardness
gives a kind of youthful air
to the figures of a senile art.
The architects of Gaul did not command materials as rich as
those of the East or of Italy. They never faced their buildings
with slabs of marble, and their decoration was not applied to the
building, but evolved from it, hewn in the masonry. The sculptors
gave the final touches to the sturdy edifice, which offered vast
surfaces to their chisels. They carved the soffits and tympana
of the porches and the
capitals of the pillars.
They transcribed in bas-
reliefs the few forms that
had survived from the
antique shipwreck, per-
haps some heraldic ani-
mals of barbaric jewellery,
but above all, the images
of Byzantine Christianilj',
which was then pene-
trating into the Western
world in a thousand
forms, in the provinces
where Gallo- Roman re-
mains were plentiful, they

did not fail to adapt these to the new decoration ; the churches of
Provence, St. Gilles, and St. Trophime at Aries, are loaded with
the spoils of ancient art ; architecture even burdened itself with

fk;. 64. — thf; two docks of the chlkch ok saint-

LA2AKE, AT AVALI.ON. {I'/loto. Ncurih'in.)

ART IN FRANCE

superfluous accessories in order to utilise as
much as possible of the hoard ; here the
Roman affiliation was so close that Roman-
esque art desired to lose no fragment of
its heritage. Augustodunum had also left
many antique buildings. Throughout this
region, rinceaux and rosettes give the
porches of the churches the richness of
certain triumphal arches. An old Roman-
esque door at Bourges shows that the
Christian Church had not disdained to
deck herself with the gauds of Avancum.
At Moissac, at Chartres, and elsewhere,
the lintel over a door reproduces some
antique frieze, or the side of a sarcophagus.
F,G. 65.-v,Ko,N AND CHILD. Coufrontcd with an antique form, Roman-
FA^ADE OF THE CHURCH OF csquc art recoguiscd and adopted it. The

SAINTF.-CROIX, ATl.A CHARITE. •. l l • i i . • •11

{Photo. Mieuscmcnt.-) Capital, which was almost mvaHably rect-

angular, has thick sausage-like scrolls at the
angles, which are merely degenerate Ionic volutes ; the classic
acanthus is preserved in a clumsy, dry, and flattened form ; in
St. Remi, at Reims, there are composite capitals. Even in the
poorest essays of this ^

sculpture (at Oulchy, at
Morienval and at Foues-
nant), the weak and tenta-
tive chisel which has been
laboriously applied to the
hard granite, has striven
to produce a volute ; this
rude sculpture, like the
crudest patois, is a deriva-
tion from the Latin.

The men of the twelfth
century sought to achieve
decorative richness by the
accumulation of details ;
they were craftsmen who
never spared their pains.

Their bas-relief resembles a coarse embroidery somewhat closely
interwoven, which entirely fills the surface to be decorated, tympanum,
archivolt, or capital. Even in dramatic compositions, with figures

FIG. 66. — FORCH OF IHE CHURCH OF
SAINT-TUOrHIME, AT AKI.ES. {Plioto. Ni'lirift'hl.)

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

in violent action, the
forms are curved and in-
terlaced in such a manner
as to leave no empty
spaces. In the porches and
fa(;ades of the churches
of Saintonge and Poitou,
the decorative instinct
has triumphed over sono-
graphic scruples. In this
region of fine lime-stone,
the fa<;ades are elaborate-
ly chiselled, and time, rein-
forcing the work of the
sculptor, continues to eat
into the soft stone. The
most dramatic motives are
sometimes treated simply
as arabesques. Hence
the sculptors showed a
preference for those which
could be repeated inde-
finitely, such as the Virtues
and the Vices, the Wise and the Foolish Virgins, the signs of the
Zodiac, the labours of the months ; in the south porch of Aulnay,
in Saintonge, the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse are multiplied
at will, according to the number of voussoirs ; at Sainte-Marie-
des-Dames, at Saintes, the beheading of John the Baptist with the
martyr between the executioner and Salome, is repeated as often as
it is required to cover the archivolts of the doorway ; everywhere

I-R;. 67. — DECOKATIVF.
MOTIVES, AT SAINl -GILLES

FIG. 08. — UECOUAllVE
MOTIVES, AT SAINT-GILLES.

FIG. 6g. — i-Kii;zF;s, sain 1-011. l.ES.

the strangest monsters are juxtaposed, with no other object than
to bring them to the two extremities of the arch (Figs. 70 to 73).

33 D

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 70.— SOUTH PORCH OF THE CHURCH
OF AULNAV, SAINTONGE.

St. Bernard was exasperated by " these monkeys, these lions, these
monstrous centaurs, these archers, these huntsmen blowing horns. . .
these quadrupeds with serpents' tails,
these horned beasts with equine
hindquarters." Romanesque art was
running riot outside the rule of
the Benedictines who had created it.
Yet this fantastic fauna was never-
theless far from moribund : it origin-
ated in remote antiquity, and its
progeny survived even at the height
of the Renaissance. But was it no
more than a mere play of the
imagination in the twelfth century ?
It would seem at times to have been
the pathetic expression of terror-
stricken souls. When the sculptors
of Souillac and of Moissac interlaced
horrible beasts with fierce talons and
gaping jaws, biting and devouring
one another, were they not fixing in stone the visions which so often
terrified the Romanesque monk in his cell ? In these decorative
extravagances, we should perhaps recognise petrified nightmares.

When sculpture arose from the void to collaborate in Christian
iconography, decorative motives had long been determined by
painting. Doubtless, the Romanesque sculptors were not solely
dependent on illuminated manuscripts for guidance ; they saw and

copied the ivories and
goldsmith's wares which
monks and pilgrims brought
back from the East. But
these miniature sculptures
were themselves allied to
the art of the painter, with
their slight relief and clearly
marked lines ; Romanesque
art modified the round,
soft style of the antique by
imitating the dry elegance
of the Byzantine form.
But this youthful art handles the ankylose Byzantine types very
roughly. It is curious to see how these great figures stamp and

Fl ,. 71. — ANCHIVOLTS OF THE TORCH OF SAINTE-
MARIE-UES-PAMES, AT SAINTES.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

FK;. 72. — CHURCH OF CHADFNAC (CHARENTE-
IXFERIKUKE).

writhe and gesticulate in the process of throwing off their drowsy
stiffness. Hence the furious and inexphcable gestures, the inter-
twined legs, the tremulous
hands, the tempestuous
draperies, the twisted
robes with sharp, upturned
edges. Even the rude fig-
ures laboriously carved in
the granite on the capitals
of Auvergne, are vigorous
and lively human beings.
By dint of application, the
artist has succeeded in de-
picting a clearly defined
action, and rendering in-
telligible gestures with his
interlacement of limbs.
This pathetic violence breaks out on a tympanum at Vezelay ;

Christ, with His outstretched hand casts rays of stone on the heads

of the Apostles who press around Him in a frenzied dance, an

interminable series of little figures, which expand or crowd together,

according to the exigencies of the

surface they have to cover, and seem

to find It very difficult to keep their

angular gestures and intricate draperies

within the field of the tympanum.

At Autun, a Christ of the same kind

presides over a Last Judgment, in

which the barbarous forms give a

fantastic terror to the scene. These

look as if they had been flattened for

ever by having lain for centuries be-
tween the pages of great folios. At

Conques, the pilgrims of St. Foy were

also edified by a Last Judgment, a

swarm of figures, mingling in hell

with acrobatic demons, or squeezed

between the arcades of the New

Jerusalem, At Moissac, the Christ,

the most comely Romanesque Christ

before that of Chartres, makes a grandiose appearance in the midst

of the four and twenty elders, who gaze at Him with upturned

35 D 2

Fit;. 73.

TOUCH OF THE CIIIUCII
OF COGNAC.

ART IN FRANCE

l-IG. 74.— rukCII OF THE

DESERTED CHURCH NEAR MATHA

(CHARENTE-INFERIEURE).

heads, twisting their necks to get a
better view. At Beauheu we have
the same scene, the same figures
boldly treated with high relief and
angular contours, marked by a robust-
ness wholly lacking in the thread-
like larvae of Vezelay and Autun
(Figs. 60 to 63).

These complex and grandiose
works have a strange charm ; they
express that epoch in which a semi-
barbarism was breathing its ardent
vitality into an exhausted civilisation.
Already, however, in the middle of
the twelfth century, an absolutely
novel statuary began to evolve from
these combinations, in which the
awkwardness of an infant sculpture
mingles with the conventions of a

senile painting. This statuary detaches itself completely from paint-
ing, and sets in space living bodies, and full forms. After the

monastic sculpture of Romanesque art we have an art which is no

mere repetition of religious motives,

but an imitation of life. There is little

affinity between the fresh plants which

throw out their young and vigorous

shoots in the region of Chartres, and

those dried herbs which Romanesque

monks found between the leaves of

ancient books.

The more famous sanctuaries have

for the most part lost their treasures,

and collectors compete one against the

other for the fragments. Some of the

more modest country churches have

preserved reliquaries, shrines, and vases,

those precious works of rare material

and difficult fashion to which the

Romanesque craftsman applied his skill.

They remind us that in the eleventh

century the plastic arts received more

than they created ; the most various

75. — STATUE OF SAINT-FOY,
AT CON'QUES.

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

IK,. 70. - l-KA<,MK.\T Ol-- THli FACADE

Ol- IHli CHUKCH OK ECHEIiKfNE

(CHARKNl E-INFKKIKUK'E).

elements are combined m these exam-
ples : the East and the West, the

Barbarian and the Latm, the Pagan,

the Christian, and even the Arab.

The treasury of St. Denis possessed

antique vases which Romanesque

goldsmiths set in mountings of silver-

gilt, adorning after their manner the

relics of antiquity they had reverently

collected. There are Roman cameos

among the precious stones which en-
rich the robe of St. Foy of Conques,

a strange and barbarous little figure

with large enamelled eyes, still pre-
served m the wild district where it

worked so many miracles and attracted

so many pilgrims (Fig. 75).

In the twelfth century, the enamels

of Limoges began to penetrate into

the treasuries of the churches of Limousin and Auvergne before

they found their way throughout Christen-
dom. The enamellers continued this
Byzantine industry, replacing the technique
of cloisonne by the simpler process of
champlcoe.^

Even when they represent native saints,
these figures are Oriental in design. Like
the leaden net-work of the painted win-
dows, the cloisons of the enamel tended to
fix and stiffen the lines of Romanesque
design. Here, however, flexibility and
truth of design were of less moment than
perfection of technique, and beauty and
solidity of material. Neither goldsmiths nor
glass painters were inventors of living forms,
and even when sculptors had discovered
the art of carving life-like figures, enamel
and stained glass long remained faithful to
the Romano- Byzantine style. This is
what makes Romanesque goldsmiths work

I'K;. 77. — VIKIilN ANDCIIII.l).

(Wood.) (F.oiiviv. I>;uis.)

' In clohonne the design was applied lo the surface, the divisions being marked by little barriers
(cloisons) of metal ; in champleue the metal field was hollowed out to receive the enamel.

ART IN FRANCE

___

^lfeJS4«l^

r^MilrTF^r^ip^i^*^*^^ :

'Wi'Wi

mm j

wk ' Hk-' !'

W] 1

KLjj' > BP]

r^ Ji,.

^^< ^ ^ 0i

FIC. 70. — SHRINE OF SAINT-YVED. (Ivory.)
(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

is the first definite form of French art.
Fragments are all that remam to us
of an earlier period, and even so, the
Roman ruins in France are monuments
of an alien civilisation. The Latin
basilicas have survived only as memories.
The Romanesque churches have en-
dured ; they are still in use, and con-
tinue to serve the purpose for which
they were created. It was in the

s outh-
ern pro-
vinc e 8
above

so valuable ; it was origin-
ally the most precious of
all the arts, and was second
to none plastically.

The Romanesque style,
with its honest solidity,
and its applied ornament,

FIG. 79. — CHKIST IN GLORY.

(Limoges enamel of ihe

Xllth Century.)
(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

FIG. 80.— CASE OF AN KVANGELIARY

FROM THE TREASURY OF SAINT-DENIS.

(Louvre, Paris.)

all that they multiplied. They are
very much less numerous in the
north of France, either because this
style made way for its successor,
Gothic, or because it flourished
more luxuriantly in the regions
where the antique culture had pene-
trated most deeply.

In this architecture of the langue
doc, as in the southern literature,
we are conscious of a very ancient
spirit, and a kind of rustic charm.
The Romanesque buildings were

MONASTIC OR ROMANESQUE ART

-FOOT OF THE (JKEAT CANDKl.AliKU.M
CF SAINT-KfCMI, AT REIMS.

(Pliolo. Rotliiir, Kfiiiis.)

closely associated with pro-
vincial and rural life ; many
of them are at a consider-
able distance from the main
arteries of general life.
Never was art so freely
scattered on the surface
of the soil as it was in
the twelfth century. Nearly
all the provinces had their
individual style of architec-
ture and sculpture ; more
than one lost it in the sequel
for ever ! How many
districts and villages have
known no other fine work
of art but a Romanesque
church porch ! After this period art became less rural, and concen-
trated itself in the towns. Great sanctuaries, built for the reception
of innumerable pilgrims, now rear their rich fac^ades in solitary
spaces, and the footsteps of the faithful are no longer numerous
enough to trace a pathway in the grass. But
how venerable time has made these country
churches. The pavements are worn, the
angles are blunted, the vault has subsided ;
the masonry of the fa<jade is crumbling, and in
this decaying lime-stone, a new stone has to be
inserted occasionally, like a square of coarse
linen in a frayed guipure.

BIBLIOGRAI'IIY.

Archives Je la Commission Jcs moniimcnls historiqucs, published
by A. de Baudot and A. Perrault-Dabot. Paris (in course of
publication). Pr. Mcrimee, Notes dun Voyage dans le Midi de
la France, Paris, 1835 ; dans I'OuesI, 1836 ;_cn Auvergne, 1838.
A. de Caumont. Ahccedairc d'.irclicologic. Caen, 1871. Anthynie
Saint-Paul, Lcs Ecoles romancs (.Anniiairc de I' Arclicologie fran-
caise, 1878) ; Viollelle-Duc el son syslcme archcologiqiie. \68] ;
llisloire monumeniale de la I'rancc. 1883. J. Quichcrat, A/c7anges
d'Archcologie et J'Hisloirc. i\iris, 1886. E. Corroyer, L'Arcbi-
teclure romane, Paris, 1888. Chanoine Reuscns, Elimcnls
d'Archcologie chrdienne, Paris. 1 890. 2 vols. AuR. Choisy, Hisloire
de I' Architecture. \o\. 11, Paris, 1899. J. Brutails, L Archeologic
du Moycn Age el ses melhodes, Paris, 1901. C. Enlart, Manuel
d'Archcologie francaise, 1 vols., Paris, 1902-1903. J. Brutails,
Precis d'Archcologie du Moyen Age, Paris, 1908. W. Liibke,
Geschichte dcr Architcktur, 6th edit., vol. 11. Leipzig, 1886. -G.
Dehio ct G. von Bozold, Die Kirchlichc Baukunst dcs Abcndlandes,

FK;. 02. — ANri<,)L'E VASE

WITH KO.MANESOUE

MOUNT. FROM THE

TREASURY OF SAIN T-UE.NIS.

(Louvre, I'iuis.)

ART IN FRANCE

2 vols., Stuttgart, 1884-1901. G. T. Rivoira, Le Origini della archilcllura Lombarda, Rome,
1901.- L. Labande, Eludes d'Hisloirc el d' Archeologie romanes, Paris, 1902 (Provence and
Languedoc). A. de Rochemonteix, Lcs £g/ises romanes de la Haule-Auvergne, Para, 1892.-
H. Chardon du Ranquet. Cour^ d'Arl roman auvergnat, C\ermoi\t, 1900; Albums des_ Monu-
menls el de I' Art ancien du Midi de la France, Toulouse, 1893-1897. Abbe Pettier, L'Abbaye
de Saint-Pierre a Moissac (Album des Monuments du Midi de la France, Toulouse, 1897, vol. I,
p. 48). E. Rupin, L'Abbaye el les Cloilres de Moissac, Paris, 1897. — R. de Lasteyrie,L".4iAai/e
de Saint-Marlial de Limoges, Paris, 1 90 1. Abbe Bouillel, L'Eglise el le Iresor de Conques,
Macon, 1892. -Abbe Bouillet, 5ain/e-Foi/ c/e Conques, 5ain/-Sern/n de Toulouse el Saint-Jacques
de Composlelle (M.S. A. F., 1893). G. Dumay, L'Eglise et I'Abbaye de Saint-Benigne de Dijon,
1891. Ch. Poree. L'Abbaye de Vezelay, Pans, 1909. Bernard, La Basilique primaliaie de
Saint-Trophime d. -tries. Aix, 1893.- R. de Lasteyrie, Clollre el facade de Saint-Trophime
d' Aries iC. Accad. Insc. el Bell.. 1901). F. de Verneilh. Z, VI rc/iiVcc/ure it/zan/ine en France,
Paris, 1851. -J. Berthele, La Question de la date de Sainl-Fronl de Perigueux (R. A. C,
1895). J.-A. Brutails, La Question de Sainl-Fronl (B. M ., 1895). R. Phene Spiers,
Saint-Front de Perigueux (B. M ., 1897). J. Mommeia, Monographic de la Calhedrale de
Cahors. 1881. A. de Caumont, Slatiilique monumenlale du Calvados, Caen, 1847-1862, 5 vols.
' V. Ruprich-Robert, L' Architecture normande aux XI'- et XIF' siecles, Paris, 1884-1889.-
E. Lefevre Pontalis, L' Architecture religieuse des XI" et XII^ siecles dans I ancien diocese de
5o(5sons, Paris, 1894-1898; Manuel d'Iconographie chrelienne. grecque el latine (.Guide de la
peinture du ma'itre Denys), published by Didron, Paris, 1845. Moine Theophile, Dicersarum
artium Schedula, published by Comte Lescalopier, Paris, 1843. J. Comte, La Tapisserie de
Bayeux, Paris, 1 878. P. Gelis Didot and H. Laffillee, La Peinlure decorative en France du XL
au XVl'^ siecle, 2 vols., Paris, 1891. H. Laffillee, La Peinlure murale en France avant la
Renaissance, Paris, 1994. -Merimee, Les Peintures de Saint-Savin, Paris, 1845. L. Giron,
Memoire sur les Peintures murales du departement de la Haute-Loire, Le Puy, 1884 (and in
R. S.B. A. D. down lo 1901). W. Liibke, Geschichte der Plaslik. vols. I and II, 3rd edit.,
Leipzig, 1884. L. Courajod and F. Marcou. Le A/usc'e de Sculpture comparec du Trocadero,
Paris. 1892. M.^/oege, Die AnfUnge des monumentalenSliles im Mittelaller, Strashurg, 1894.-
R. de Lasteyrie. Etudes sur la Sculpture Jran<;aise au Moyen Age ( Mon. Plot, vol. VIII, 1902).
A. Marignan, Hisloire de la Sculpture en Languedoc aux XIF el XI IF siecles, Paris, 1902.
G. Fleury. Porlails images du XIF siecle, Mamers, 1904. R. Allen, Ce//ic Art, London, 1904.

KIG. 03. .\-MI|-..N> CAimajKAl.. WKvl I KLIN I'.

CHAPTER III

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

The Cii'ilisalion oj the Ile-de-lrance : the Communes and their Cathedrals in the time of Philip
Augustus and Saint Louis. The Gothic Building; Saint-Denis, Paris. Laon, Charlres,
Bourges, Le Mans. Reims, Amiens, Beauvais ; the Cathedrals of .\ormandy ; the Gothic
Style in the West and in the South. Stained Glass IVindou's. The Renaissance of
Statuary. Statues at Chartres. The Transformation of Iconography by Statuary ; the
Prophets. Christ, the Last Judgment. Idealistic Statuary ; the Style of .Amiens, and of
Reims. -Ornamental Sculpture.

Towards the middle of the twelfth century, when Romanesque
art was at its zenith, a new style, destined to shed its radiance upon
all Christendom, was germinating in the Royal Domain. The
Romanesque epoch was a period of disseminated art ; each
province had its special architecture and its individual decoration ;
no single one dominated the rest. In the vast regions of the languc
doc, from the South to the Loire, from Aries to Poitiers, from
Anjou to Burgundy, the great feoffs enframed individual existences,
united by the diffusion of a common religion. The antique culture
which had come by the great Roman road that extends from Frejus to
Bordeaux had spread northward through Burgundy, Auvergne and
Poitou. The highwiiys of communication between the languc doc
and the languc d oil met together in the l:)asin of the Seine. I he
unity which was impossible in the South was inevitable in the North.
Life was more concentrated in these regions, and their wide plains

ART IN FRANCE

84. — CRYPT OF THE CHUKCH OK
SAINT-DENIS,

had none of those geographical frontiers by which the particularist
spirit is fostered. A personahty rose above the feudal federation ; a

France was evolved to which the
other provinces gradually attached
themselves ; Gothic art, born of
this society, naturally followed the
course of its destiny.

Since the days when the Greeks
invented the Doric and Ionic tem-
ples, no society had ever developed
a style of architecture more per-
sonally expressive ; the immense
cathedrals of the Ile-de- France and
the adjacent provinces rose at about
the same time ; there is something
of the marvellous in this phenome-
non ; an impulse so general and so
sudden must have had some definite
cause. It is to be found m the fact
that the population of the communes
had lately conquered a place in the world, side by side with the
feudal and ecclesiastical castes. Romanesque art had been primarily
the work of monks ; the feudal class gave birth to the architecture
of the castle ; but it was the population of the communes who
reared the Gothic cathedrals. Numerous towns sprang up whose
inhabitants formed a vigorous and prolific citizen class, friendly to
the king, and administered
by a bishop. An urban
civilisation comprising bur-
gesses and workmen began
to flourish in the shelter of
their ramparts. Corpora-
tions were formed, work-
shops were opened,
masters trained apprentices
in difficult crafts ; industrial
activity was organised, and
preserved its organisation to
the end of the Middle Ages.
Lay workmen laboured,
but religion still guided and directed them. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the cities applied their wealth and their muscles

l-TG. 85. — CKVri ciK .SAIM-GILI.ES.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

-.NA\ !•: HI- NOTKl-;-UA.ME UE
TAKIS.

to the construction of the House of God ; the entire town devoted
itself to the common task. Cathedrals had to be vast, immense, for

whole populations were to circu-

late beneath their vaults ; they were
to rise to a giddy height, because
this seemed to give an added
fervour to these Hosannas m stone ;
and very soon also a kind of
rivalry between town and town
caused vaults and spires to soar
higher and ever higher. Every
cathedral was the outcome of a
vast charitable impulse ; the bishop
directed and organised the work,
carried the relics about and col-
lected contributions ; the king
encouraged the quest, and opened
his own purse in aid of the task ;
the mass of the faithful accepted
their share in the enterprise by
offering the labour of their hands.
" Whenever the great blocks of stone were hauled up by cables
from the quarry, the people of the district, and even those of the
neighbouring regions, nobles and commons alike, harnessed them-
selves to the ropes by arms, breasts, and shoulders, and drew the load

like beasts of burden "
(Suger). It was like a
crusade in which all took
part, either with their
purses or their arms ; the
faithful pressed in from the
surrounding country, drag-
ging carts loaded with
stones and beams ; they
encamped by the founda-
tions of the cathedral that
was to be ; the work was
intermingled with religious
ceremonies ; the building
rose swiftly, for enthusiasm
gives without reckoning the cost ; after the sublime ceremony, when
these crusaders dispersed, a prodigious building stood upon the plain.

" U»*,«ffii|;-' ,

-CIKUK o|- niK ClIUKCII 111' SAIN r-UENIS.

ART IN FRANCE

•FAfADE OF NOTRE-DAME,
PARIS.

This miraculous efflorescence is only to be explained by universal
impulse. It was a brief moment, little more than a half century ;
the growth of the cathedrals which
were not begun under Philip Augus-
tus or not finished under Samt Louis
was intermittent. As early as the
end of the thirteenth century, the
zeal of the overstrained community
began to slacken ; cathedrals were
then built by forced labour ; fewer
were reared, and finally they ceased
to be built at all. But in the thir-
teenth century the energies of a
young and devout society raised these
mountains of stone ; the architects
had not to fear a lack of funds ; their
sole preoccupation was with technical
problems.

Gothic architecture is the result of
the mechanical researches undertaken
by builders after they had substituted
a stone vault for the timber roof of the ancient basilicas. To
prevent the deviation of the walls, the Romanesque architects had
reinforced them, and narrowed their aisles. Intent upon the
solidity as well as upon the beauty of their building, they preserved
the Roman style, masking the buttresses as far as possible, and

thickening the members of
their compact masonry.
Romanesque architecture
remained faithful to an-
tique forms after admitting
a new principle. On the
other hand, during the
second half of the twelfth
century, in the Ile-de-
France, to the north of
Paris, and in Normandy,
the art of building was
transformed in a few
years, because architects
boldly accepted all the consequences of vaulted architecture ; a
kind of division of labour was established in Romanesque masonry ;

□. — CHURCH OF SAINT-I'UsIn-KE, CHARI KKS

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

^^li.. 90. — NOTRE-DAMK, PAKIS (solTII SIDk).

organs began to detach themselves from the compact mass ; a new

type of church was evolved : the Gothic church.

The genesis of this new
architecture is marked by
a constructive invention :
that of intersecting
diagonal ribs, the supreme
achievement, after which
no further progress
was made. Under a
vaulted bay enframed by
two arcs doubleaux (trans-
verse arches) and two
formerets (lateral arches)
two diagonal arches in-
tersect,^ and assume the
weight of the vault. The

four portions in which it is thus divided counterbalance each other,

and the weights are concentrated partly upon the central keystone,

where they neutralise each other,

and partly (directed by the ribs)

upon the four points of support.

The architect has made himself

the master of the Romanesque

vault ; he has hung the inert

mass on a resisting ossature,

and guides a diffused force at

his will. This system of inter-
secting arches is an element of

extreme flexibility, docile to the

exigencies of the plan. The

architect can expand or contract

these two diagonal ribs at

will, extendmg them for the

bays of the nave, and curtailing

them for the side aisles ; he can

press them back on the one side,

and open them out on the other

to fo'low the ambulatory in its

course round the choir ; he imposes

liG. 91. — ia(;aije ih' the catmi-.di.

I.AOV.

th(

(Photo. A'i!i7;ici)i.)

form he requires and

' This is the French croisrc d'ogivcs. The word ogive, though odtn loosjly applied to any
pointed arch, is derived from the Latin austere, to augment, in reference to this re-inforcement.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 92. — FACADE OF THE
CATHEDRAL OK CHARTRF.';.

conducts the thrusts to the points he
chooses.

The problems he had to solve were
these : to fix the points of support ; to
suppress useless solids ; to divide and
direct the thrusts ; to obtain equilibrium
by opposing various forces ; the same
principles which had transformed the
vault were now to be applied to the wall
which sustains it. As this wall under
the new system only supported the
intersecting arches, the intervening solids
became useless ; it was obvious that wide
voids might safely be pierced in them,
and very soon there was little of the wall
left but the framework of the windows.
So much for the vertical pressure ; the
architect had further to deal with the

lateral thrusts. All that the Romanesque architect had opposed to

these was the thickness of his walls and the buttresses embedded

in their masonry. The Gothic builder, bolder and more logical,

frankly applied projecting buttresses ;

then he detached them from the

wall, and from the summit of these

abutments he threw arches which

re-inforced the intersecting arches

of the vault at their points of

support ; these " flying buttresses "

passed over the side aisles. Here

again the constructor, understanding

the principles of vaulted architecture

better, or accepting its consequences

more frankly than his Romanesque

predecessors, obtained a greater

effect with infinitely less labour. A

slender oblique strut easily neutralises

a lateral thrust which the thickest

wall could hardly resist. The flying

buttress is an element as flexible as

the intersecting arch ; its strength is

readily multiplied ; it was the flying buttress alone which made it

possible to rear very lofty vaults ; a wall becomes weaker in propor-

FIG. 93. — NORTH I'OKCH OF THE
CAIHEDHAI. OF CHARTRES.

(Photo. Ncurdehi.')

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

I'IG. 94. — THE SAINTE-CHArKI LE.

tion to Its elevation, but to rectify this
it IS only necessary to give the flying
buttress its point of support on a more
distant abutment. The Gothic organ-
ism was now complete ; here again the
architect had disengaged vigorous and
elastic members from the wall which
had hitherto achieved solidity merely
by mass ; he had liberated the active
forces from all the dead weight which
made Romanesque construction heavy.

This logical evolution resulted in a
sum of decorative forms, the Gothic
style. Originally these forms indicated
forces, the equilibrium of which ensured
the stability of the building. In the
interior, they were : the lofty pillars,
which rose occasionally to a height of
thirty, forty or fifty metres, and covered

the nave with their expanding ribs ; on the exterior, the oblique

descent of the flying buttresses upon the abutments, a lithic cascade

which transmitted the thrust of the

vault to the ground. Like the

Greek temple, this style was the out-
come of an ingenious adaptation of

stone to the exigencies of mechanics.

But whereas the ancients had estab-
lished a constant relation between

the height and the width of their

buildings, Gothic architecture was

too complex to be reduced to

" orders." Its dimensions are varia-
ble. In a Greek temple, we can

deduce the dimensions of the whole

structure from the base of a column ;

the Gothic pillar rises to heights we

cannot predict, for so many other

elements contribute to the solidit}' of

the building. Thus the Gothic

architects, though they worked on

common principles, yet gave an individual physiognomy to each

cathedral.

05. -NON! 11 DOOR (IF NO 1 KK-UA.Ml
I'AKIS, IIV JEAN DE CHELI-liS.

ART IN FRANCE

-FAfADE OF THE CATHEDRAL
OF REIMb.

{PJioto. Troinpctte. )

It was apparently in the Ile-de-
France to the north of Paris that
the first vaults on intersecting arches
were built. As early as the first
half of the twelfth century, in the
valley of the Oise, and perhaps in
Normandy, architects understood the
advantages of the new process ;
making its way far afield, it retained
its original name of opus francigenum.
This name it still bore when it was
about to disappear, at the time when
Philibert Delorme was working at its
overthrow. The first Gothic essays,
then, date from the period of the
Romanesque in its fullest efflores-
cence. While the people of the
South were constructing massive
walls to support their vaults, in the

darker north it was necessary to provide large window spaces to
light the nave ; and as this reduced the resisting power of the walls,
architects contented themselves with timber roofs while awaiting

the invention of some more in-
genious contrivance. It is not easy
to discover the first essays of the
new style ; when architects had
mastered their methods, they re-
placed the works in which their
first tentative efforts might have
been traced, by more finished
achievements. But very often a
Gothic roof covers a building
of Romanesque aspect ; it is fixed
awkwardly upon the wall itself,
instead of falling distinctively upon
a formeret. The windows retain
the round-headed form, and the
buttresses are not yet disengaged
from the wall to offer a more
distant point of support, and to
receive the thrust by the intermediary of flying buttresses.

The new vault had certainly been known for many years, and

97. — NAVE OF THE CATHEDlwM. (IF
CHARTRES.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

|y|

: -^

98.

-KAl; AUK Ol- Till-. CXTHEDKAL
OK AMIKNS.

architects had adopted it, at least
tentatively, when a memorable
structure arose to demonstrate its
advantages. The famous abbey
of St. Denis guarded the relics of
three martyrs, Denis, Eleutherius,
and Rusticus. King Dagobert,
after amassing treasure in the
building, desired to make it his
last resting-place. Its Merovingian
basilica was successively Roman-
esque and Gothic, before the royal
tombs began to make it a chroni-
cle of French sculpture. In the
twelfth century, the concourse of
pilgrims to the shrine was so great
that they could not all obtain access
to the relics. Suger, when he
was a monk, saw worshippers crushed to death by the crowds that
were pressing in behind them ; a denser population, a more fervid
faith, required a vaster sanctuary. When he became Abbot, Suger
enlarged the crypt ; it is surrounded by an ambulatory with
radiating chapels, and still covered
by a groined vault resting on enor-
mous pillars (Fig. 84). Above
this solid Romanesque crypt he
built a Gothic choir ; here slender
columns support the intersecting
arches of the vault. In this case,
the architect is no longer tentative ;
he knows that he may venture ;
the inert masses of the masonry
become slighter and more nervous ;
a less massive support sustains a
higher and wider wall (Fig. 87).
This choir was solemnly conse-
crated on June II, 1144, in the
presence of the king and queen,
the assembled nobles, ecclesiastics,
strangers, and commons ^vho had
flocked in from the neighbourhood. I he new style was not, of
course, invented at St. Denis. But this much frequented abLey

49 E

FIG. 99. — NAVE OK THF. CATHEDHAL OF
AMIENS.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. loO. — '1HI-; 'HcjUSE 111- IHli
MUSICIANS," AT REIMS.

{Phofo. V. Co7irk«x.)

certainly accelerated the transformation
of architecture. In a few years,
builders set to work eagerly in most of
the large towns north of the Loire ;
the Romanesque monuments were dis-
mantled, and their stones were set
into Gothic pillars and buttresses ;
some few porches and towers specially
dear to the faithful alone survived, in-
corporated in the new cathedral.

Notre Dame in Paris, begun in
1 1 63, and almost completed during the
reign of Philip Augustus, did not
receive the porches of its transepts
until 1260, a century after its founda-
tion. The disposition of this church is
marked throughout by extreme clarity.
Two side aisles give width to the build-
ing, and extend round the choir in a

double ambulatory. After the year 1 290 the body of the church

was further enlarged by chapels which correspond in depth to the

buttresses and occupy the spaces

between them. The lower pillars

are as sturdy as towers ; the tri-

forium occupies the entire space

between the supporting arches and

the upper windows ; each com-
partment of the ribbed vaulting is

sexpartite, and covers two bays ;

the points of support for the ribs

of the vault are rather low. This

primitive Gothic style still retains

the robust aspect of Romanesque

architecture ; the ascending lines

are intersected by horizontal courses

on which they rest ; each pier, to

reach the summit, requires three

storeys, three pauses, and three

departures (Fig. 86). There is

no cathedral in the world the pro-
portions of which are more admirable, none which presents a finer

appearance from various points of view. The apse, which rests

#i#l

FIG. lOI. — Al'SE OF THE CATHEDRAL OF
AMIENS.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

l-r''.. I02.— Al'SE OK THE CATHEDKAI, (JI-'
BEAUVAIS.

upon very oblique flying buttresses,
springing boldly from distant points
of support, has often been com-
pared to a galley propelled by
long oars ; the lateral outline
is the regular development of a
noble building with a prolonged
vertebra, proudly rearing aloft the
mighty towers of its faqade (Fig. 90).
it IS this faqade more especially
which gives its distinctive character
to Notre Dame. It repeats in
greater perfection the H form of
the Romanesque church of the
Trinite at Caen. Its two wide
towers, closely attached to the
central body, exactly cover the side
aisles and the flying buttresses ; the
two masses, rising to an equal height, end frankly, evoking no
regret for the spires which were never added ; the Gallery of the
Kings and the open gallery of the third storey cut through the
sturdy buttresses, dividing the
square front into equal quadri-
laterals ; they enframe the porches,
the side windows and the central
rose window, deeply embrasured
in the thick wall (Fig. 88).

This fa(;ade was conceived as a
whole by a constructor skilful in
designing with broad masses and
frank angles, and the ornamental
accessories of the later style were
applied to Its robust nudity. Com-
pared with this vigorous and well-
pro portioned architecture, the
north and south porches by Jean
de Chelles are a charming decora-
tion, but somewhat flat and fragile.
Notre Dame has profited by the
historical importance of Pans. It
remains the finished type of that Gothic style, the varieties of
which were so numerous. Outside the He de France other

51 E 2

103. — CHUIK OK THE C.VTHEDKAL OF
IlEAUVAIS.

ART IN FRANCE

i'k;. 104.

-ArSE OF THE CAIHKUKAL OF liOUKC.F.S.
{Photo. Neiirdcin.)

cathedrals may boast a richer facade, a more graceful nave, bolder
towers, and more luxuriant sculpture ; but not one shows a more
limpid coherence of struc-
ture. Notre Dame has
become as it were a classic
work. Amidst the ex-
uberance of Gothic fancy,
the wise and exemplary
model IS the monument
which Maurice de Sully
reared in the Cite, m the
heart of Paris and of the
kingdom of France.

The Cathedral of Laon
is the sister of Notre
Dame, and almost of the
same age. The two facades show a family likeness ; but Laon
is even more grave of aspect. Its deeply recessed windows and
rose-window, placed with a certain irregularity in the midst of sym-
metry, give it a violent and uneasy physiognomy ; from the upper
part of the towers, which arise like alert sentinels, project the heads
of oxen (Fig. 91). On the abrupt eminence of Laon, this church
affects the haughty robustness of a stronghold, whereas the Parisian
cathedral is peacefully extended on its island. The naves are also

similar in style ; but that
of Laon, instead of ter-
minating with a semi-
circular apse, IS now
bounded by a straight
wall. This square plan,
replacing the traditional
rounded apse adopted in
the first Christian basilicas,
suggests a secular hall.
The Gothic church of
Soissons, on the other
hand, retains the circular
form in the north transept
as a heritage from the
Romanesque epoch.
Notre Dame at Chartres, with its great north and south porches,
was completed in 1 260, and consecrated in the presence of St. Louis

-THE FIVE I'OKCHES OF THE CATHEDKAL
OF BOURGES.
(Photo. Neurdein.)

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

lOO. — CIIUUCH OK NOl'KrC-DAMK,
DIJDN.

(Photo. Nctirdcin.)

and the royal family. The central body of the building dates from a
time when the architect remained prudent in spite of his boldness ;

the courses are solid, the height is
prodigious, but the effort by which
it is supported is formidable. The
lofty vault makes the nave, which re-
tains Romanesque proportions in its
plan, seem short. The huge interior
IS dark m spite of the immense win-
dows, for the light filters through
the jewelled mosaic of stained glass
(Fig. 97). The wide nave is
crowned by a very open vault ; to
support It it has been necessary to
thicken the buttresses, multiply the
flying buttresses and link them to-
gether by arcades. On the exterior
these stone struts descend in over-
whelming cataracts ; no effort has
been made to mask their heaviness ;
this conflict of forces, which ensures
the solidity of Gothic buildings, shows a sort of violence here.
The west front was not a homogeneous conception ; it began as
a Romanesque design, with its three doors pressed together be-
tween Its two towers ; but an immense rose window was inserted
to decorate this faqade
which soars upward with
the nave it closes (Fig.
92). The circular forms
of Romanesque decoration
are found everywhere ; its
round-headed arcading ap-
pears in the rose window
of the west front and in
the flying buttresses. One
of the towers is the boldest
essay of the Romanesque
style ; it rises massive and
solid, flanked by sturdy
buttresses, and terminates
in a belfry ; the superposed storeys thus reach the level of the
roof, and from thence, suddenly, an octagonal pyramid springs

107. — APSK ()|- Till-; CAIIIEDUAI. or I.Ii MANS.

ART IN FRANCE

loS. — ,MONT-SAINT-.MICHEL (sillTH SIUE).

{Photo. Nciirckiii.)

heavenward to a height of 100 metres. The second spire, built in

the sixteenth century, rises higher only by means of starting from

a higher level. These
piles of stones dominate
La Beauce, and on the
vast plain which so many
pilgrims once traversed,
carting materials towards
the famous sanctuary, they
seem to proclaim the pro-
tecting presence of Our
Lady.

The cathedral of
Bourges shows a more
massive silhouette upon
the plains of Berry, for

the towers seem to have lacked power to rise to any height. The

body of the church is not interrupted by a transept ; on the fagade

the architects juxtaposed five doors corresponding to the aisles, and

offering an immense field to the sculptor ; the decoration is on so

vast a scale that it was not possible

to continue it above (Fig. 105). In

the lateral porches the architects have

embedded some precious Roman-
esque fragments ; like Chartres and

Le Mans, Bourges shelters some

admirable archaic sculptures.

At Le Mans, the choir is an un-
usually important feature (Fig. 107).

It IS surrounded by double aisles,

and thirteen chapels, which are

almost as large as churches, radiate

from these. The abutments are

adapted to the complexity of the

aisles ; each of the flying buttresses

bifurcates and finds points of support

on two buttresses, between which is

a window giving a direct light to the

ambulatory. Thus in the interior

the forest of pillars and ribs, and on

the exterior that of the buttresses and flying buttresses, becomes

more and more dense and daring.

FIG. log. — C.V1HEDR.\L OF ROUEN.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

FIG. no. — SALLE DES IIUTES IN' THE
.M(.).\ASTEKY OF MONT-S.MNT-MICHEL.

Notre Dame at Reims, which
was fimshed at the end of the thir-
teenth century, was prolonged by
the addition of three bays in the
following century. The nave was
made wide enough to contain the
crowd on coronation days. The
general outline of the faqade re-
calls that of Notre Dame ; it has
the same unity of plan, the same
arrangement of windows and gal-
leries. But the work, reconstructed
at the end of the thirteenth century,
dates from a time when the style
had become much more florid ;
the horizontal lines disappear under
a network of ornament. A soar-
ing tendency common to the whole
facade urges the lines upwards, and resolves every projection into
spires, gables, and pinnacles. The wall itself is reduced to the
small columns of the windows ; the towers are mere skeletons

without bodies, through which the
eye passes, and the tympana of the
west porches, instead of a full bas-
relief, enframe stained glass. This
chiselled, hollowed, and much-
decorated fa<;ade shelters an in-
numerable population of figures
(Fig. 96). Its animation, its
festival aspect, is earned on to the
sides of the building ; the pinnacled
buttresses are recessed to shelter
statues. The roof is surrounded by
a graceful gallery, a diadem for the
church in which kings were crowned.
Throughout, Reims conceals the ele-
ments of strength beneath a wealth
of decoration. Stone foliage quivers
on the capitals ; the scene seems
duly set for the pageants of monarchy.
Notre Dame at Amiens, built by Robert de Luzarches, was not
finished till 1 269. No nave in existence reveals an architect surer

FIG. III. — FACADE OF THE CA llIliDKAI.

OF ROUEN, BETWEEN' A ROM.\NESQUE

TOWER AND Tinc " nUTTEK TOWER."

(End of tlie XVth centui-y.)

ART IN FRANCE

i-A(,:AI)E OF THE CATHEDRAL
01<" COUTANCES.

of his means, or more skilful in the calculation of his audacities.

Here there is nothing to suggest the weight of the building ; the

walls are cut away and the pillars

which support the vault are

elongated to rise ; they are sub-
divided into clustered shafts, and the

shaft which corresponds to the

arc-doubleau (transverse arch) of the

vault springs without interruption,

with a single bound, as it were, to

the keystone. The very lofty side-

aisles seem to enlarge the nave

immeasurably ; between them, over

the central aisle, the enormous mass

of the vault seems etherealised by

distance, like some airy covering, or

like a sail stretched over the ribs of

the vault, and upheld by a continu-
ous wind from below. In this

luminous nave with its dilated walls,

the soul is exalted and amplified.

To sustain the immense mass it was necessary to reinforce it with

huge buttresses which rise boldly from the ground. But in the

faqade, the soaring impulse seems to have failed. The decoration

of the three porches gives a certain air of heaviness ; the towers

barely rise to the level of
the roof ; materials for a
further ascent were lack-
ing ; the monster had not
strength enough to raise
his head.

The people of Beauvais
determined to raise a
church to even dizzier
heights ; in 1272, they
had finished their choir ;
it fell in, and the church
was never finished. The
restored choir still awaits
its nave. It is so lofty

that It was found necessary to double the supporting pillars in order

to sustain it. And yet the architect had accumulated exterior

VIC,. 113. — SAI.I.E DES CHEVALIERS IN Till-:
.MONASTERY OF MONT-SAINT- .MICHEL.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

l-IG. I 14.

-Al'SE OF TUB CATHEDRAL CI-
IIAYKUX.
{I'hoto. Ni'unftin.)

abutments ; on the outside, the apse looks a frail creation, lost
among the multitude of long arms which the gigantic buttresses
throw around it (Figs. 102,
103). These daring architects
recognised that a stone building
IS not an abstract structure ; in
proportion as the organism be-
comes more complex, its equi-
librium depends on a greater
number of elements ; the most
exact calculations are liable to be
upset by defects in the material.
An adventurous spirit was in-
herent in Gothic architecture ;
many towns followed the exam-
ple set by Beauvais ; amazing
successes occasionally gave rise
to the belief that the architect
had made a compact with the
devil, and had bartered his soul
in order to rear a vault or raise
a spire.

Normandy owns various cathedrals in which a lantern-tower
rises boldly at the crossing of the transepts ; it is to this feature that
the Norman churches owe their originality of silhouette ; this tower
dominates the building with its mass and its crowning spire. In the

interior, the vault seems to
have opened to admit the
daylight. These beautiful
Norman churches are
very numerous ; at Rouen
there are the cathedral
and Saint Ouen : the
cathedral has a fae^ade ill-
attached to two towers
set over-far apart, an old
Romanesque tower, and
the so-called Tour du
Beurrc (Butter Tower), a
structure somewhat soft
and languid in form, overlaid with the accessory ornament of flam-
boyant Gothic ; on the stone of the porch, elaborately cut by the

KIG. 115. — CDIKT (II' THE CI.OISIKK' OV MONl-
SAINT-MICHEI..

{Photo. N.inifchi.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. Il6. — CATHEDRAI, OF QUIMHER.
(Photo. Neurdein.)

architect and minutely chiselled by the sculptor, time is now

working in his turn (Fig. 111). The great nave of Saint Ouen

appears even vaster than it is as a
result of Its majestic unity, and the
somewhat frigid elegance approved
among the architects of the four-
teenth century. At Coutances (Fig.
1 1 2) the facade has the soaring
pride of outline that characterises
St. Etienne at Caen ; the two
spires, and the lantern-tower which
recurs at Bayeux and at St. Lo,
are models of plain, nervous, and
slender masonry. In its naves, as
In its towers and spires, Norman
architecture reveals the characteristic
haughtiness it had found so hard
to reconcile with the exigencies of
Romanesque masonry.

On the narrow summit of Mont
Saint Michel, the architect built

and burrowed ; buttresses resting on the flanks of the rock support

a paradoxical building which continues the pyramidal form of the

mount, a sanctuary famous for its pilgrims, a solid fortress for the

kings of France ; an abbey rich in architectonic refinements crowns

this peak, encircled by

ramparts against which

the sea dashes (Fig. 108).

Pointed architecture had

penetrated to the extreme

point of Brittany ; it per-
sisted for a long time

afterwards in this region ;

everywhere else Gothic art

was already making way

for a new style, while the

people of the peninsula

were still busy carving the

ornament of their graceful

pierced belfries (Fig. 116).

The Gothic style also spread southwards ; it crossed the Loire,

but it had to compound with local custom ; it was only in the

117. — CHAKNEL HOUSE, CHATEAULIN.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

-CATHEDRAL OF ALBI.

north of France that it expanded, free of all pressure from the
past. While adopting the new principles, each province safeguarded

its own tradition as far as

possible. The Normans,
when they passed from
Romanesque to Gothic,
retained their lantern-
towers ; in Poitou and in
Anjou, the architects pre-
served their customary-
high side-aisles, a pecu-
liarity which gives the
body of these churches in
the interior the appearance
of a large hypostyle hall.
The intersecting diagonal
ribs are combined with the cupolas dear to the architects of the South
West ; hence these domical vaults which characterise the Plan-
tagenet style.

The Cathedral of Poitiers, although it is a Gothic building, is
manifestly akin to Notre- Dame-la-Grande, the old Romanesque
sanctuary ; the architect has contrived to dispense with flying but-
tresses ; he has retained a predilection for the semi-circular arch in
the design of his windows, and he makes frequent use of small
columns in his decoration. Throughout this region we find that

the Gothic did not always
supersede the Romanesque
style ; it merely induced
greater slenderness and
loftiness. Limoges, Cler-
mont-Ferrand, Rodez and
Narbonne possess great
churches of the thirteenth
century, imitated more or
less from those of the
North.

In proportion as we
advance to the South, we
shall find the French style
undergoing modifications
more and more considerable. There are no flying buttresses on the
exterior, no side aisles in the interior ; the Gothic building has

I-IG. 119.

-CHLKCH OF SAINI-.NAZAIKE AT
CAKC.^SSONNE.

{Photo. Neitrdein.)

ART IN FRANCE

retained all the massive majes-
ty of Languedocian Roman-
esque. MoissacToulouse, and
Albi are wide single-aisled
buildings ; strong buttresses
were necessary to support the
very open vault ; mstead of
detaching them from the ex-
terior walls, the architect has
made them project strongly
on the inside, so strongly that
they serve as partitions for the
lateral chapels. The principle
of Gothic construction was not
accepted with all its conse-
quences. Sainte Cecile at
Albi, compact and sturdy,
rests upon its promontory,
more like a defiant fortress
than a tutelary cathedral ; be-
tween the two towers of the
facade there was place for a
guard-room ; an embattled
parapet runs round the roof ;
the towers are those of a
stronghold, the windows like loopholes (Fig.
118). In the fourteenth century, Carcassonne,
finally reunited to the Crown, also wished to have a cathedral
" in the French manner ; " but here again the customs of the South

transformed the style of
the North ; the buttresses
are not detached from the
wall to support flying but-
tresses, and the lofty roof
is replaced by a flat cover-
ing(Fig. 119).

The Gothic cathedral
is a true product of the
Ile-de-France. It har-
monises perfectly with the
skies under which it was
born, whether its lofty

FIG. I20. — KING AND
QUEEN, CENTRAL
PORCH OF WEST
FRONT OF THE CATHE-
DRAL OF CHARTRES.

FIG. 121. — FK;URE of A

QUEEN, IN THE CHURCH

OF S.\INT-DENIS.

(From Corbeil.)

FIG. 122. — CHRIST IN GLORV. TYMTAXUM OF 'i HE
WEST PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

FI<;. 123. — VIRGIN l)F THE

AXXUNCIATION. RH.HT

TVMl'ANUM, WEST FRONT

OK Tlir, CATHKHKAI. OI"

CMARTKKS.

{J'hofo. Mieuseiiicii/.)

mass IS veiled in mists, or the sun brings
out the florescence of the grey stone on
the fac^ade washed by winter rains which
it turns to the West. It is also an
urban product, the communal monument
par excellence ; it enshrined the soul of
the city ; it was planted in the midst
of houses which crouched beneath its
flying buttresses ; men did not isolate it
upon a summit or an empty space ; they
loved to circulate round it, in the little
streets that wound about its feet ; above
the gables of the wooden houses they
saw its fasces of shafts soaring skywards,
and its whole silhouette terminating in
innumerable points. It is the towers and
spires, dominating the forest of roofs,
which give each city its special character
when one sees it from afar, encircled
by its ramparts. Even to the present
day, these cathedrals have remained the
typical buildings of the French towns ; the people of the communes
left in them not only evidences of a heroic faith, but features which
have fixed the physiognomy of cities
for all time ; these old stones attract
and retain pilgrims more fervent than
ever.

But we must go deeper to under-
stand the profound significance of this
architecture. That of the Greeks
was governed by the external decora-
tion. The populace never entered
the temple. It challenged admiration
from the summit of its Acropolis,
clearly detached from its base, its pure
outline relieved against the deep sky.
All Christians enter the cathedral,
and it was in order to receive the
whole city that naves were enlarged
and vaults heightened ; it was to il-
luminate Its congregations with celestial
visions that voids \\ere made in the

1 ]<;. 124. line \ isi lA rici.N.

RH;HT TVMI'ANIM, WKST KKONT

OK IIIK CATllKDKAI. OF CIIARTKICS.

(/'//(>/(). t^liillsCIIICIlt. )

ART IN FRANCE

riG. 125. — I,EFT PORCH OF THE

WEST FRONT OF NOTRE-DA.ME,

PARIS.

walls, and filled in with immense
windows of stamed glass. It is also
in the interior that we feel the pres-
ence of the exalted soul which raised
and organised this mass of stones ;
the prodigious height of the vault is
not meaningless ; all these aspiring
lines invite the eye to look up and
seek God. On festivals, the voices
of children and the thunder of the
organ fill the empty space, carrying
up the orisons of a whole population
in a common sursum corda. When
the chants are hushed, and the
church is deserted, it preserves its
sentimental power ; the slightest
sound, the closing of a gate, a key
turning in the lock, the footfall of a
passer-by, echoes through the im-
mense space ; in the solemn silence the solitary soul also takes on
an unaccustomed sonority, and vibrates in unison with this atmos-
phere in which the mystery of the
divine seems to brood.

After the building of this cathe-
dral, where the whole city could
find place on festivals, the problem
of decoration presented itself. It
is not like the Greek temple, a
simple building, almost invariable
in its configuration. Its very com-
plete organism admits of innumer-
able complements ; architects could
always add towers, spires, and
even chapels ; in succeeding cen-
turies they could apply a wealth
of ornament to the somewhat bare
fa<jades of the primitive style. But
the architect was not the sole
craftsman of the cathedral ; nearly
all the working guilds contributed
to it. It required stained glass for its windows, paintings on its
walls, wood carving for its choir-stalls, hammered iron work for its

FIG. 126. — NORTH PORCH OK THE
CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

Ml,. T27. — DETAH. C)l- 1 UK

NORTH PdRCH OF THE
CATHKDKAI. (IF CHARTRES.

doors, and above all, sculpture. Statues
multiplied on every hand ; buttresses were
recessed to provide niches for them ;
porches were made deeper to receive a
greater number. Decorative exigencies
were thus the origin of Gothic sculpture.
The cathedral expresses not only the unity
of the commune, its closely knit organisa-
tion, and its fervour of faith ; in its mighty
flanks it bore innumerable images, figures
familiar to the souls of its day. Between
the primitive worship and the more philo-
sophic religion of Calvin and of Bossuet,
Christianity went through a phase of in-
genuous idolatry in the Gothic period ; the
plastic arts were the language of faith in
those days, and sculptors were led to forms
of beauty and life by piety. Iconography
was an inexhaustible source of figures and

motives of every kind, and the cathedral offered a limitless field to
decoration. For the statuary of porches, the bas-reliefs of tympana

or archivolts, the theme could be

amplified or curtailed, the persons be
more or less numerous according to
ornamental requirements. To under-
stand the details of the original design
now, we have to dip into the diffuse
literature of the Middle Ages, the
religious texts, parts of the Old
Testament, the Gospels, the Apocry-
pha, the Acts of the Apostles, the
parables, the famous sermons of the
doctors of the Church.

Stained glass and sculpture are
the indispensable complements of the
Gothic cathedral ; architecture re-
quired these two arts, and they were
so much loved by Frenchmen that
architecture was modified to give
them a vaster place. The windows
became larger to enframe a wider expanse of glass ; porches became
deeper to receive a greater number of statues. Further, at the

Fi<;. T28. — SOUTH riiiic H i>|.- 1 m-.

CA1HE1}RAI, OF CHARIRES.

ART IN FRANCE

fk;. 129. — ruoi'HETS, kings, resur-
rection OF THE VIRGIN AND HER
CORONATION. WEST FRONT OF
NtlTRE-DAME, I'ARIS.

was supple enough to follow the design in its
contours. The motives form little medallions
superposed in such a manner as to decorate
the window. An iron framework ensured the
solidity of the whole. At first this consisted of
rigid metal bars which cut across the mosaic ; but
at Saint Denis and at Chartres we already find
the brutality of this re-inforcement yielding to
the exigencies of decoration ; the frame-work
is made to surround and isolate the medallions,
and the general arrangement of the glass gains
greatly in clarity.

The figures of stained glass windows typify
a phase of mediaeval design, that of the
Romano- Byzantine paintings and of the Bene-
dictine miniatures ; this drawing is harsh and
stringy in character, defining the figures with
a hard outline, and swathing them in close
draperies with twisted folds. The lead frame-
work emphasises the hardness of the features.
But this hardness is not gratuitous ; it prevents
the forms from dissolving in the radiance of this
luminous painting. The little humble figures, with
their conventional attitudes, preserve their well
defined personality among the blues, reds, and
golds, which gleam like sky, and fire, and sun.

beginning of the thirteenth century,
glass-painting and sculpture, like
architecture, were primarily French
arts. The monk Theophilus, in his
treatise on the arts, attributes a
peculiar skill to the French glass-
painters.

The earliest basilicas were no
doubt lighted through coloured glass.
But it was not until the Romanesque
period that this painting began to
represent living figures. A coloured
window was then a transparent
mosaic, in which pieces of glass,
stained and cut, were held together
by a tracery of lead ; the leading

FIG. 130. — FIGURE IN

THE NORTH TORCH OF

THE CATHEDRAL OF

CHARTiSES.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

FIG. 131. — THE RESLRRECTION OK THE VIRGIN. LEFT TORCH OF THE WEST FRONT OF

.\OTRE-D.\.ME, I'ARIS.

In the course of the fourteenth century painted glass became less
decorative and more and more realistic in character. The forms
show greater richness and variety, and the figures, less harshly
drawn, are clothed in more supple draperies. The frank colours of
the early glass are replaced by broken tints ; colours more neutral,

and even monochrome, make their appearance.
As early as the thirteenth century the glass
painters had modified, to some extent, the rich
effects of the first stained glass windows. At
the close of the Middle Ages glass-painting
sacrificed splendour to an impossible correct-
ness ; in the effort to imitate the effects of
realistic painting, it lost not only its original
beauty, but its raison d'etre ; after this, it
was belter to fill the windows with colourless
glass, and so to illuminate real pictures.

It was at the beginning of the thirteenth
century that the art of glass-painting had
reached its highest perfection in the workshops
of St. Denis, where Suger had the glass for the
abbey church made, in those of Chartres,
where the glass for the innumerable windows
of the cathedral and of other churches in the
\vest was produced ; and finally, in those of
Pans, the town in which all the industries of
Gothic art tended to centralise. The stained
glass of this period produced an effect dazzling
yet soft, which the illuminators attempted to
transpose into their miniatures ; a few seconds
spent in contemplating the great figures of the
high windows, or the little pictures of the 'ow
65 F

FIG. 132. — SAINT

THEODORE. SOUTH TORCH

OF I HE CATHEDRAI. OF

CHARTRES.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 133. — NATIVITY. FRAG:MENT OF THE DESTROYED
ROOD-SCREEN OF THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES.

chapels, sufficed to suggest to them celestial beatitude. The Sainte-
Chapelle of St. Louis is like a crystallisation of precious stones ;

Gothic windows enabled
the pale light of the
north to realise marvellous
visions.

Gothic architecture was
born when builders freed
themselves from traditional
forms and frankly ac-
cepted those indicated by
mechanics; a similar
emancipation took place in
sculpture. The monks of
the twelfth century had
produced only an incom-
plete statuary ; all they did was to give a certain degree of relief
to the forms of the Benedictine paintings. Even when stirred by
violent emotion, these figures remained rigid ; they suffer from an
over-long subservience to the Byzantine convention, and are
awkwardly crushed down on a flat surface. A different art, a real
sculpture, healthy, and normal, so to say, began to develop in the
middle of the twelfth century.

While the composite sculpture of Burgundy and Languedoc was
producing agitated and
uneasy forms, this youth-
ful art was setting up
simple figures in stiff atti-
tudes ; before achieving
life and ease, sculpture,
like antique statuary, had
to go through the hieratic
phase, the phase of fron-
tality. But these quies-
cent figures enjoy complete
organisms ; they have solid
bodies, detached from the
mass.

It is not possible to
follow from work to work 1 ic j j

the process which gradually endowed the stone with life ; dates and
provinces cannot be determined with precision ; this resurrection of

I UJ. 134.

-APOSTLES. CENTRAL I'ORCH OF THE
CATHEDRAL OF AMIKNS.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

111.. 135. - AlilM LHS. J •; MI'AM M

OK Till! Sliurn I'OKCH OK 'lllli

CA rin:r)K-.\i. of ami1':n-;.

born Christians and

sculpture must be assigned to about the middle of the twelfth cen-
tury, and to an indeterminate region embracing Bourges, Chartres,
and Saint Denis. When the carvers of
images felt the charm of living forms,
the ancient prejudice against statuary
had to give way ; Christianity tolerated
a kind of modified idolatry, and thus it
was given to this religion to find again
what Greek paganism had first dis-
covered eighteen hundred centuries
earlier. The Gothic artists were right
not to fear these novel forms, for
whereas those of the Romanesque
monasteries were related to antique art,
of which they were often mere dis-
figurements, the statues of Chartres
have no remote heredity ; they were
autochthonous.

This initial period produced more than one remarkable work.
At Bourges and at Le Mans, certain long, rigid figures are sheltered
in the back of the Gothic building. There were some at Saint
Denis ; two statues at Corbeil (Fig. 121) also survive from those
years in which the figures began to detach themselves from the
inert mass, while in Provence, at Saint Trophime at Aries, and also

at Saint Gilles. the Apos-
tles were still imbedded in
the Romanesque fac^ade.
But we must go to
Chartres to behold the
first florescence of living
statuary. A wondrous
stone population emerges
from its walls and pillars ;
they are, certainly, decora-
tive statues, but they have
an independent existence,
and are no longer mere
architectural ornaments.

Here we may study the
sculpture of a whole cen-
tury and more ; some very early statues seem to be hardly more
than slightly convex tombstones. Others, dating from the middle

67 F 2

Kn;. 136.-

-Al'OSIl.lCS. CKM'UAI. I'OKCH OK TIIK.
CAfllKDNAI. OK AMIIiNS.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 137. — MARCH AND APRIL, WEST FRONT OF THE
CATHEDRAL OF AMIENS.

of the thirteenth century,
have supple bodies and
learnedly treated forms.
The statues of the west
front date from the middle
of the twelfth century.
They are set agamst
strongly projectmg Roman-
esque pillars, and do not
adhere to the building
(Fig. 120). Thenceforward, in other porches, architecture had to
reckon with large sculptured figures ; pillars disappear, to make
place for statues ; they look as if they were drawing themselves
in to take shelter between the pedestal on which they stand and
the canopy which overhangs them, and seem to move more freely
than the earlier figures against pillars (Figs. 134 to 136). In the
west front of Chartres, the porches, with the
projecting pillars of their embrasures, were
constructed in the Romanesque style of the
west, by an architect who had provided for
sculpture only on the tympanum and archivolts.
These first figures of Gothic statuary are the
precocious masterpieces of an art as yet far
from mature. The youthful freshness of this
sculpture is shown in the calm and rigid dignity,
akin to Greek archaism, to which it returns
after the agitated style of the Romanesque
period. Here, again, we have the hieratic
immobility of the body, the impassible irony of
expression found in the /Egmetan marbles and
those of the Parthenon. The artist is no
longer inspired, as was the Romanesque
sculptor, by a flat, painted image, antiquated
and clumsy, falsified by centuries of conven-
tionalisation ; like the earliest Greek idols, the
first Gothic statues emerged from a stone post.
They seemed to be still imprisoned in it, but
half disengaged, like flowers bursting from the
bud, their petals still folded. In this new
conquest of the aspects of life, sculpture once
more went through a period of sharp and angular forms ; like the
slender Korai of the first Parthenon, the long figures at Chartres

FIG. 138. — FRENCH

IVORY KNOWN AS THE

" VIRGIN OF THE SAINTE-

CHAPELLE," BEGINNING

OF THE FOURTEENTH

CENTURY.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

FIG. 139. — JESUS Ari'EARING TO THE HOLY WOME.V.
JESUS AND THE MAGDAI.F.N. HIGH RELIEFS ON THIC
CHOIK SCREEN AI' NOTRE-DAME, I'ARIS.

were carved by an indus-
trious chisel which atones
for the inexactitude of the
planes by the care with
which it defines the acces-
sories of the costumes and
the details of the faces.
The elaborately rendered
draperies are not cast
about very robust bodies ;
shoulders are imperceptible,

the arms are attached to the trunk ; on the long slim bodies are

perched delicate heads of bearded men, or women with long braided

hair. The faces, with their prominent eyes and

lips compressed in an austere smile, do not belong

to our world ; these holy beings are rapt in

contemplation of radiant visions ; a juvenile art

has given them but an incomplete life ; yet

the workmanship is subtle and incisive ; these

figures have a tense and nervous quality which

gives them an indefinable charm.

If we now walk round the cathedral, and

study the innumerable figures of Prophets,

Apostles, and Martyrs in the lateral porches

at Chartres, we shall feel, even if we make no

attempt at an imposssible chronological classi-
fication, as if we were looking on at the slow

labour which awoke this world of stone, and

moulded the inert matter into the attitudes of

life. The Apostles preside over the central

south porch, the Prophets, still vigorous and

agitated, over that of the north. This elaborate

art, which can also be brutal upon occasion,

is admirable in its evocation of a strange and

antiquated world. In the neighbouring door-
ways the miracle is completed, and we see the

stone bend and soften and curve to imitate

moving bodies and floating draperies. The

faces are modelled in larger planes, and forms

are more frankly defined ; the beard no longer

adheres to the breast, the neck is longer, enabling the head to turn

upon it, the shoulders are broader, the arms begin to move. The

FIG. 140. — CHRIST
m.ESSIN<;, KNOWN .•\S

the " iieau dieu

d'amiens." west

front ok the

cathedral

OF .\MIENS.

ART IN FRANCE

>,.

FIG. 141. — THE MEETING OF

AHKAHAM AND MELCHIZEDECH.

INNER WALL OF THE FA^ADF, OF THE

CATHEDRAL OF REIMS.

figure is no longer fixed rigidly against
a pillar, the feet cramped upon an
inclined plane ; it is detached and
independent, and plants its feet firmly
upon the ground to support its
weight. Then one leg only is rigid,
and the other is bent carelessly ; the
axis of the body is inflected, one hip
is raised ; the lines of neck and
shoulders become mobile ; the whole
figure, with its supple limbs, produces
a harmonious equilibrmm. And now
these figures begin to combme, and to
enact some quiet drama together, the
Annunciation or the Visitation : the
Virgin, St. Anne, the angel Gabriel,
make up tranquil groups animated by
a com-

m o n
sentiment. A century after the pillar-
statues, the swaddled terms of the
west front, sculptors were setting up
graceful and vigorous figures, vital
organisms which, even in repose,
suggest their latent energies. They
had become capable of carrying their
imitation of human types still further,
of executing portraits, reproducing
costumes, and even attempting the
play of physiognomy ; the art of
statuary had recovered all its powers.
Christian iconography, when it
adopted this form of art, was com-
pletely transformed by it. All the
remote figures of the Gospel and of
the Old Testament presented them-
selves to the eyes of the faithful, not with that strangeness of aspect
which kept the Romanesque figures in a fantastic, supernatural world,
but with faces and bodies like those of living beings. The series
of the Old Testament Prophets had to be retained; they appear
in the north porch of Chartres, and are still beings outside the
bounds of nature ; an art hampered by larchaic stiffness had fixed

fk;. 142. — THE "gilded virgin.

SOUTH DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF
AMIENS.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

their violent personalities ; they are the turbulent and furious vision-
aries of the Bible, who, prior to the dawn of the serene radiance
of the Gospel, sometimes illuminated their tempest of invective by
lightning flashes of truth. Throughout the Middle Ages they re-
tained their formidable aspect ; we shall find these wild beasts later,
at the end of the fourteenth century, round the well of Moses at
Dijon, bowed down by the terror of their terrible predictions.

The principal figures of the Gospel change their appearance.

Christ detaches Himself
from the tympanum on
which the Romanesque
_^^ ^^ artists had carved His

1 ^ W^jBm^^ ^ BS^S^ BiM^ figure in relief, seated

' -S^tSR^Ki*ilP^^^Jwi ' II ^ amidst the Elders of the

Apocalypse or the sym-
bols of the Evangelists
(Fig. 122). This attitude
He now retains only in
the Last Judgment, over
which He presides on the
west fronts of our cathe-
drals. But later He is to
be found standing alone,
upon the central pier of certain doorways, instinct with an in-
dividuality, a personal significance which owes nothing to figures
surrounding Him, or a scene in which He is taking part. His
attitude has become
calmer. His face nobler ;
in one hand He holds
the Word of Truth, and
with the other He makes
the sign of benediction.
To this tranquil figure
the sculptors of the thir-
teenth century gave in-
comparable majesty. The
" Beau Dieu" of Amiens,
draped in an ample, flow-
ing toga, lifts a face so
gentle that a soft light
seems to shine from it ;
revelation could not be

l-IG. 143.-

-I'LANT OUNAMENT OK THE CATHEURAI.
OF KEIMS.

^^^^^^H|W^^:^Kw^

:'■ >- -j^"' _,

'■

1 ... --P^^/i

^'M

lUn^U^B '

IK;. 144. — SAINT-RI%MI CONDL'CTEU UV ANGELS,
WEST FKONT (IE THE CATHEDRAL OF KELMS.

{Photo. Ncnrdein.)

ART IN FRANCE

more impressively announced (Fig.
140). In the thirteenth century a
serene splendour enfolds the teaching
Christ ; at the end of the Middle
Ages He was replaced by the suffer-
ing Saviour.

But the Virgin was more especially
dear to the artists of the thirteenth
century ; her figure dominates the
whole of Gothic art. The majority
of the great cathedrals were dedi-
cated to her, and already an im-
posing chapel in the choir was set
apart for her. The part she plays
in the Gospels is modest enough ;
but popular imagination supplemented
it ; legend blossomed around her,
and provided her with a copious
biography. In the twelfth century
the Virgin was represented seated,
and supporting the Infant God upon her knee
" throne of Solomon.

I-IG. 145. — FIGUKE ON THE

CENTRAL PORCH OF THE WEST

KKONT OF THE CATHEDRAL OF REIMS.

(^Photo. Micusciiicnt.)

FIG. 146. — THE QUEEN OF SHEIIA.

WEST PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL OF

REIMS.

{Phoio. I\IicnSC)»C l'.t.)

she was the
Jesus does not look at her ; He is already
preaching or blessing. It is thus
she was represented on the tympana
of the Romanesque churches, thus
she was carved in stone, in ivory, in
metal and in wood. In the Gothic
cathedrals one entrance was always
dedicated to her. She stands carry-
ing the Infant Jesus on her left arm,
her hip slightly projecting, her right
leg carelessly bent, m such a manner
as to throw her robe into large
oblique folds. Her head is still
covered with a corner of her mantle,
in the traditional Eastern fashion ;
but a large royal crown discounts the
severity of this nun-like Byzantine
head-dress. Her features show no
trace of the impassible stolidity of the
Romanesque Virgins ; her head is
inclined towards the Child, with half-
72

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

FIG. 147. — SAINT-JOSF.FH, CENTRAI

PORCH OF THE WEST FRONT OF

THE CATHEDRAL OF REIMS.

closed eyes and smiling lips. The
supple figure, the somewhat sinuous
robe, the playful hands, the tender
look the Virgin bends upon the little
Jesus, all these amenities have evolved
a new figure, dearer than all others
to Gothic art. It was the French
thirteenth century which invented this
gracious queen, delicate, gay, and
smiling, of which the "gilded Virgin"
at Amiens is the finished monumental
type, a type that was repeated for
centuries in ivory and in wood (Figs.
138,142). The little Virgins carved
in ivory accentuate this dainty grace ;
the features of the plump faces are
small and fine, the cheeks rounded,
the forehead prominent, the neck
well covered ; but the nose is pointed, the lips and eyes compressed
m a keen little smile.

The sculptors of the thirteenth century were always happily
inspired by the legend of the Virgin. At Amiens and at Reims,
the Annunciation, the Visitation, the
Presentation in the Temple, lend them-
selves to many calm, tender, and discreet
scenes. Attitudes and emotion are un-
necessary, the episode is always rendered
with a gentle charm. The Death and
the Resurrection of the Virgin have
furnished subjects for the greatest master-
piece of Gothic statuary, in the north
doorway of the west front of Notre
Dame m Paris (Figs. 129, 131). This
tympanum, in three stages, is in a style
perfectly different from the Romanesque
manner, with figures in high relief, com-
pletely detached from the background ;
but these figures, which are like so many
independent statues, compose closely re-
lated groups, interwoven with a harmony
of lines rare in the Middle Ages. Here
again the sculptor was inspired by the

Fu;. 148. — fk;ure oi' one of

IHE SAVEIJ in the LAST JL'DCi-

MENT OF THE CATHEUKAL OF

r.OURl'.ES.

{Photo. Micusciitcnt.)

ART IN FRANCE

1-I(J. 149. — VIKGIX Ol- THE
VISITATION. CENTRAL DOOR

OF THE WEST FRONT OF
THE CATHEDRAL OF REIMS.

Apocryphal Gospels. The Virgin has just
died ; Jesus has come down from Heaven,
and the AposUes, scattered throughout the
world after His death, have gathered together
for the last time round her bed. Their
heads, to which a gentle calm common to all
gives a certain family likeness, form a circle
round the expected miracle. Jesus gives the
signal of Resurrection, and two angels rever-
ently uplift the Virgin's corpse. Above, in
the top of the tympanum, the glorification
of Our Lady is completed. She is seated
to the right of her Son ; humble and radiant,
she bends towards him with folded hands,
while an angel places the crown of glory on
her head. Form and sentiment were never
more happily harmonised. French statuary
of the thirteenth century is greatly in advance
of the other plastic arts. Not till two centuries
later shall we find such noble grace and atti-
tudes so elegant and virginal rendered by paint-
ing ; Fra Angelico was the first to evoke visions so purely beautiful.
The sculptors were able to give life to the twelve Apostles who

accompany Jesus or the Virgin ; but

it was difficult to bestow a definite

character on each of the twelve.

The most animated series of Apostles

bequeathed to us by mediaeval art is

to be found in the south porch of

Amiens Cathedral. Above the

" gilded Virgin " twelve vivacious

little figures, well proportioned, their

mild heads enframed in curling hair

and beards, converse in couples,

bending forward, leaning back,

emphasising their speech with an

amusing variety of gesture (Fig. 1 35).

The alert grace of the attitudes and

the diversity of the draperies com-
pensate for the somewhat monoton-
ous vagueness of the types. These

Apostles at Amiens and those in the

FIG. 150. — SOUTH I'ORCH OF THE

CATHF.DRAL OF ROUEN, KNOWN AS THE

" roRTAlL DE LA CALENDE.

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

FH,. 151. — Al'OMLI-;

BEARIXG THE CROSS OF

DEDICATION, SAINTE-

CHAPELLli.

tympanum of the Virgin at Notre Dame in
Pans show that French sculpture of the thir-
teenth century might, hke Greek sculpture of
the fifth century before our era, have created
a canon m certam similar types and identical
proportions. But mediaeval sculpture was
practised on too vast a territory, and in work-
shops too remote from each other ; it had also
too complex a programme to have enabled it
to perfect a single type of beauty.

Christianity had gained its profound hold
on the minds of men by permitting the popular
imagination to collaborate in sacred narrative ;
the tenderness that vivifies religious art is not
born of theology. Out of the universal icono-
graphy the men of the thirteenth century
chose, and gave prominence to, the figures
more particularly interesting to their local ex-
pressions of worship. In the general tradition,
each diocese had its particular interest in one
of the innumerable figures that belong to all
Christendom. The Parisians kept a place of honour for the
Evangelists, for the patrons of their city ; when they enter Notre

Dame they are received by St. Denis,
carrying his head, and accompanied
by angels ; elsewhere they see St.
Marcel piercing the Dragon with
his crozier. The cathedral, which
absorbed an ancient church dedicated
to St. Stephen, was not unmindful
of the proto-martyr ; the southern
tympanum is dedicated to his history.
The people of Amiens easily recog-
nise their special patrons among the
apostles of the universe ; in the left
porch of the west front, St. Firmin
raises his hand in benediction towards
that Picardy he converted ; one of the
most famous bishops of Amiens, St.
Honore, is elaborately commemorated
on the tympanum of the south porch.
At Chartres, amidst the multitude

J$.

J I

^Ifl

■*.'»

KIG. 152. — NORTH I'OKCH OK THU;

CATIIEDKAI. OK ROUEN, KNOWN AS

THE "I'ORT.ML UES I.lIiRAIRES. '

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 153. — FIGUKE OF ONE OF THE

SAVED IN THE LAST JUDGMENT OV

THE CATHEDRAL OF BOURGES.

{Photo. Mktiscinent. )

of figures which embraces the whole Christian iconography of the
day, the faithful could identify their St. Potentien and their St.

Modeste, a graceful Virgin ; and the
admirable St. Theodore (Fig. 132)
who guards the south porch recalled
the fact that the Cathedral preserved
his head among its relics. At Reims
we find the evangelist St. Sixtus, and
St. Remi, to whom a dove brings the
holy phial ' (Fig. 144) ; the cathedral
in which the kings of France were
crowned shows on its faqade David
anointed by Samuel, and Solomon
anointed by Nathan. Local traditions
came from every region and took
their place in the universal revelation ;
the roots of Christianity struck deeper,
and art received its vital sap from the
soil on which it flourished.

It was for this reason that it be-
came more and more realistic and
concrete. After the evolution of an
urban civilisation, the various guilds discovered patrons and pro-
tectors ; the faithful organised the celestial world after the fashion
of their own, and the vague personalities of saints and martyrs
entered the communal
corporations and assumed
their attributes. St. Bar-
tholomew became a tanner,
St. Thomas a stonemason,
St. Crispin a shoemaker,
St. Christopher a porter ;
the perfumers placed them-
selves under the protection
of the Magdalen ; the
goldsmiths, under that of
St. Eloi (Eligius) ; St.
George was a knight, St.
Luke a painter, St. Martha a servant. These relations between
mankind and the saints became closer and more numerous in the

^ This phial, preserved in the Cathedral, contained the oil for the coronation ceremony. It was
smashed with a hammer by the revolutionaries in 1 793.

'54--

THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. I\I)RV.
(The I.ouvie, Paris.)

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

course of the Middle Ages ; artists imagined less and less, and
copied more and more, m representing this Christian mythology.
Jesus, the Virgin, and a few other figures whose features were
clearly fixed by tradition, were brought more into harmony with
daily life, without ever becoming portraits or losing the general
aspect determined centuries ago ; but all around them a host of
secondary actors assume a more realistic appearance ; in sculpture
as in painting, Gothic art, illustrating the Gospels, or the narrative
of Jacobus de Voragine, showed the
image of the mediaeval world to the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The subject of the Last Judgment,
which IS found m nearly all the great
cathedrals, demonstrates the formation
and transformation of a motive during
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; it
manifests the successive characteristics of
French sculpture, in the confused and
disjointed violence of Autun, the serene
majesty of Pans, the dramatic and emo-
tional art of Bourges. At Autun, the
scene is already complete : Christ, the
dead who are awakening, the angels and
demons who contend for the elect and
the damned ; but the elements are not
yet harmonised ; Christ occupies too
large a space ; around Him, the tumultu-
ous figures create such a confusion that it
is not easy to grasp the great mystery which is enacted. In the
south porch of Chartres, the composition is calm and well balanced ;
below the figure of Christ, the little bodies of the elect and of the
damned are ranged in orderly groups, but the scene lacks grandeur.
At Paris, the Last Judgment is represented in three stages with
marvellous clarity ; above, Jesus presides over the last day of the
world ; in the lowest stage, the dead come forth from their graves ;
in the intermediate space, the Archangel and the Devil divide the
souls. But though it is clearly defined, the composition is perhaps
lacking in movement ; there is a certain monotony in the awakening
of the dead (the execution, it must be remembered, is modern) : the
groups of the elect and the damned are arranged in compact and
well distributed bands ; the sinister calvacade of the Apocalypse is
confined to the archivolts. At Amiens the same grandiose com-

I K;. 155. — THE IlLACK VIKGIN
OK COUl.O.Mli.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

position takes on a less peaceful, a more agitated character. But
at Bourges the drama becomes animated and affectmg (Figs. 1 56,
162). Here the sculptor
has endeavoured to ana-
lyse sentiment, mstead of
contenting himself with
a somewhat monotonous
mass of similar figures ;
the risen dead, after rais-
ing their sepulchral stones,
gesticulate and entreat ;
above, on either side of
the great angel who is
weighing souls, the final
separation between the
two worlds is completed.
The damned are driven
away and cast mto the
jaws of hell by horrible
and grotesque demons ; one of these has the grinning mask of
a satyr. But the elect are touching to behold, their little
curly heads irradiated by the childish smile of an intimate faith
(Figs. 148, 153).

Until we come to the Netherlandish painters of the fifteenth
century, we shall find no more expressive vision of the Last Judg-
ment than this legacy from

FIG. 156.— THE LAST JUDGMENT. CENTRAL POKCH

OF THE WEST FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL OK

BOURGES.

{Photo. Ncnrdein.')

iitt

llilil

the Middle Ages. The
Gothic painters had little
further to invent ; the
Netherlanders added
grimaces and contortions
to the spectacle of hell,
and the painters of
Cologne devoutly coloured
the little figures of the
saved, putting blue above
their heads, green beneath
their feet, and red upon
their cheeks.

By this imitation of the
flexibility and disorder of actual life, sculpture freed itself from
architecture, to which it was at first merely supplementary, and

I57--

-TOMIi OF SAINT STEPHEN
AUBAZINE (cORRfeZE).

C11U1;CH OK

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

from the rigidity of line it imposed. The sculptors who executed
the tympanum of Notre- Dame in Paris belonged to this brief and

happy age of precarious

FIG. 158. — HINGE OF HAMMERED IRON IN THE WEST
PORCH OF NOTRE-DAME, PARIS.

equihbnum, during which
technical skill allowed
artists to handle forms
with ease, but not to give
more than an idealised
image of realities ; the
faces are uniformly serene
and beautiful, the draperies
carved in planes of great
geometrical regularity.
The Apostles at Amiens
are of the same simple
and non-emphatic type ;
their gestures are natural
and peaceful ; their robes
fall in strongly marked folds, slightly broken, without much flexibility ;
the faces are lively and intelligent, but have none of the individuality
of portraiture. This elegance is not the outcome of a very search-
ing art ; the figures, in which, however,
there is no trace of the ancient heraldic
stiffness, are somewhat monotonous in
their attitudes ; under the great Gothic
porches, they are admirably decorative.

At Reims, on the other hand, the
somewhat abstract sobriety of Paris and
Amiens is replaced by a varied and
even incoherent vitality. Here the sculp-
tors have been little concerned with unity
of style ; they have given free rein to their
own exuberance of spirit ; the faces are
more expressive as well as the attitudes.
and the draperies are more flexible.
Many of the figures are even individual
types ; certain spare, bony, energetic
heads, the faces tense with moral expres-
sion, are set upon alert bodies in animated
attitudes. Some of the faces are eager

and spiritual as if the more subtle stone could imprison, without
extinguishing, the flame of life. Here are great angels of a feminine

I ic. 159. i.Kii.i.i-: (>\- iMiK-(,i:i)

IRON FROM OLRSCAMP, IN IHr!

MUSliE DES ARTS Dl^CORATIFS,

PARIS.

ART IN FRANCE

k »

i::::rins?r?i

1^^

1 i^-<>

■1

•^^-^^^

KIG. l6o. — THIRTEENTH CENTURY
SHRINE, LIMOGES ENAMEL.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

type who bend forward daintily, with an expression of gentle malice.
Here, too, among the angular figures of mediaeval sculpture, is that

amazing group of the Visitation,
which revives the luxuriant contours
of antique statues, and the quivering
folds of their clinging draperies ;
robust and supple female forms are
draped in flowing robes of delicate
texture and minute folds. These
women are not of Gothic race ; they
are akin to those idols which antique
art carved in the marble to satisfy
its worship of physical beauty and
moral health. The peaceful dia-
logue between these two majestic
figures suggests a colloquy between
vestal virgins.

Such a variety of types and style
shows how litde Gothic sculpture was fettered by formulae such
as those which had for centuries hampered painting. The
Gothic sculptors were not all skilful, but they were all inspired
by a vigour unknown before their time. It took possession of
French artists, when, at the beginning
tury, the plastic arts came for the first
life.

The evolution of orna-
mental forms IS more sig-
nificant of the intimate pre-
dilections of French taste
than that of architecture
or the representation of
figures. Nothing charac-
terises the style of a period
so strongly as its grammar
of ornament, those forms
which are born spon-
taneously under the artist's
hand when it is uncon-
trolled by any law of
utility or imitation. At
the same period when architects set their vaults upon intersecting
arches, sculptors transformed the appearance of the capitals which

of the thirteenth cen-
time into contact with

FIG. l6l. — SHKINE OF SAINT CAl.MINE. LIMOGES
ENAMEL IN THE MUSEE D0Br6e (nANTES).

(^Photo. Gibouin.)

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

l-'IC. 162. — THE LAST JIDG.MKNT I-'RAGMEXt). I'OKCH OK THE CATHEDRAL l)F liOURGES.

(Pkoio. Neunfeiu.)

received the ribs. Romanesque ornament was a very complex
mixture of ancient or exotic motives ; its sculptors sought rather
to combine than to invent. Towards the close of the twelfth
century, decorators showed a tendency to eliminate the barbaric
interlacements and arabesques, and all the remnants of antique art,
volutes or acanthus leaves. While the sculptors were returning to
the living forms of the human body, the decorators borrowed from
vegetable life swelling and bursting buds, spreading leaves, closing
or opening petals, in contrast to the Romanesque capitals with
their trenchant designs and dry angles, the products of a minute
and difficult technique — that proper to the worker in ivory or
precious metals — the first Gothic
capitals, swelling with a robust sap,
clothe themselves with the broad
leaves of arum or water-lily, and
petals the fleshy contours of which
preserved the solid character of the
basket. By degrees, as the Gothic
style became more supple, the sculp-
tors adopted more elaborate plant
forms ; they reproduced the leaves
of oak or parsley, and while pre-
serving regularity of arrangement,
they imitated the dense disorder of
foliage. Reims Cathedral contains
not only the most life-like figures of
Gothic statuary ; on its robust archi-
tecture, on the capitals of its pillars,
ivy and vine leaves climb and inter-
twine, so delicate and nervous that they seem to quiver as
we gaze. How and Romanesque decoration seems for all its

81 G

1 Hi. 163. — CIIAI.ICE HI- SAINI-KEMI.

TKr.ASUKY OK THE CATHEDRAL OF

REIMS.

(Photo. Ncurcfi-in.)

ART IN FRANCE

luxuriance, when we compare it with this freshness ! Later, at
the end of the fourteenth century, the last Gothic artists carved

the sharp and curling forms
of cabbage, chicory, and
thistle ; on the stone angles, as
on the pages of manuscripts,
the Indented and serrated
leaves of plants flourish in
profusion. Like Gothic archi-
tecture itself, the Gothic
flora became fragile and com-
plicated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The same general works as for Chapter
II.— Villard de Honnecourt, Album manu-
icrit published by Lassus and Darcel, Paris,
1858. Anth. Saint-Paul, 5(mp/e memoire
sur I'origine du style ogival (B. M., 1875).

Louis Gonse, L'Art goihiquc, Paris,
1890. Ch. H. Moore, Development and
Character of Gothic Architecture, London,
1890. G. von Bezold, Die Enlstehung
und Ausbildung der Gothischen Baukunsl
in Franl(reich, Berlin, 1891. — G. Dehio,
Die Anfdnge des Gothischen Baustils
Stein, Les Architecles gothiques, Paris,

FIG. 164. — CATHEDRA!, OF REIMS. CAPITAL OF
A riLLAR IN THE LADY CHAPEL.

(Photo. Neurdein.)

(Repertorium fUr Kunstwissenschafl. 1896).- H.

1909. D. Mich. Felibien, Histoire de I'Ahbaye de Saint-Denis en France, Paris, 1706
Vitry and Briere, L'Eglise abbatiale de Saint-Denis et scs tombeaux, Paris, 1908. — L. Vitet,
Notre-Dame de Noyon, Paris, 1845.- F. de Guilhermy and Viollet-le-Duc, Description de
Notre-Dame de Paris, Paris, 1856.- F. de Guilhermy, Description de la Sainte-Chapelle,
Paris, 1887.- M. Aubert, La Cathedralc Notre-Dame-de-Paris, Paris, 1909.- Abbe A. Bouillet,
Les Eglises paroissialcs de Paris, Monographics iltuslrees, Paris, 1897-1903. - Lassus, Mono-
graphie de la Cathedrale de Charlres, Paris, 1867.— Abbe Bulteau. Monographic de la
Calhedrale deChartres, Chartres. 1888-1902, 3 vols. E. Lefevre Pontalis. Les Fouilles de la
Cathedrale de Chartres (B. M .. 190U. R. Merlet. La Cathedrale de Chartres, Paris, 1909.—
Abbe Bouxin, La Calhedrale de Laon, Laon, 1890. G. Durand, La Cathedrale d' Amiens,
Amiens 1901-1903. Abbe Cerf. Histoire el Description de Notre-Dame-de-Reims, Reims,
1861, 2 vols. L. Demaison, Les Architecles de la Calhedrale de Reims (B. A., 1894) Goisel,
Histoire et Mono raphie de la Calhedrale de Reims. Park, 1894. Begu\e. Monographic de la
Calhedrale de Lyon, Lyons, 1880. Corroyer, Description de I'Ahbaye de Saint-Michel,
Paris, 1877. Denais, Monographic de la Calhedrale d' Angers,, 1899. Abbe Bosseboeuf,
L Architecture Plantagenet, Angers, 1897. Ch. de Grandmaison, Tours archeologique, Paris,
1879.— Abbe Arbeliot, Cathedrale de Limoges, Paris, 1883.— H. Crozes, Monographic de
la Calhedrale Sainte-Cecile d'Albi. Toulouse, 1873. G. Dehio, L'Inftuence de I' Art franfais
sur I'Arl allemand au XI 11" siecle ( R. .4., 1900). _C. EnUrl, Origines franfaises de I'Archi-
leclure golhique en Italic, Paris, 1894. C. Enlart, L'Art gothique el la Renaissance en Chypre,
Paris, 1899, 2 vols. C. Enlart, Origincs franfaiscs de I' Architecture golhique en Espagne
(B. A., 1894).- De Baudot. La Sculpture franfaise au Moyen Age et a la Renaissance,
Paris, 1881 (Album of 400 motives in statuary or ornament). P. Vitry and G. Briere,
Documents de Sculpture frangaise du Moyen .Age, Paris, 1904. E. Male. L'Art religieux
en France au XIII' siecle, 2nd ed., Paris, 1902. M. Voege, D/e Anfiinge des monumenlalen
Stiles im Millelaltcr, Strasburg, 1894.--!^. de Lasteyrie, Eludes sur la Sculpture franfaise
au Moyen Age (Mon. Plot, vol. viii., 1902) — R. de Lasteyrie, La Porle Sainte-Anne a Notre-
Dame-de-Paris (Mem. de la Soc.de I' Histoire de Paris, I902).--Margaret and Ernest Mar-
riage, The Sculptures of Charlres Cathedral, Cambridge, I909.— R. Koechlin, La Sculpture
beige et les Influences franfaises aux XI 11" el XI V" siecles (G. B. A., 1903, II).—
A. Marignan, Wis/oiVe (/e /a 5cu/pfure en Languedoc aux X 1 1" el X 1 1 1'^ siecles. Pans, 1902.—

COMMUNAL OR GOTHIC ART

R. Kcechlin, Quelques Ateliers d'icoiriers franfais aux \III'\ XIV' siecles (G. B. A.,
1905). Louise Pillion, Les Portaih latiraux je la Cathcdralc de Rouen, Paris, 1907. —
A. Schmarsow, Das Eindrin!>en der franzo'ischen Plaslik in die deulsche Sculptur (Reperlo-
riuni fiir Kunstwissenschafl, 1898). For Painting: the works quoted on Romanesque Art. -
F. de Lasteyrie, Histoire de la Peinture sur verre. 2 vols., 1857. Magne, L'CEuvre des Peintres
verriers franfais. Paris, 1885. L.-O. Merson, Les Vilraux. Paris, 1895. H. Oidttnann,
Die Glasmalerei, 2 vols., Cologne, 1898.

FIG. 165. — C.\THEDR.\L OF REIMS.
CAI'lTAL OF A I'lLLAK, SOUTH .SIDE OF 'IHE N.WE.

{Flwto. Xeufdi-in).

G 2

l-IG. l66. — liAMTAHrS OV AKU.'ES-MORTES.
{Photo. Nciirdcin.')

CHAPTER IV

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART AT THE CLOSE
OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The Centres of Artistic Activity: the King, the Great Nohles, the Pope at Avignon.- The
Middle Classes in the Fifteenth Centurij. Feudal Architecture. Communal Architecture,
Ramparts, Houses. Mansions of Rich Burghers or Princes, Town-Halls. Cathedrals in the
Fourteenth Century; the Radiating Type. The hlamhoyant Style at the End of the
Fifteenth Century.- Sculpture, Tombs. Painting, Stained Glass, Illumination. Realistic
Evolution of Miniature-Painting. Thelirst Distemper Pictures. Painting in Burgundy,
at Avignon and Aix, in Touraine and Bourhonnais.— Popular Inspiration in the Arts of
Imagery.

In the thirteenth century, an intense artistic activity took possession
of all the great communes which desired to build a cathedral, and
then to people it with statues and adorn it with coloured glass
windows. Art had already become the work of laymen, but, as
yet, it only existed for religion, and like religion, it had spread
abroad in the world. As the century advanced, artists worked less
exclusively for the requirements of worship ; there is a charm in the
plastic arts which kings and great nobles soon desired to enjoy and
to reckon among the accessories of their wealth. Now the art of
luxury cannot be so widely disseminated as religious art. It requires
wealth, and a certain intellectual culture ; there must be prosperous
towns to form skilful workmen, and rich citizens or the court of a
prince to pay them. Under these conditions, the artistic energies
of a country tend to concentrate in certain places. It was in the

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

107. — CHATEAL-i.All.I.AIil).

fourteenth century that the destinies of French art began to inter-
mingle with those of the great men of the kingdom, of kings and
those who aspired to rival
them.

To survey the activities
of the most distinguished
among these patrons of
the arts is to pass in re-
view the principal works
of art of the second half
of the fourteenth, as well
as those of the succeeding
century. First in order
are the kings : the first
Valois, frivolous and mag-
nificent ; John the Good,
who took musicians with him to his captivity in England ; a painter
has left us his portrait, the earliest of French pictures (Fig. 243),
a brutal head painted in languid colours. Then Charles V., the
wise king who built Vincennes, the Bastile, and the Louvre, a
quadrangular fortress which combined many architectonic amenities
with a huge donjon, dating from the time of Philip Augustus ; the
learned king who loved beautiful manuscripts, and wrote on them
"This book belongs to me, Charles" ; the collector of miniatures,
whom the illuminators have shown us with his big nose and his
ill-shaved chin, receiving some precious book as a homage ; the
builder of the chapel of the Celestins, whose image a sculptor set up

m the porch, side by side
with his queen, holding a
model of the building in
his hand. The statue has
survived ; it is a tranquil
work, without brilliance
or fire, but probably abso-
lutely faithful ; the man
still lives, with his weary
body, his narrow chest,
his good-natured face, half
meditative, half smiling

(Figs. 209, 210). We

find him again on his tomb at Saint Denis, carved by his " imagier,"
Beauneveu ; this statue is more commonplace ; but we recognise the

KI<".. 168. — CIIATKAU lir AKCIL'ES.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 169. — COURT OF THE CHATF:AU OF COUCY.

great nose in the flabby face, and the subtle expression. Then
come the brothers of Charles V., Louis d'Orleans, the builder of

Pierrefonds (Fig. 1 76)
and of La Ferte-Milon ;
the Due de Berry, who
was rapacious only that
he might procure himself
refined delights ; his plump,
snub-nosed, reddish face
IS familiar to us ; in his
old age, he is shown
wrapped in furs, turning
over his book of hours,
to admire the wonderful
chateaux his architects had built and his miniaturists had painted
for him. Finally, there are the Dukes of Burgundy : Philippe le
Hardi and Jean sans Peur, whose successors gave them such ad-
mirable tombs ; Philippe le Bon more especially, and Charles le
Temeraire, who were rich and powerful, and had the good fortune
to rule Flanders, and employ those great artists Claus Sluter, Jan
van Eyck, and Rogier van der Weyden.

In the South, the Popes had made Avignon a city of luxury and
pleasure. They built themselves a fortified palace (Fig. 1 74) on the
hill, encircling it with ramparts, and summoned fresco painters to
decorate it in the Sienese manner. It was at their behest that
Italian painting crossed the Alps ; it
has left a few decorations in the
monasteries of Savoy ; it penetrated
far into the country, as far as Tou-
louse, where Italian artists painted
the Church of the Jacobins. Avig-
non preserved her artistic vitality
for a long period ; situated upon the
main road to Italy, the town seems a
precursor of the Italian cities ; rich
in churches and in works of art,
she is to the Northerner the thres-
hold of that land where the relics
of the past appeal so strongly to the
sense of beauty. But if the fourteenth
century in Provence was in the main Italian, the preceding century
had rather been Netherlandish ; it was a period of intense ex-

170. — KEEP OF THE CHATEAU
OF COUCY.

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

FIG. 171. — KAMl'ARTS OF DINAX.

pansion for the art of the great Flemish towns. Aix was the city of

the good King Rene, who loved painting so much that tradition has

made him a painter ; in

any case, he certainly

summoned to his court

many skilful artists, whose

acquaintance he had

perhaps made during a

forced sojourn in the Low

Countries. He sat for

them frequently ; on the

shutters of triptychs, his

painters have shown us

his coarsely modelled head

with the pendulous goitre,

and the thin face of his

wife. Many Northerners came to Aix in those days, bringing

their angular and richly attired figures to bask in the sun of
Provence. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the modest
court of the Duke of Burgundy at Moulins had also attracted
painters, who portrayed the family of the Duke, and the undulating
verdure of the Bourbonnais landscape.

In the course of the fifteenth century, however, the rich patrons
necessary for the artists of the day began to fail. Charles VII. and
Louis XI. were too much occupied ; they had to introduce order
into France ; the task of embellishing her was left to their successors.
The great feudatory princes were
Louis d'Orleans had built
the Chateau of Pierre-
fonds, his son Charles,
vanquished at Agincourt,
vegetated at Blois ; the
Due d'Anjou lost his
states one by one ; the
court of Burgundy dis-
appeared with Charles le
Temeraire.

On the other hand, an
enriched middle class was
replacing the feudal aris-
tocracy. Jouvenel des Ursins, a prelate who was the friend of
Charles VII. and Etienne Chevalier, sat to Fouquet. Jacques

gradually declining ; whereas

FIG. 172. — CHATEAU OF AI.F.N^O.N.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 173. — RAMPARTS OF VILLENEUVE-I.ES-AVIGM IN.

Cceur, Charles VII. s silversmith, built a house for himself at
Bourges which is one of the most charming examples of fifteenth

century architecture (Fig.
1 92). At about the same
period, the hospital of
Beaune (Fig. 186) was
built by order of Nicolas
Rolin, Chancellor of the
Duke of Burgundy, for
whom Jan van Eyck and
Rogier van der Weyden
painted pictures. The
middle classes gradually
came to play the part
formerly assumed by the nobles, who were ruined by the luxury of
the towns.

The artistic efflorescence of feudal civilisation was practically
confined to the fourteenth century ; its architecture dates from this
period. Before this, the castle was but a fortress ; solid walls con-
tinued the sharp acclivity, defying escalade by their height, and the
shock of projectiles by their thickness. At the time when the
Communes, directed by their bishops, were raising their learnedly
constructed churches, strongholds such as the Chateau Gaillard
(Fig. 167), which Richard Coeur-de-Lion built to close the Seine
to the King of France, were nothing but brutal obstructions of
masonry. Upon an eminence, the crest of the plateau was encircled
by walls, at the angles of
which rose towers and
keep. This keep, which
dominated the surround-
ing country in a symbolic
fashion, was the only in-
habited portion within
the narrow limits. In the
Romanesque period, it
was generally quadrangu-
lar ; in the thirteenth
century it was circular.
At Coucy, in the first half
of the thirteenth century,
the keep rose to a height of fifty-five metres, and the walls on
the ground floor were ten metres thick. Viollet-le-Duc points out

IK,. 174. — I'.M.ACE OF THE POPES AT AVIGNON.

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

1- iG. 175. Ki:i;i' i)i- Tnii

CHATEAU OK I.ANtiEAIS.

(Photo. Xciirdcin.)

that everything in this castle was on a colossal scale ; the panels

of the battlements, the steps of the staircases, the benches and

supports seem to have been constructed

for giants ; the whole is an object

lesson on feudal power ; in his donjon,

the lord of Coucy could bid defiance

to the world.

This fortress was impregnable ; but
the huge mass suffocated those whom it
protected. In the fourteenth century,
the donjon was considered a very un-
comfortable dwelling ; within the ram-
parts, houses were erected against the
walls, and the height of the curtains
was raised for their protection. The
building gradually improved ; on the
exterior, it still presented a hostile face,
with solid \valls, pierced only by narrow
loopholes ; but this sturdy outer shell
now enclosed a mansion. The graceful
fa(;ades that gave on the inner court
had large windows and spacious bal-
conies, crowned by high roofs which are seen from a distance
rising above the curtains ; here the architect was able to indulge his

Gothic fancy in decorat-
ing dormer windows and
chimneys.

For the noble, im-
prisoned in his castle, the
principal amusement was
no doubt a walk along the
barbican or covered way,
at the top of the curtains
and towers ; through the
loopholes he could con-
template from afar the
plain, the forest, the
village ; he enjoyed in
anticipation the pleasure
of a gallop in the open
country. The castle of Pierrefonds, built at the beginning of the
fifteenth century and restored by Viollet-le-Duc, shows how skilfully

I'Ki. 176.— CHA iKAu (IK •i'ii;kki;koni)s.
(Photo. Xcurdchi.)

ART IN FRANCE

IG. 177. — RAMl'ARTS OF CARCASSONNE

architects installed a palace m a fortress. It would be impossible
to tell in a few words how the offensive and defensive perfection of

the ancient castle was evolved. All
we can do is to note the principal
inventions, those which were retained,
with slight modifications, in castles
built after the feudal regime. The
wall was no longer merely obstruc-
tive ; it protected its defenders on
the summit behind battlements ; first
wooden hourds (or timber scaffolds),
and later stone machicolations sup-
ported by corbels, enabled them to
cast down projectiles upon assailants,
themselves unseen.

These walls and towers were
the precursors of the Renaissance
Chateau. Here, as in religious archi-
tecture, utility directed invention,
and an organism was constituted, an
organism both harmonious and logical, the forms of which were
destined to persist even after the feudal fortress had ceased to have
any raison d'etre ; a decorative style was evolved from the fortress,
from its towers, its battlements and its machicolations, just as Gothic
ornament developed on the initial theme of diagonal ribs supported

by arches and pillars. Of
the earlier structures, little
now remains but gutted
towers and crumbling walls
overgrown with vegeta-
tion ; all this ingenious
architecture is gradually
assuming the aspect of the
rock from which it was de-
rived. How many hill tops
of Brittany , Limousin ,
Perigord, Provence, and
Auvergne are crowned
and completed by the still
haughty silhouette of dis-
mantled fortresses ! Looking at them, we see how feudalism and
its castles were the natural products of the soil. In the Chateau of

KIC. 17b

'KA.Ml'AKTS Ol' CAKCASSONNE.

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

I-Q. — KAMTAlvl s 111 A\'ir,Ni

Bonagull, in Lot-et-Gar-
onne, built in the middle
of the fifteenth century,
the architect's chief con-
cern was to resist and to
utilise artillery. He ex-
tended the exterior de-
fences widely, and in the
lower parts of the towers,
he made apertures for the
muzzles of cannon. And
yet these proud towers,
and this donjon upon the rocky scarp, offer an insurmountable
resistance only to escalade. Powder would very soon blow this

dry masonry to fragments.
All these castles suffered
from their too intimate re-
lation to a form of society
which was not destined
to endure ; they were sub-
jected to long cannonades
from the royal artillery,
and were methodically
destroyed in the time of
Richelieu and Mazarin,
after the definitive victory
of the monarchy. Feudal
architecture had to trans-
lorm itself in order to subsist ; the castle abandoned its obsolete
organs of defence ; the smiling Renaissance palace emerged from
its shell when at last the will of the king was powerful enough
to decree that henceforth
no one should live m a
fortress.

The Communes, after
conquering their place in
feudal organisation, had to
defend it ; the burgesses
encircled their towns with
ramparts ; but these ram-
parts were to prove no ,„^ .Sl-chateau ..,. ang,.ks.
more enduring than the (Photo. Ncuydcm.)

I'IG. iSo. — VAI.KN TKl-; r.mix.F, AT CAIICil;:

(^Photo. Ncurdcin. )

ART IN FRANCE

182. — (ILI) HOUSES AT BAYEUX.

{Photo. Neurih-in.)

fortresses ; the stone girdle had
to be removed or it would
have strangled the growing com-
munity. Only some few towns,
such as Dinan (Fig. 171) and
Saint Malo in Brittany, and
Provins in the He de France, have
preserved large portions of their
ancient ramparts. But there
are three southern cities where
these are almost intact : Car-
cassonne (Figs. 1 77, 1 78),
Aigues-Mortes (Fig. 166) and
Avignon (Fig. 1 79).

Aigues-Mortes was the crea-
tion of Saint Louis and of
Philip the Bold. The kings
of France coveted an outlook
upon the Mediterranean. Hence this fortified town, rising from
the flat shore, is quite unlike the usual Acropolis. The nature of
the ground did not necessitate an elaborate plan ; the masonry is the
only eminence in the plain.
Upon this desert of sand and of
pools rises a quadrilateral struc-
ture of uniform walls flanked by
towers of equal height. The
whole has a stunted look in a
landscape the infinite lines of
which enhance the drowsy
horizontality. On all four sides
the ramparts present a solid
front of masonry, unbroken save
by narrow loopholes for the
watchful archer. The ramparts
of Aigues-Mortes constitute a
mediaeval fortification in all
its simplicity ; a very thick wall
to check the enemy, an obstruc-
tion offering no weak points for
attack, and, behind it, ingenious
hiding-places for the defenders. Here, again, a refuge was con-
trived ; the Tour Constance rises, round and solid. This massive

183. — OLD HOUSES AT ROUK.N.

{Photo. Ni-urdcht.)

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

lt)4. — AllKE SAlNT-MACLOf, Al' UdUKN.

shell of masonry encloses rooms with graceful vaults ; the wall is
honeycombed with galleries and staircases, which constitute so many
traps for the feet of the
assailant. Saint Louis and
his successors hastened to
make Carcassonne equally
impregnable when it be-
came a royal town. On
a vast, wind-swept plain
the citadel rears its
mighty bulk, dominating
the historic passage of the
Garonne into the Mediter-
ranean ; the double en-
ceinte flanked by fifty
towers encircles an abrupt
hill ; the huge flat, bare
walls, unrelieved by any accidents save the natural asperities of the
stone, are pierced with long loop holes and crowned by battlements,
the sharp outlines of which have been restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
Everything is calculated to the end of keeping a constant watch
upon the aggressor. The defenders could follow his movements

from a hundred hiding-places when
he advanced towards the gloomy
wall that betrayed no sign of life.
A walk upon these ramparts is a
crushing experience ; such a piling
up of masonry fatigues the spectator ;
the steel-grey stone adds its dull
monotony to this rude armour in
which a little town is dying, after hav-
ing suffocated in safety for centuries.
The Popes at Avignon also sur-
^ (Bt^iK^B^^^^H : rounded their pleasant town \s'ith

m B'iSHBHHRi^ military defences. But here the

ramparts do not constitute a prison.
Above the low walls, surmounted
by strongly projecting battlements,
the town can contemplate the Rhone
and the sun-bathed rock of Ville-
The palace of the Popes bears no resemblance to the
of the French nobles, it has neither round towers nor

85. — IKITKI. Dli Vll.l.i;, AT
SAINT-OUENTIN.

neuve.
castles

ART IN FRANCE

^^^1

^ ^^^^H

-COURT OK JHE HOTEL-DIEU AT BEAUNE.

keeps. Lofty blocks of i buildings enclose two' quadrangular courts.
But their towering walls are also defences ;: the huge buttresses
which reinforce them are
united at the top by
pointed arches, which form
machicolations. Fortresses
were numerous in the
domain of King Rene ;
they can bear the proxi-
mity of the magnificent
Roman rums. The same
radiant light gilds the rude
relics of feudal days, and
the splendid buildings of
antiquity, triumphal arch
and battlemented donjon,
the successive structures which civilisation extracted from the same
Provencal limestone. Meanwhile civil architecture was evolved in
the towns ; in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the burgesses
began to instal themselves in comfortable dwellings behind the pro-
tecting ramparts. They varied greatly according to the character

of the locality ; the general style of
the habitation indicated the differ-
ence between the France d'oil and
the France doc, just as did the
language of the two regions. In
the south the predominant type
was the flat-roofed building, of well
cut stone ; in the north the house
was built of light materrals and
crowned with a high, pointed roof ;
it was to some extent the difference
of style between Romanesque and
Gothic. A few Romanesque houses
still subsist, the round-arched
windows of which recall the
Gallo- Roman type ; in certain
centres of Romanesque art, such
as Cluny, Montferrand, and Saint
Gilles, we may still see houses of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. At Cordes (Tarn) very
nearly an entire street of this period is intact ; in this civilisation,

FIG. 187. — HOTEL DE VILLE AT
CUiMPlfecNE.

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

which had retained the municipal traditions of decorum derived
from the Roman occupation, solid blocks of freestone were still the

customary materials for

buildmg. A Romanesque
house at Saint-Antonin,
with a square belfry, recalls
the communal palaces of
the old Tuscan towns ;
delicate little columns with
carved capitals form a
graceful gallery in the
first storey ; the Roman-
esque builders always loved
to insert an elaborate piece

f 1 . • . r KK.. iSS. — CHATEAU oV Jt'.sSELl.N.

or sculpture into a mass or

somewhat rude masonry. The open ground-floor served as a
market for traders, and a shady refuge in which to breathe the
open air.

The northern towns have preserved no civil buildings so ancient ;
erected at a later date of municipal civilisation, the more active
life of colder latitudes wore them out and renewed them several
times ; northern urban dwellings date back no farther than the
fifteenth century. At this period houses were built with a wooden
framework, the ground-floor alone being of masonry ; the upper
storeys were of light

materials, upheld by a
skeleton of beams arranged
in the form of the letter
X or N. Sometimes the
houses widened at every
storey ; large windows
opened on to the street,
which gradually contracted
as the building rose from
storey to storey ; the whole
was covered by an over-
hanging roof ; a gable gave
the fa<;ade that pointed
silhouette dear to the
Gothic architect. The
man of the fifteenth century could provide a cheap decoration for
his house by carving grotesques on the projecting beams of the

-HOTRI. I)E CI.LNY, I'ARIS.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 190. — PALAIS DE JUSTICE, ROUEN.

facade ; within, also, the wood was carved and painted. The
whole house was like the work of a cabinet-maker. The town

mansions {hotels) were ar-
ranged like the interiors of
feudal dwellings ; Jacques
Coeur's house at Bourges
(Fig. 192), the Hdtel de
Sens, and the house of the
Abbots of Cluny in Paris
(Fig. 1 89), are the unforti-
fied dwellings of great
nobles in a town. Like
the castle, the facade of
the house giving on the
court has become gay and
hospitable. It is generally separated from the street by a block of
buildings, and sometimes merely by a battlemented wall, which
masks the whole. The visitor who wishes to admire the graceful
structure must pass through a low doorway in the wall. In the
course of the fourteenth century, civil architecture adopted more
and more generally the square, casement window, to which an
arched hood moulding was sometimes applied. Pointed windows
were reserved for religious buildings. A turret sometimes detaches
itself from the body of the building, crowned with a belfry ; it
contains a spiral staircase, and its oblique openings reveal the steps ;
these little projecting towers were long a favourite motive of French
architects ; the one which
Raymond du Temple built
in Charles V.'s Louvre
was famous until the Re-
naissance.

In the Royal Domain,
town-halls made their
appearance very late ; the
towns did not attain to the
municipal power of the
cities of Flanders, and the
cathedrals were often used
for political gatherings.
Notre-Dame-de-Paris had
not been built very long before its vaults resounded with the
furious invectives hurled against the Pope by an agent of Philip

I'ALAIS UE JUSTICE, BEAUVAIS.

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

IC)'_'. — JACCIUES Cllvlk S

i;oui«;es.
{Pilot 0. Ni-iirdt-iii.)

the Fair, before the States General. However, urban administra-
tion soon required a house for the despatch of business. It is more

especially in the towns of the north,

rich cities which were brought into

contact with Flemish life and

manners, that the town-halls have a

really original character, with the

elaborate decoration proper to the

luxury of commercial civilisation, and

the enormous communal bell-towers,

haughtier than feudal donjons. On

the ground-floor, as at Saint-Quentin

(Fig. 185), and Arras, was an open

gallery ; on the upper storeys,

windows described a graceful curve,

in the latest style of Gothic, and

sometimes, as at Samt-Quentin, a

row of gables crowned the faqade ;

they formed a circle together with

the gables of private houses, round

the great Place. The Town-Hall

of Compiegne (Fig. 187), on the other hand, is very different in

aspect ; it is built in the style which was evolved in the heart of

France after the Hundred Years War, a style more akin to the

massive architecture of feudal times. Like the Hotel de Cluny, and

Jacques Coeur's house, it
is a graceful and soberly-
decorated building, not,
like the town-halls of
Flanders, open to the
passer-by, and permitting
the seething life of the
town to penetrate under
Its vaults, but more akin
to a CIVIC hall under a
powerful monarchy, where
public functions conferred
a kind of nobility, and
where an equestrian statue
of the king was proudly

enshrined. The Rouen Palace of Justice shows the wealth of

graceful ornament Gothic architecture could lavish on a fa(;;ade.

ig3. — FiKRi'i.Acr; in ihk ck-eat hai.l of iiik
I'Ai.Ais DK lusTicK, i'orni:i;s.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 194.-

-CLOISTIiK Ol'- THE MUS^E DES AUGUSTINS,
AT TOULOUSE.

Superb mouldings enframe the wide windows. Between these,
buttresses, recessed for statues, mount to the dormer-windows, over

which they throw flying
buttresses, and on the lofty
roof the stone turns and
curls in an exuberant
florescence of pinnacles
and pierced gables (Fig.
190).

At the close of the
Middle Ages, the types
of civil architecture, man-
sion and town-hall in
particular, as they were
to continue after the Re-
naissance, were definitely
fixed. The renovation of
architecture went no further than decoration ; the recessed buttresses
were replaced by pilasters, and the gables by pediments. The
mouldings which overrun a Gothic facade capriciously, like the
branches of an old vine-creeper, were disciplined and transformed
into delicate bas-reliefs ; but the building was not disturbed in the
logic of its organism.

The men of the fourteenth century had practically ceased to
build cathedrals ; the great effort of technical invention was draw-
ing to an end, and the mystic impulse was arrested ; but the Gothic
style continued to live,
without renewing itself.
The general forms of the
building took on a more
precise elegance, and
ornament continued to
grow richer.

The Gothic style of the
fourteenth century was
more methodical than that
of the reign of Philip
Augustus. In the transi-
tion from the west porches
of Notre-Dame-de-Paris,
to the north and south porches built by Jean de Chelles, we see the
architect more and more intent on precision of design ; he developes
I, 98

FIG. 195.

-CLOISTEK OF LA CHALSi;-UIEU.
(Photo Neurdein.')

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

-XA\E (II'- SAINT-UURN,
KOUEN.

the decorative theme of a door or a
rose-window with easy mastery ;
facades acquire a precise and regu-
lar elegance, not without coldness.
The admirable nave of Saint Ouen,
at Rouen (Fig. 196), due to a
single uninterrupted effort on a
well-defined plan, is impeccable in
style and somewhat chilly in effect.
The masses of the architecture,
walls and pillars, the wide windows
with three mullions and roses, have
the purity of a fine architectural
drawing.

The term Rayonnant (radiating)
IS applied in France to that chast-
ened and correct style which came
into vogue when architects substituted decorative research for
mechanical problems. The resulting modifications affected every
part of the building. The inert elements which remained in the
masonry were eliminated ; windows were enlarged, pillars were

transformed into a sheaf of slender
columns ; the profiles of mouldings
became sharper ; the tnfonum was
diminished or disappeared alto-
gether, to give more impetus to the
soaring vertical lines. Y\\e ]{ayon-
nant style carried elegance to the
extreme point compatible \\'ith the
solidity of the building. To decor-
ate this somewhat puny ossature
and drape this nudity, architects
added a quantity of ornamental
amenities : the mullions of the en-
larged windows were elaborated,
and formed roses ; the pierced and
pointed gables of doorways made
a rigid lacework against the sky ;
buttresses were crowned with
pinnacles ; spears of stone or metal
bristled on every summit ; towers arose, with sharp spires flanked
by belfries ; the stone was hollowed and reduced, carried towards

99 n 2

FIG. 197.— N.WK IlK THE CATIIEDKAI. (IF
AI.EN^ON.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 198. — CATHEDRAL OF SEXS.

{Fhofo. Nnn-iia'n.)

the zenith by an Impulse common to
the whole buildmg.

Thus Gothic architecture con-
tinued to enrich itself, even after its
creative force was spent ; the cathe-
dral IS an organism which could go
on indefinitely receiving new mem-
bers and ornaments ; the porch
could always be crowned by a
gable ; the facade could always be
flanked by towers ; each tower
could always have its spire. Even
the plan of the building allows of
additions. At Rouen, the body of
the cathedral disappears among the
limbs that have been attached to it,
between the two towers added to
its facade, the Portail des Libraires
and the Portail de la Calende, which give monumental decorations
to the two extremities of the transept, the Lady Chapel which in-
creases the depth of the apse, and finally the enormous spire which
surmounts the lantern.

The cathedrals left unfinished at the
close of the thirteenth century were
not, however, abandoned. But the
master-builder who resumed the work,
concerned himself little with the inten-
tions of the original architect. He
never identified himself with the initial
design ; his interest was confined to
the part on which he was working,
faqade, tower, spire, porch, or chapel.
Thus the construction of churches was
not carried on throughout the cen-
turies after the fashion of a theorem
taken up again at the point where it
was interrupted. Each epoch brought
its particular style ; certain cathedrals
record the whole history of French
architecture. The facade of Tours
enables us to follow the various styles of France in their rapid
succession. As it rises from the ground, its Gothic decoration

100

u;. 199.

-I'OKCH OF SAINT-MACLOU,
AT KOUEN.

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

gradually turns into Renaissance ornament ;
two towers, which set out to end in spires,
terminate in round lanterns, in the Italian
manner. The facade of Angers begins a
similar evolution with Romanesque elements.
The cathedral of Rodez (Figs. 207, 208)
continues the avatars of French architecture
even after the Renaissance. The building
rises from the ground severe and massive, but
as it ascends it blossoms into ornamental detail ;
at the second storey of the tower the solid
wall begins to be pierced and carved, and the
ribs to ramify with an exuberance which
the solid forms of a rigorous geometry sup-
port. The actual faqade superposes styles
that bring us to the middle of the seventeenth
century. Neo-classical architects added a
facade in the so-called Jesuits' Style at the
top : two antique " orders crowned by a
pediment ; to complete the cathedral, a reduc-
tion of the Val-de-Grace or the Sorbonne
was perched on the summit.

The interior decoration of cathedrals is no less receptive

l-'IG. 200. — Sl'lUAL

STAIKCASE AT

SAINT-MACI OU, KdUT-X.

still goes on towards completion to
the present day. The fourteenth,
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries
enriched the naves with curiously
wrought rood screens, which were
destroyed in the eighteenth century,

i- - ifJfc<|B[| P^i They gave the choir carved wooden
i »i^HHi^^B stalls of incredible richness; they

surrounded it with a sculptured
gallery. In the seventeenth cen-
tury, marble altars were set up at
the bases of pillars, with columns
and pediment enframing a large
picture in the Bolognese manner.
The eighteenth century added its
graceful screens of hammered iron,
which reveal a certain affinity
between the caprices of the Flamboyant and the Rococo Styles.
The architects of the fifteenth century had long lost the habit of

101

!'l<;. 20I. — SOUTH I'OKCH OF
SAINT-RliMI, KEl.MS.
(/Vtofo. CoillliK.r.)

ART IN FRANCE

I'K;. 202. — SOUTH PORCH OF THK
CHURCH OF I.OUVIF.RS.

203.

-CHURCH OF LA TRINITE,
VENDOME.

vast enterprises. They loved to elaborate a portion of a building ;
they displayed their skill in the treatment of stone, which they
carved like wood and twisted like iron. When, after the agitations

of the Hundred Years War building was
resumed, pointed architecture blossomed
for half a century into the Flamboyant
style.^

It may have been an importation from
England. It is even less monumental,
even more exclusively decorative than the
Rayonnant style of the fourteenth century,
for it turned every organ of the Gothic
building into ornament. Nevertheless, it
did not violate the principles of this archi-
tecture ; it merely carried them a little
beyond their logical consequences, piercing
the solids, dividing the vital forces of the
masonry. Tympana became concave, and
were covered with a perfect network of
tracery ; towers sprang skyward, with no
solid supporting walls, by means of little
superposed pinnacles and flying buttresses ;
stone fillets became more numerous, more

FIG. 204. — RIGHT UOOK,

FACADE OF NOTRE-DAME,

MANTES.

(_Fhoto. Nan-dcin.)

^ The English form of this evolution is known as Perpendicular.

102

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

I-'IG. 205. — SOUTH I'OKlll 111' rilli
CATHEDRAL OF AI.l'.l.

and
and

delicate, and more involved. in
the enlarged windows the mullions
multiplied, and were united by
curves analogous to the aspirmg
flicker of flames. The rose-wmdows
at Sens leave an impression of
fatigue and bedazzlement on the
retina ; the restless, quivering forms
carry away the eye on their capri-
cious undulations, and offer it no
single quiet line on which to rest.
In the same manner the simplicity
of the great arches in the ogival
vault is elaborated into complexity ;
these arches bifurcate and ramify
into Hemes (summit ribs) and tierce-
rons (intermediate ribs) ; purely
decorative ribs accompany them

with their fanciful curves, as in the Cathedral of Moulins,
Saint Nizier at Lyons ; the stone branches become more
more tangled.

Occasionally, architects allow the key or boss of the vault to
hang down like a stalactite, and this
projecting stone seems to have no-
thing to sustain it ; it is a capital
without a pillar, a point of support
for the ascending ribs, as in the
Portail des Marmousets at Rouen,
the rood-screen of Albi, and that of
the Madeleine at Troyes.

These refinements reveal an archi-
tecture more subtle than vigorous.
The Flamboyant style produced

many marvels, chapels, towers,

porches, the lantern-tower of Avioth

in the Meuse, the porch of St.

Maclou at Rouen (Fig. 199), Jean

Texier's belfry at Chartres, and at

Beauvais, the transept porches built

by Martin Chambiges. At Albi,

the last of the Gothic architects have laid a porch, light and

delicate as a piece of lace or goldsmith's work, against the side

103

IIG. .206. — CIIOIK-SCUICKN OI' TllK
CATIIEDKAl. OI' AI.l'.l.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 207.

-TOWER OF THE CATHEUKAl.
OF KODEZ.

of the brick fortress (Fig. 205).
But Flamboyant Gothic raised no
superb cathedral. The vigour of the
structure was no longer concentrated
in a few robust and sturdy trunks,
as in the days of the great cathe-
drals ; it was dispersed in tortuous
branches ; the lofty groves of early
Gothic were transformed into dense
thickets. The great Gothic period
had exhausted invention in sculpture
as in architecture. But sculpture
can live by imitation ; once de-
tached from the architecture which
had hitherto dominated it, it followed,
in the course of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, a peculiar evo-
lution, independent of all decorative

considerations, and intent on the creation of forms more realistic

or more mannered.

The favourite motive was the figure of the Virgin. The image

of the Mother, standing, and hold-
ing in her arms the Child Jesus,
naturally multiplied. We find it
not only on the altars of her in-
numerable chapels and in private
oratories, but at street-corners,
shehered in litde niches, and en-
shrined in the walls of houses under
her protection. The attitude and
general aspect had been fixed in
the thirteenth century : the Virgin
of Paris, of Amiens, and of Reims,
is a gracious queen smiling at her
child. But when she descended
from her pedestal and became a
statuette, the Virgin partook more
of the nature of common humanity.
The men of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries loved her best in

her character of mother ; when she was shown smiling at the

gambols of her infant, prayer might without impropriety become

104

FIG. 208. — WEST FRONT OF THE
CATHEDRAL OF RODEZ,

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

familiar, and poor folks spoke heart
to heart to this Virgin who inspired
no awe.

These images of stone, wood, or
ivory were not all fashioned by
expert hands ; the goodwill of the
craftsman was not always crowned
by success ; the humble artisan
was careful to preserve the type
created by the great " imagiers," but
he often omitted the finer gradations,
and exaggerated particular features.
The date of a mediaeval Virgin may
always be approximately fixed by the
drapery ; it was only very exception-
ally that the Gothic sculptors treated
the nude ; the design of the folds
characterises each phase of their
statues in trailing robes. In the thir-
teenth century the drapery was sti

IIG. 20g. — FKAGMENT OF THE STATLli
OF CHARLES V.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

somewhat summary ; later
sculptors treated the folds of gowns as they
treated the lines of the architecture ; they made
them smaller and more graceful, and took
pleasure in elaborating them. In the time of
Charles V. it was customary to pile up on the
Virgin's hip a mass of fluted pleats forming
rounded volutes. By the end of the century,
these draperies, though they had not been
•— -— simplified, had lost their somewhat conventional
11* '^ll stiffness. They then fell to the ground, and
piled their deep and multitudinous convolutions
round the feet. This was an outcome of pre-
vailing fashions. It was the period of very
long dresses, of ample slashed cloaks, such as
we see in illuminated manuscripts, wrapping
nobles and citizens at the courts of the Dukes
of Berry or Burgundy. The small Virgins,
sometimes very coarsely carved, are lost, as it
were, in a tangle of draperies, among which
it is difficult to discern their attitudes. The
sculptors of the thirteenth century had slightly inflected their figures
to modify their hieratic stiffness : the weight of the body was

105

FIG. 2IO. — CHAKLFS V.

FROM THE CHAl'EL OF

THE CI5lESTINS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

HG 211. — ISAlJIiAU Uli BAVIKKli
TOMU AT SAINT-DENIS.

thrown on one hip, and this easy
attitude cast the drapery into grace-
ful oblique folds. But, although
in nude figures like those of Praxi-
teles, or figures very slightly veiled,
this movement of the hip is per-
fectly sufficient, it becomes barely
perceptible when the body is
swathed m heavy draperies. The
popular "imagiers" accordingly em-
phasised this gesture till it became
caricature. At the middle of the
fifteenth century, their Virgins con-
tort themselves amidst involved
draperies. It was not until the
close of the century that they re-
covered their grace and simplicity.
The work of the Gothic " imagiers " was reproduced in small by

the ivory-workers. Their statuettes are exact reproductions of the

great stone figures. If all the stone figures had perished, we might

have followed the traditional treatment of the Virgin from the

thirteenth to the fifteenth century in the ivories. Our Lady was,

in fact, the favourite motive of the workers

in ivory. Her image multiplied and was dis-
seminated, in like manner as her worship.

At first she was represented as at Pans,

Amiens, and Reims, a gracious figure with

half-closed eyes and a slight smile on her thin

lips. In the course of the fourteenth century,

ivory figures follow the evolution of stone

statues, and we can only date them by the

chronology of parallel works of great sculpture.

We note that mannerism is on the increase ;

the folds of the robes become complicated,

and the general aspect is one of a somewhat

affected grace ; later on, the figure became

heavy, and the delicate material was unable

to translate the robust realism of the fifteenth

century.

The ivory-workers did not confine them-
selves to the imitation of stone statues ; they

also transposed the effects of the miniaturists,

106

l-Ui. 212. — JEANNE DE

liDURBON, KHOM THE

CHAPEL OF THE

CIti.ESTINS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

graving delicate reliefs upon ivory plaques
which form diptychs and tnptychs. In
the centre is the Virgin, the little Gothic
queen smiling at her child, attended by
chubby angels in flowing robes. The
shutters are decorated with numbers of
little pictures in which the ivory-worker,
following the taste of the century, has
compressed the history of Jesus into the
space of a few centimetres. The scenes
are enframed in miniature columns and
pointed arches sur-
mounted by gables, an
elaborate architectural
setting, which invites
comparison with the
miniatures m the Psalter
of Saint Louis. The

TK;. 213. — SAINT MAUKICE.

(Orleans Museum.)

French ivory-workers, like the French illumina-
tors, excelled in adapting " histories, ingenious
attitudes, expressive faces, and sinuous draperies
to the limits of their little Gothic compart-
ments.

FIc;. 214. — FIGUKF. OF
A KING.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

During the four-
teenth century, statu-
ary gradually achieved
portraiture ; this was
the natural evolution
of an art that had be-
come both more inde-
pendent and richer in
technique. It was also a result of the
new conditions ; the artists were in the
service of great nobles, who raised their
own monuments during their life-time.
From the reign cf Saint Louis, the kings
of France had their own images and
those of their ancestors carved upon
their tombs in Saint Denis ; the Dukes
of Burgundy at Dijon, the Duke of
Berry at Bourges, the Dukes of Bour-
bon at Souvigny, the Popes at Avignon

107

FIG. 215. — SAINT MICHAEL
< >V EKO >.M I NG S.\ r.\ N.

(Musce des .Vugustiiis,
Toulouse.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 217. — SAINT FORTUNADE ;

CHUKCH OF SAINTE-FORTUNADF.

(CORIifeZE).

did the same. Their sepulchral effigies
show them recumbent, their hands folded
in prayer, their feet resting on heraldic
beasts such as dogs or lions.

In the time of Saint Louis, busts were
not, as yet, portraits ; the costumes only
seem to have been accurately rendered ;
the round, inexpressive faces, modelled
with very little character, are lifeless,
in spite of a vague indication of a smile.
For a long time the sculptors of gisants
(recumbent figures)
had been content to
lay the same figures
they had been in
the habit of erecting
against pillars in ca-
thedral porches flat
upon a marble slab.

They made no change in the design of the
draperies ; the fluted parallel folds were still
retained, as if the weight, continuing to be
exercised in the length of the body, had be-

come horizontal

with the latter.
At Saint Denis,
Philip VI and
Charles V sleep
thus, wrapped in
a sheaf of rigid
folds like the flut-

KIG. 216 — SILVER-GII.T

VIRGIN FROM THE
TREASURY OF SAINT-
DENIS.

n he Louvre, Paris.)

21S. — IIIE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

(Mu.see cles Augustins,
Toulouse. )

ings of an overthrown column, and
the cushion under the head is the
sole indication that the sculptor in-
tended to represent a recumbent figure.
At the end of the fourteenth century,
however, good sense corrected a fashion
that lacked any justification ; the folds
fell on the slab, clinging to the rigid
corpse and suggesting its outlines.

Among the artistic centres created
by the luxury of kings and great

108

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

IC. 219. — FIGURE OF THIC MAGDALEN.
(Clu.iy ^[useiim, Paris.)

feudatories, Dijon was the one which
showed most activity and splendour,
and the ancient capital of the Dukes
of Burgundy still preserves the
sculptured masterpieces of this
second Gothic period. This Bur-
gundian art appeared and disap-
peared with the power of the
Dukes ; it was the result of a bril-
liant political phase rather than
of ethnical characteristics. It is
to be explained by the position of a
feudal family and its suzerainty over
the Netherlands. The wealthy
cities of Flanders, reservoirs of
skilled craftsmen, had furnished
painters and sculptors for the Pans
of Charles V and Charles VI,
before providing them for the Dijon of Philip the Good.
During the first half of the fifteenth century Paris was in a state
of anarchy, and in the hands of the English, and Burgundy
alone was able to profit by the labours of Flemish craftsmen.

At the Carthusian monastery of
Champmol, near Dijon, where masses
were continually to be said for the
repose of their souls, the Dukes of
Burgundy caused the most powerful
works of the Middle Ages in their de-
cline to be executed by the Dutchman,
Claus Sluter (d. 1 406) and his succes-
sors. These sculptures have been pre-
served. In the porch of the church
(now destroyed) a Virgin upon the
central pillar of the doorway reveals
the hand of a master on the threshold.
The bold chisel that carved it has given
it robust vitality, and has decked it with
abundant and complicated draperies ;
but in the midst of the welter of folds
the vigorous body indicates certain
simple movements (Fig. 224). On
either side she is flanked by Philip the

109

Fir,. 220. — FKILKE OF A QUEEN

AT THE PALAIS 1)E JUSTICE,

rOITIEUS.

{rho/o. Ulicusciinni.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 221. — Al'OSTLE, FROM
THE ABBEY OF RIEUX.

(Museum of Toulouse.)

Bold, his wife, Margaret of Flanders, and their
patrons ; the faces are strongly characterised,
the attitudes natural, the draperies flowing and
supple. All this vigour makes the art, which
a few years earlier erected the puny Charles V
of the Celestins, appear timid and poverty-
stricken. For this same Philip the Bold, Claus
Slater decorated the well of the monastery with
sculptures, grouping six prophets round it :
Moses, David, Jeremiah, Zachariah, Daniel,
and Isaiah ; each holds
the phylactery on which
is inscribed his pre-
diction of the sufferings
of Christ. The monu-
ment was dominated by
a Calvary : Jesus on the
Cross, the Virgin, the
Magdalen and St. John ;
all that remains of this is the head of Christ, a
marvellous head of suffering majesty. In this
work, mutilated as it is, an energy very rare
in history finds expression ; this art was the

final outcome of a
naturalistic progress ; it
was anterior to that
classic discipline which
was soon to curb
violence, and force the
wildest accents to take

on harmony. In the time of Claus Sluter no
scruple, no desire for beauty or correctness,
kept the passion of the sculptor within bounds ;
enormous heads are set on squat bodies.
Among the deep folds, the sinuosities and
breaks of the tormented draperies, the bodies
are hardly indicated ; but the boldly-carved
faces, hollow, ravaged and wrinkled, reveal
individualities of unforgettable vigour. The
colour which once overlay these brutal forms
gave an appearance of reality to the aged
vociferous heads. It is not often that the

inc. 222. — APOSTLE, FROM
THE ABIiF.Y OF KIEUX.

(Museum of Toulouse.)

FIG. 223. — Al'OSTLE, FKO.M
THE ABBEY OF HIEUX.

(Museum of Toulouse.)

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

111,. 224. — ci.Ats siA i'l-:i;. Dooi;,
AUBEY OK CHAMPMOL, NEAR UIJON.

(Photo. Kfiinfcin.)

exigencies of the subject, the ten-
dencies of local art, and the genius
of the artist so combine to create
works harmonious even in their
violence. Never again was such
savage energy to be found on French
soil, save in the case of genius in
revolt.

The Burgundian power was
shattered before all the great works
projected by the Dukes had been
carried out. The most brilliant
among them, Philip the Good, never
had his tomb ; but for his predeces-
sors, Philip the Bold and John the
Fearless, two marvels of architecture
and sculpture were executed ; they
are the work of several artists. The
second of these monuments was not finished till 1470, by the
Avignonnais, Antoine le Moituner. On a wide base of black
marble, an elaborately carved gallery
of alabaster shelters a whole world of
mourners (plcuranls), who clamour
under the intricacies of the delicate
arcades. Above, on spacious slabs,
with sharp cornices, the recumbent
figures (gisanh) lie wrapped in long
Court mantles ; winged angels bend
over their heads, supporting helmet or
coat of arms. The mourners who
circulate beneath the funereal slabs of
the Dukes of Burgundy, and who
were also to be seen round the tomb
of the Duke of Berry, are the
members of the family, and the Court
officials in mourning dress, as they
figured at the obsequies. Their
bodies are lost in their voluminous
robes with their heavy, broken folds.
The coarse stuffs and the hidden
faces suggest grief more solemnly than any facial contortions (Figs.
230, 232).

1 IC. 225. — CI.ALS Sl.L'llii;. ISAIAH

AM) MOSKS. WKI.L OK THE rKOI'HEIS

AliliEY OK ClIAMI'MOl., NliAR

DIJON.

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 226. — CI.AUS SLUTER.

ZACHARIAH AND DANIEL. WELL

OF THE PROPHETS, DIJON.

Nevertheless, the Dijon sculptors
did not always exploit the full pathetic
force of these tragic statuettes. La
Huerta and Le Moiturier even treated
them familiarly, and gave a comic
touch to their vulgar gestures. Some
years later, at the end of the fifteenth
century, we find these small alabaster
figures very vigorously developed on
the tomb of Philippe Pot (Fig. 232) ;
the Gothic gallery that enframed them
in the earlier tombs has disappeared ;
the architectural decoration is replaced
by statuary. The slab on which
Philippe Pot reclines in armour, rests
heavily on the shoulders of eight
sinister mourners swathed in heavy
gowns, the hoods of which are drawn
over their heads, and walking with
measured steps. This expressive violence marks the close of
mediaeval sculpture. Before the period of a difficult and nicely
adjusted science, a good workman, well inspired, yet without any
subtleties of technique, was capable of striking home rudely, and of
achieving the pathetic with a vigour
that was finally to disappear from art.
The effect was attained in spite of —
perhaps indeed to some extent by
means of — the summary execution.

Gothic architecture had killed the
mural painting dear to the Roman-
esque artists. It had virtually sup-
pressed wall-space ; the figures and
scenes of Christian iconography had
been transported to the windows.
What mural fresco could have com-
peted with these pictures from which
the living light streamed forth ? But
glass-painting was subject to a tech-
nique too special, and dominated by
restrictions too severe, to become
more than an exquisite decoration,
and to blossom into a realistic art.

VIC,. 227. — CLAUS SLUTEK.

MOSES AND DAVID. WELL OK THE

PROPHETS DIJON

112

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

Fl<;. 228. — VAMC OI'-
TIIE CHATEAU OK LUDE.

The theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries may have
suggested new episodes and ingenious symbols to the glass-painters ;
they did not insist that the workman should
imitate living forms and natural colours. Thus
we find that the figures on glass retain the
emaciated forms, the knotted and twisted lines
of Romano-Byzantine design, long after these
had been discarded in sculpture. It is not
here that we must look for the realistic effort
which corresponds, in the chromatic arts, to
that which had revived the dry bones of
sculpture. In Italy, mural painting, encouraged
rather than restricted by architecture, awoke
to life at the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury in the work of Giotto. In the countries
of Gothic art, it was the pages of the illu-
minated manuscripts which prepared the
efflorescence of painting.

Miniature painting had never ceased to be
practised by the monks of the Middle Ages ;
but in the thirteenth century a new style began
to develope, inspired, apparently, by the art of the sculptors and
glass-painters. There is more than one striking analogy between
the little figures of the Psalter of Saint Louis and the saints which

were carved by contem-
porary sculptors. The
harsh drawing of an
earlier period had be-
come suppler and more
delicate, and the illu-
minators of the thirteenth
century, renouncing the
dryness of the Benedic-
tine miniatures, were
roused to emulation by
the splendour of the
Gothic painted windows.
Their pages glow with
pure colours, reds and
blues, with no intermix-
ture to break or deaden them ; the gold-leaf against which the little
figures are relieved gleams from every page, and as we turn the

113 I

l-'li;. 229. — TOMUS OK I'lllLiri'lO I.K lIAKm AM)
JEAN SANS I'EL'K.

(Museum, Hijon.) {P/mtc. Nciirtfciii.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 230. —

A MOURNKR ON

THE TOMli OK

THK DUKE OF

HERUY.

(Museum,

liourges.)

^—^^^— leaves, it sparkles like the painted window of some

^^]j]^| dim chapel. In several cases the framework of the

^^^^ vignettes recalls the design of a Gothic wmdow and

its radiating mullions. It was the Parisian illummators

of the thirteenth century who first attempted to fix

this gem-like painting on parchment.

But the illuminator could not rest content with the
conventional design of the
glass-painter. Even in the
Psalter of Saint Louis, the
figures are easy and life-
like, with a dainty vivacity
akin to the quality we
find in the album of Villard
de Honnecourt. This ar-
chitect of the middle of
the thirteenth century
draws with a free pen,
and traces sinuous figures draped in
supple robes. It is true that his anatomy
and his perspective are defective ; these
are weaknesses which are very frequent
in the plastic art of mediaeval times. But
he can already make his little figures
move gaily ; they have cast off the
Byzantine ankylosis. In the Psalter of Saint Louis, and in the best
manuscripts of the close of the thirteenth century, we even find

upon the faces the keen
smile of certain contem-
porary sculptures. Fol-
lowing in the wake of the
" imagiers," the illumin-
ators gradually become
masters of the suggestion
of life.

Throughout the four-
teenth century, this con-
quest was rapidly pur-
sued ; most of the minia-
turists worked in Pans ;
they were very various
in origin, many of them

FIG. 231. — CLAUS Sl-UTER.

CHRIST FROM THE WELL OF

THE I'RorHETS.

(Archaeological ISIuseum,
Dijou.)

232. — TOMB OF THILirrE I'OT.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

1 IC. 2j!3. LANii.N ri;ANi\(,.

(Figure on a Tomb, Museum

of l,e Mans.) (Early x\uli

century)

coming from the northern provinces ; but

they all adopted the same style in the royal

city. Their workshops laid the foundations

of the glorious painting of the fifteenth

century. The evolution is obscure, because

its manifestations are contained in numerous

manuscripts which have been dispersed far

and wide. But we can readily trace the

progress made. First of all, the illuminators

abandoned their decorative convention for

realistic endeavour. Their miniatures are

less suggestive of painted glass and more

akin to life ; the lines lose their harshness,

and discard the leaden outline which

encircled the figures of coloured windows ;

the colours sacrifice something of their

splendour and purity in favour of modelling.

The gold backgrounds are modified, and

finally disappear altogether ; elements of

landscape are introduced, the sky and the ground, blue and green.

The painter is about to study nature.

The contemporaries of Charles V were able to recognise certain

aspects of their times when they turned over the leaves of a manu-
script. The illuminators were no longer Benedictines in cells, but

laymen at large ; their eyes were wide open to men and things.

They lived near the Porte Saint-Denis, and led joyous lives, if we

are to believe Christine de Pisan.
They were able to depict Charles V
receiving manuscripts ; they also
added familiar scenes and figures of
the streets to the usual iconography,
and mingled contemporary anecdotes
with traditional narrative. If the
perspective of these small pictures is
still conventional, it is at least intel-
ligible ; the miniaturist has little
sense of composition ; but his dis-
connected juxtapositions abound
in delightfully observed episodes,

from which it is easy to deduce Parisian life in the time of

Charles V.

The appearance of landscape reveals a novel conception of

115 I 2

1 li;. 234.- AKISTnll.lC AND CAMI'ASli;.

(Cathedral, Lyons.)

ART IN FRANCE

235-

-STATU K OF ANTOINETTE
DE FONTETTE.

(Museum, Dijon.) (xvnh century.)
(P/iofo. de Beaii7-egarii.')

painting. After they had re-
nounced their gold backgrounds,
the illuminators painted their little
figures upon a ground of soft
verdure, and under a sky of cloud-
less blue. At the close of the
fourteenth century these summary
indications became richer and
more precise. Books of Hours
figure very frequently among the
manuscripts, their opening pages
consisting of an illustrated calendar
of the months. These illustra-
tions, which had long been tradi-
tional, represent the occupations
of humanity, and more especially
work in the fields. The sculp-
tors were content to show the
attitudes of reaper, vintager and
sower. When the illuminators

had to set a landscape behind these little figures, they had to

learn to distinguish the seasons by the colour of the sky and the

appearance of plants. In the time of Charles V the landscapes of

the miniaturists showed these

distinctions, though they still

relied upon certain conven-
tions. The most famous of

the manuscripts of this period,

the " Very Rich Hours of

the Duke of Berry," was

illuminated for this prince by

three artists from Limburg

(1416). They enlivened their

landscapes by representations

of the castles of the royal

house. Seated in his arm-
chair, the old Duke, as he

turned over his Hours, could

travel in spirit from Poitiers to

Mehun-sur-Yevre, from Vin-

cennes to the Louvre or

the Palais de la Cite. This

FIC. 236. — IVORY TKU'TVCH OF Till! .\1VTH
CENTURY.

(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

116

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

extraordinary work gives a vivid
picture of the France of those days :
the people at their work, the nobles
hunting and riding, and on the
heights, dominating the plain where
the peasant sows or reaps, wonderful
castles which have now disappeared,
the last of the feudal dwellings, in
which the gnmness of the old
fortresses was relieved by Gothic
fantasy. These modest little pic-
tures have an engaging freshness
which they owe to the lightness of
the medium — thin body colour on
parchment. Their fragile art gives
an air of graceful minuteness to the
world It represents. No doubt these
castles, decorated like shrines, these great nobles, furred like cats
and variegated as popinjays, are faithful reproductions. But con-
temporary architecture and sculpture evoke a civilisation very much
rougher.

Illumination was not the sole kind of painting in use at the end of
the fourteenth century. Certain artists were working in tempera on
wooden panels. They hardly did more than amplify the little com-
positions of the miniaturists. These illuminators on a large scale

lack vigour ; certain hap-

)-. — ui;iis.si-;i;, xvmi cicmlk
(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

pily inspired details show
delicacy of observation ;
but over-softness of colour
and the abuse of gold im-
pede the victorious pro-
gress of Malouel, Belle-
chose and Broederlam,
all those Netherlandish
artists who worked for
the Dukes of Burgundy
(Figs. 242, 244).

It was at this period,
in the first quarter of the
fourteenth century, that two events combined to change the destiny
of I-rench painting. The English invasion drove royalty, and most
of the industries which ministered to its luxury, towards the South.

117

111.. 230. — LMKKHK (IF llll-; X\ I II CliNlLKV,

(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 239. —CALVARY. CE.NTK.\L Cl.i.M-
P.\RTMENT OF THE NAKBONNE ALTARl'lECE

(The Louvre, Paris.)

Pans lost its radiating power
for a considerable period. At the
same time, some Northern artists,
the Van Eycks, invented a new
technique, which enlarged the
possibihties of painting enor-
mously, by giving it a robuster
and more accurate instrument.
But whereas this novel painting
became the national art of the
great Netherlandish cities, and
the natural fruit of their urban
civilisation, in France it flourished
only in one or two provinces ; it
was not, like sculpture, an au-
tochthonous art ; for a long time

it seemed a transplanted product ; and generous amateurs, great

nobles, and wealthy burgesses, were necessary to attract and retain

painters.

The disasters of the French monarchy had not checked the

Netherlandish immigration ; but the

painters of the Low Countries made

their way for the most part to the

Court of Burgundy, and thence to-
wards Provence and Italy. Philip

the Good, Charles the Bold, and their

ministers had very great painters for

their portraitists ; Jan van Eyck, Rogier

van der Weyden and others produced

masterpieces for their Chancellor, Rolin.

In these relations between Flanders and

Burgundy, the Flemings owed nothing

to their Burgundian surroundings ; the

court of Dijon never acclimatised the

Netherlandish plant ; it merely gathered

its fruits. The same may be true of

sculpture, but stone monuments are

more durable than the panels of

painters ; the works of the Carthusian

monastery of Champmol, which are

still in their original places, constitute a kind of local museum, from

which the genius of a school seems to radiate. In its far-reaching

118

FIG. 240. — FIREPLACE,
XVTH CENTURY, FROM LE M.\NS.

(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

expansion, Netherlandish painting

founded colonies even more active

than that of Dijon ; it reached Italy

by way of Germany and France ;

Flemish or Dutch painters travelled

to Genoa, traversing the East of

France from north to south. The

great highway which served the

fairs of Champagne, Lyons, and

Beaucaire, was an artistic road.
On this road, Avignon, which

had lately lost its Popes, and Aix,

one of King Rene's capitals, were

hahing-places for travelling artists.

As early as the fourteenth century,

Sienese and Giottesque art had

entered into France by Avignon.

The halls of the papal palace

were decorated with Italian frescoes,

and, doubtless, many a motive

reached Pans, and inspired its

painters and miniaturists ; in the

famous Narbonne panels, in spite of

the sharpness of the Gothic drawing, we recognise

softness of Sienese compositions (Fig. 239).

In the fifteenth century, the painters who passed through Avignon

brought with them the precise style
of the North. One of them is
known to us, Enguerrand Charonton,
of Laon, who painted a pale small-
featured Virgin, crowned by the
Father and the Son, and attended
on either side by a multitude of
heavenly figures (1453). This ap-
parition dominates a vision of Pro-
vence, a parched landscape with
arid hills over which white houses
are scattered (Fig. 248). A mys-
terious anonymous masterpiece, a
Virgin of Pity, formerly at Ville-
neuve-d Avignon, translates into
paint one of those pathetic groups

11,. 241.— 1 HE l.l.MliLKG I;Ko111K1<S.

HUNTING AT VINCENNES.

MINIATURE IN THE TKES KICHES

HEUKES DU DUC UE BEK'UV.

(CoikIc Muscuiii, Chantilly.)

e sinuous

KK;. 242. — JEAN MAI.. H. Kl.

CiOD THE l-ATHEK, THE \TK<.IN AND

ST. JOHN WEEPING OVEK THE BOUV OK

JESLS.

(The I.ouvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

I-K;. 243. — PORTKAIT OK JEAN
LE BON.

(IJibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)

which the " imagiers " used to carve in
stone or wood. Here the breadth and
freedom of the sculptured forms replace
the dainty charm of the miniaturists'
figures (Fig. 249). At Aix, King Rene
attracted a group of painters, some of
whom came from Flanders. Nicolas
Froment, although he was a native of
Uzes, successfully adopted the Nether-
landish naturalism. In his picture of the
Burning Bush{Fig. 25 1 ), the precision of
the detail and the splendour of the colour
reveal a disciple of the school of Bruges
(1476). He was, further, an excellent
portraitist of the good King Rene and
of his wife, Jeanne de Laval. His other
authenticated work, a Resurrection of
Lazarus, like several other anonymous
paintings, shows how Flemish art had
become acclimatised, how it adopted the local legends, and
borrowed the natural features of Provence. It is pleasant to

recognise its sunny landscape, and, here
and there, some truculent and hirsute head,
some olive feminine face, enframed in dark
brown tresses. This artistic province,
which was destined to be merged more and
more into France, preserved its personality
for a long period. It continued to send
many artists to the Court and to Pans,
thus demonstrating its vitality in an organ-
ism in which the centre tended increasingly
to absorb all energies.

Meanwhile, somewhat apart from the
great highway on which art circulated
between Flanders and Italy, monarchical
France gradually recovered from the
terrible crisis in which it had almost suc-
cumbed ; driven out of Pans by the
English invaders, royalty had installed
itself south of the Loire. Whereas the
eastern provinces, from the states of the
Duke of Burgundy to those of King Rene,

FI<;. 244. — UROEDEULAM.
THE ANNUNCIATION.
FRAGMENT OF AN ALTAR-
PIECE.

(Museum, Dijon.)
(J^hoto. Neui-dein.)

120

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

FKJ. 245. — DESCEN r I-Ko.M I HE CK'

(, riic LuuN le, l'ari>.)

were open to foreign influences, the France of the king at Bourges
had contracted towards its centre, and in its isolation was long
separated from those Netherlandish provinces, the artistic life of
which had been so closely intermingled with its own. Painting con-
tinued to flourish ; it was an art full of delicate originality, but it had all
the weakness of convalescence ; it lacked a strong centre in which to
take root, and profound local traditions in which to find guidance.
Tours, Bourges and Moulins all took an equal part in the existence
of this acephalous school ; it is known as the School of the Loire ;
and like the Loire, the great artistic stream flowed,
mdolent and indecisive, in an over-vast bed.

The Tourangeau, Jean Fouquet (1415-1485),
seems to have been the most distmguished
painter of the reigns of Charles VII and Louis XI.
It would be evident that he owes very little to
the Netherlands, if certain critics had not insisted
on crediting him with one or two very fine
anonymous portraits, m which the impeccable
mastery and precision of Flemish art, or of an art
derived therefrom, is clearly manifested. Four
paintings by him are practically authenticated ;
they immortalise the most illustrious figures of the
monarchy in the middle of the fifteenth century :
Charles VII, "the very victorious king" (Fig.
258) ; Jouvenel des Ursms, his counsellor (Fig.
257) : Etienne Chevalier, Treasurer of France ;
and finally a Virgin, which atones for its poverty of

121

l-u;. 246. — SAINT
SIKEKKIN.

Oluseum, Avignon.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 247. — JACQUE.MART DE HESDIX.

THE MARRIAGE OF CANA.

LAT. M.S. gig.

(Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)

technique by its interest as a probable
portrait of Agnes Sorel. Each of
these works shows the same quahties
and the same defects. The painter
saw his models clearly, and has cha-
racterised them admirably : the king —
a poor frail, shivenn gcreature; Jouve-
nel, an obese and apoplectic burgess.
But though his eye is clear, the paint-
er's hand is not very sure ; the drawing
is flaccid ; the brush of the miniaturist
IS more successful with figures in
which vagueness becomes grace. He
illuminated a Book of Hours for
Etienne Chevalier, and a History of
the Jews by Josephus, on which he
has lavished delicate impressions of
his country and of his time. The
lightness of the technique, the
limpidity of the colour, are in perfect
harmony with the natural aspects of Touraine, the soft curves of
the blue hills which border the valley of the Loire, and make a
background for the little figures in front. The river runs lazily
through its meadows, the sky is a light azure, luminous and trans-
parent. Sometimes a town with its ramparts, or a castle, white
and new, rises above the river. It is easy also to recognise
certain famous Parisian buildings, Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle,
Vincennes, the Bastille,
the gallows at Montfau-
con. Scenes in sacred
history are enacted by the
contemporaries of Charles
VII and Louis XI ;
sometimes we see the
heavy men-at-arms who
expelled the English
marching through the
courtly throng, well-to-do
citizens discussing their
affairs, or gossips chatting
round a newly delivered
woman. It is- worth

FIG. 248. — ENt.UEKK.-WI) CH.XRO.NTI ).\.

THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. FR.^G.MENT OF THE

I'ICTURE AT VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON.

{Photo. Langlois.)

122

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

l-U.. 249. VIKtilN ilF I'llV.

hK(iM vii.leneuve-les-avr;non.
(The Louvre, Paris.)

while to linger over these

landscapes and their httle

figures. It IS not often

that French painters show

US their native land and

its peasants with such sin-
cerity (Figs. 252,253).
Nevertheless, French

art was about to accept

the motives of an alien

art. Fouquet went to

Italy, and brought back

with him drawings of

arabesque and pilasters,

a whole system of orna-
mentation in the style of Michelozzo, which he used with more

zeal than discretion. The spectacle of this Tourangeau, of the

middle of the fifteenth century, sacri-
ficing the fantasies of flamboyant Gothic
for the more methodical and less capri-
cious decoration of Italy, is a significant
one. This assimilative facility is found
elsewhere
in Fou-
q u e t ' s
circle, in
one of his
s u c c e s-
sors, the
miniatur-
ist Jean
B o u r-

dichon. The Book of Hours of Anne

of Brittany (Figs. 260, 261 ; 1508),

shows a sustained sweetness not with-
out insipidity. The painter hardly looks

at the living world around hirn ; his

brush delights in vague forms and soft

colours . Another agreeable artist has

left some charming paintings, the most

important of which is in the Cathedral

at Moulins. Like Bourdichon, this

lie. 250. — JEAN FOUljUEI.

PORTRAIT OF THE I'AINTEK,

ENAMEL,

(The Louvre, Paris.)

m.. 251. — MCDC.AS IKllMENT.

rilE HUKNING llUSIl. CATHEDK.VL OK

AIX IX I'KOVENCE.

{Photo. Ncurdein.

ART IN FRANCE

MU. 252. JKAN FdUyUEr.

ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
ETIENNE chevalier's BOOK: OF HOURS.

(Cond^ Museum, Chantilly.)

" Master of Moulins " (Figs. 256,
259, 262, 263, 264) was primarily
the devout portraitist of the Blessed
Virgin (between 1480 and 1500) ;
he painted her pale and delicate, and
sometimes placed on her head the
white coif of the Berrichonnewomen.
Even when he shows her in the
splendour of her heavenly court, she
still preserves the ingenuous air of
a pretty peasant girl. The great
nobles and high-born ladies of
France have not yet the aristocratic
appearance which the Renaissance
was presently to give them. The
types of the district are as recog-
nisable in their faces as are in the
landscapes the soft and verdant un-
dulations of the Burgundian soil.
But this attractive art lacks vigour ;

we feel that it would be easily influenced. Its finest quality is a

delicate sensibility, a natural elegance which corrects the native

clumsiness of the northern figures, without, however, giving them

the superb attitudes of Italian art, or

its learnedly contrived mise-en-scene.

At this date French art gave itself

up to an ideal of elegance and

beauty, and seemed, like the art

of all the rest of Europe, to attune

itself to that of Italy. Memling

and Gerard David allowed their

Flemish realism to be softened by

the breath from the South, and in

Jean Bourdichon's miniatures we

seem every instant to recognise

some figure of a Virgin or Saint

Sebastian from Umbria. The

harsh accent of Gothic art is mel-
lowed by a new harmony. No

centre could have been better

adapted to reconcile the disso-
nances between the Germanic north

FIG. 253. — JEAN FOUyUET.

SIE(;E of JERICHO. HISTORY OF THE

JEWS, BY JOSEI'HUS.

(Ijiljliotheque Nationale, Paris.)
{Photo. Bcrthatid.)

124

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

and the Latin south. The strongest
antipathies could not resist the cor-
dial eclecticism of the hospitality of
Touraine. All that the French
aristocracy needed in order to wor-
ship the beauty that had been in
the making for a century on the
other side of the Alps was to
know it.

But we should be giving a very
inadequate idea of this expiring
Gothic art, if we should depict it as
entirely feudal, executing works of
sculpture and painting only to adorn
tombs, to commemorate the piety of
donors, or to delight the cultivated
taste of wealthy patrons. In addi-

1 u;. 255. — KKA<;.MK.\C 111
AT I.A CHAISE-UlIiU.

the pictures with
donors, are works
of official piety.
The artless Vir-
gins of Pity to
be found in many
village churches,
and some few
paintings coarsely
frescoed on old
walls, bear a closer
relation to com-
mon humanity. If
these popular
works had been

THK UANCK vy DKAIII

(Photo. KcKidcin.)

FIG. 254. — CKILING OP THE CHAl'EL
IN JACQUES CCEUK's HOUSE AT

BOURGES. (Photo. Neurtfein.)

tion to the statuary of
the rich, their brilliant and
difficult painting, there
was also in the fifteenth
century a popular art less
easy to know, but which
expresses the soul of the
age with a direct and
often brutal sincerity.
^The sculpture of tombs.

56. — THE MASIEU OK .M<1L1.1NS. ITIE Vila, IN IN (il.OUV,
WITH THE OON(>KS, I'lEkKE DE I'.OUNl'.ON AND
ANNE DE BEAUl.IEU.

(Cathedral of Moulins.) (Phoio. Ncu?-ihiii.)

125

ART IN FRANCE

I'll.. 257. — JEAN FOUyUET.
PORTRAIT OF JOUVENEL DES VRSINS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

KK;. 25a. — JEAN KOUIJUE'I'.
rORTRAIT OF CHARLES \1I.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

better preserved, we should have a clearer insight into the soul of
that period. There is one motive in particular which seems to
have been dear to the humanity of the time, and to have expressed
its deepest preoccupations ; this was the Dance of Death, living
beings conducted to the grave by grinning skeletons. It appeared
first, no doubt, in Paris, in 1424, in the charnel-house of the
Church of the Holy Innocents, and thence it spread throughout
France ; we find scattered traces of it now at Kermaria, in Brit-
tany, where gambolling
skeletons are shown tor-
menting monks ; at La
Chaise-Dieu, where
figures outlined m black
show a white silhouette
against a background of
red ochre (Fig. 255) ; in
the cloister of the Aitre
Saint - Maclou (Rouen), ^
this Dance of Death is
carved in wood and is
slowly crumbling away.

FIG. 239. — THE MASTER OF MOULI.NS.

THE NATIVITY. 1 j^^ ^^^-^^^ cemetery of Saint

(Bishop s Palace, Autun.) {Photo. Langlois.) Maclou

126

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

lU;. 260. — JICAN I'.OUKUICHON.

NATIVITY. MINIATURE IN TIIF,

liOOk' OK IIOUKS.OP ANNE OF

r.kllTANV.

(Ilililititliciiiie Natioiiale, I'aiis.)

{/'/lolo. Ileri/iami.)

From the mo-
ment of its
birth, engravmg
laid hold of
this motive ;
it propagated
among the
people that ser-
mon on death,
which, no
doubt, har-
monised with
the pre-occu-
pations of the
fifteenth cen-
tury. Men
had suffered
both from civil
war and foreign
invasion ; in
those days of
pillage, famine

lie. jni. — |1-:a\ uoi kiik IK in.

AXNK OK Bl;H TANN' AM) UKK

I'Al'UON S.MNTS. MINIAI TRIC IN

THE HOOK OK HOLKS OK

ANNE OK liNITT.XNV.

(I'.il)liothcquc N.-itionale, Paris.)

{l'/w/,>. Berthaud.)

and pestilence, death was ever present, and the thought that all,
from the beggar to the King, the Emperor, and the Pope were
equal before it, gave a kind of vindictive satisfaction to the poor.
A sort of burlesque and sinister
frenzy accordingly informs all these
poor little puppets ; the dance is
attuned to the crash of drums and
the rattle of skeletons. Painters
were not singular in their expres-
sion of this horrible gaiety at the
exploits of death. The aspects of
putrefaction, described with such
crudity by Villon, were depicted
with strange insistence by sculptors
in their stone corpses. But the
time was at hand when all these
rude works were to disappear before
a more cultured art. The sinister
phantoms of the night were to vanish
in the radiant light of the Renaissance.

IK,. 2b2.--TllE MASIEK Ol' MOII.INS.
IIEKRE 1)E liOUKIlON AND ST. I'ETEK.

('I'liu I ouvre, Paris.)

127

ART IN FRANCE

l-u;. 263. — THE .MASTER OF MOULl.Ns.
THE MAGDALEN AND AN UNKNOWN.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

How indeed should Gothic art
have survived, when the very con-
ditions of Gothic craftsmanship dis-
appeared with the Middle Ages ?
Even in the fifteenth century the
arts were no longer designed, as
formerly, to satisfy collective needs.
They emanated from more strongly
marked individualities, and were
addressed to special personages ;
amateurs and artists began to recog-
nise and to seek each other. Even
in architecture, the bravura additions
made to the great cathedrals in the
Flamboyant period have the char-
acter of purely personal fantasies,
decorative caprices designed by an
mgemous architect to gratify a donor.
They show no trace of that common
thought and that mechanical necessity which were formerly com-
bined for the erection of cathedrals. The sculpture of the period
demanded greater dexterity and a more refined training. The
" imagier " of the thirteenth century carved figures which, though
beautiful, were simplified and sum-
mary, proper, in fact, to an idealistic
age and a monumental art. In the
thirteenth century, craftsmen of the
second rank were capable of produc-
ing very fine statues, just as unculti-
vated voices were able to take their
part excellently m plain-song choirs.
But at the close of the Middle Ages
plastic art had become more realistic,
and figures more individual ; sculptors
and painters wished to produce
portraits. For this difficult art,
dexterous craftsmen were required,
and a scientific technique. Certain
skilful artists emerged from the
anonymous crowd of popular " im-
agiers " ; their fame spread abroad,
and great nobles sent for them from

FIG. 264. — THE iMA.STEK OF MOULINS.
ANNE DE BEAUJEU AND ,ST. JOHN.

(The Touvre, Paris.)

128

Portrait of the President de Laa^e
LARGiLLiiiRE. (The Louvre, Paris.)

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

afar. The same thing happened in
painting. Mosaic and painted glass
were complex and elaborate crafts,
but they were, after all, mechanical ;
even fresco had been reduced to
such a simplicity of process that, in
the Romanesque period, artists of no
particular genius could practise it
successfully. And now, miniaturists
and painters of altar-pieces begin to
attempt a task so difficult that the
goal is never reached : to copy nature
and reproduce the aspects of life.
The traditions of the workshop no
longer suffice for art. Very soon
originality will be required, and
artists will be esteemed in proportion
as they shall have rejected the tra-
ditions which, in the thirteenth cen-
tury, were held to constitute the whole of art. A new passion, the
love of beautiful forms and beautiful colours, takes the place of
religious sentiment as this gradually dies down. The arts slowly
change their raison delre.

Meanwhile, as the mediaeval soul

the

HI,. 205. — SCENE KKl-'.M rHE KO.MANCE,
" I.ES ^CHECS AlIOUREL'X."

(liiljliothciiiie Xationale, Fr. i\IS. 43.)

egend, passed away,

that rich store-house of
tenderness and wonder of Christian
art all but expired in
the dully atmosphere.
Artlessness is not to
be preserved in mature
age ; if it is prolonged,
it becomes intellectual
debility. The day came
when art had to put
away the caressing forms
of childish speech, and
resolutely accept the
severe expression of
adult reason. The im-
agination of artists turned
more and more to the
antique mythology, on which religion had no longer any hold. Art
and Christianity nevertheless came together again from time to time,

129 K

lu,. 201). — (.iioiK OK I 111'; t:iu KCH oE
I. A ciiAisE-niEi-. (P/iolo. Ato'iuiiicnts Ilistorigucs.)

ART IN FRANCE

and their divorce was never complete. But henceforth they treated
each other gravely, without the familiar ease of the days when they
led a common life. These stately personages no longer remem-
bered that they had played together as children.

KIG. 267. — TAl'ESTKY OF THE ATOCALYPSE, AT ANGERS.

{Photo. IlIoHniiicnts nistoriqucs.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

V. Leclerc and E. Renan, Dis-
cours sur I'etal dcs Leltres el dcs
Beaux Arts au XIV'' Steele. Paris,
1865, 2 vols. -Lecoy de la Marche,
Exlraits des Comptes et Memoriaux
du roi Rene--, Paris, 1873 ; Le roi
Rene. Paris. 1875. 2_ vols. Mgr
Dehaisnes. Histoire de I' Art dans la
htandre, I'.Artois et le Hainaul.
Lille, 1886, 3 vols. ; L Art flamand
en Franee-.-(.R.S.B.A.D..\S9 2)-
J.-M. Richard, Mahout, Comtesse
d'Artois et de Bour ogne. Paris,
1887. C. Enlart, Les Origines
anglaises du style flamboyant (Bul-
letin de I' Union syndicale des Archi-
tectes franfais, 1908). — L. Des-
rosiers. La Cathedrale de Moulins,
Moulins, 1871.- Duiay. L'Eglise de
Brou et ses Architectes, Lyon, 1879. — Abbe Fossey. Monographie de la Cathedrale d'Evrtux,

Evreux, 1898. W\o\\el-\^e-Duc, Essai sur I'. Architecture militaire au Moyen Age, Paris, 1854;
Histoire d'une forteresse, Paris, 1874. - E. Lefevre-Pontalis, Le Chateau de Coucy. Paris, 19UV.
— A. Robert Le Chateau de Pierrefonds. Paris, n. d. -E. Viollet-Le-Duc, La Cite de Car-
cassonne, Paris, 1878. -Ph. Lauzun, Le Chateau de Bonaguit, 2nd ed., Paris, 1884. A. Darcel,

L' Architecture civile au Moyen Age (G- B. .4- 1862, II). Gaignieres. /^ecuei'/ de tombeaux

(dravj/ings in the Bibliotheque Nationale). E. Male, L'Art chretien a la fin du Moyen Age.

Paris, 1908 G. Enlart, La Satire des moours dans I Icnnographie du Moyen Age (Mercure de

France. Dec, 1909, and Jan., 1910). L. de Laborde, Les Dues de Bourgogne.Far'n, 1849-1851.

3 vols. Bern. Prost, Quelques documents sur l Histoire des Arts en France (G. B. .4., 1 887, I) ;

Documents sur les Artistes dijonnais au XV siecle (G. B. A., 1890, II, et 1891, 1) ; Les Arts

a la cour du Due de Berry (G. B- A-, 1895. II.) -A. Perrault-Dabot. L".4r( cri Bourgogne,

Paris, 1894. A. Kleinclausz, Claus Sluter. Paris, 1905. A. Germain, Les Neerlandais en

Bourgogne. Brussels, 1909. N. Rondot, /acqucs Morel (R. S-B- A.D., 1889).— Abbe Requin,

Le Sculpteur Jacques Morel (.R. S. B. A. D-,

1890). Abbe Requin, Antoine le Moiturier.

(R- S- B- A. D.. 1890). Marquet de Vasselot,

Antoine le Moiturier (A/on. Piol, III, 247).

P. Mantz, La Peinture franfaise du IX' au

XV L si'ecle, Paris, 1898. L. Delisle, Le Cabi-
net des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nation-
ale, Paris, 1868-1881, 3 vols.-G. Graf Vilz-

thum. Die Pariser Miniaturmalerei, Leipzig,

1907. H. Martin, Les Miniaturistes franqais.

Paris, 1906. J. -J Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean,

Due de Berry, Paris. 1 894- 1 896, 2 vols.- L.

Delisle, Les Heures du Due de Berry (G. B. A.,

1884, I). A. de Champeaux and P. Gauchery,

Les Arts a la cour du Due de Berry. Paris,

1894. P. Durrleu, /-cs T^rcs Riches Heures du

Due de Berry, Paris, 1904. H. Bouchot. Les

Primiti/s franr^ais. Paris, 1904. M. Poele, Les

Primilifs parisiens, Paris, 1904. Abbe Requin,

Documents inedits sur les peinlres d Avignon

(R. S. B- A. D-). 1889). Abbe Requin. Une

CEuvre de Nicholas Froment {R. S- B. A. D.,

1902), — G. Lafenestre, Nicholas Froment,

iR A A M-, 1897, II). M. Friedlaender, Die Votiftafel des Etienne Chevalier von Fouquel

IjahrbiJcherol the Berlin Museum, 1897). P. Leprieur.' Jean Fouquet (.R- A. A. M., 1897. I).

.— F. Gruyer, Les Quarantc Fouquet (at Chantilly), Paris, 1900. — G. Lafenestre, Jean

130

. 268. — TAI'ESTKV OF THE APOCALYPSE,
AT ANGEKS.

{Photo. Monuiiieuts Histoiiqiies.)

FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART

Fouquet (Recue des Deux-Mondes, Jan. 15. 1902.) P. Durrieu, Les" Antiquities juddiques"
de Josephe a la Biblioth'cque Nationale (G. B. A . 1906, II). C. Benoit. La Pcinture francaise
a la fin du XV" siicle (G. B. A., 1901-2.) E. Mate, /. Bourdichon (G. B. A.. 1902 and
1904) R Maulde de la Claviere, Jean Perrial, dit Jean de Paris, peintie de Charles VIII.
Pans, I 896.

IIG. 269. — THE .SO-C.\M-lJ) IAII>rKV Ml- THK
UMCORX.

(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

131

K Z

FIC;. 270. — CHATEAU DE CHANTILLY.

PART II

CLASSICAL ART

CHAPTER I

THE TRANSITION FROM THE GOTHIC STYLE
TO CLASSICAL ART

The Transformation of Mediacal Society, and the Dawn of Classical Art. — Its Italian and
Antique Origin. The Classical Revolution in each Province. The Monarchy in Touraine,
the Influence of Royalty. Architecture : the Successive Transformations of I'orlresses into
Sporting Lodges and Classical Palaces. Religious Architecture. Scul iture of the Tra-
ditional Style and Statuary in the Italian Afanner. The Tombs at Saint-Denis : Jean
Goujon, and Germain Pilon. Painting : The Italians at bontainebleau. The Portrait-
Painters: The Cloucts. How French Art, from Gothic ana Christian.',became] Classical
and Pagan.

After the death of Louis XI, and the recovery from the English
wars, a new energy began to stir in every province, and for more
than a half century there was an artistic production as prolific as it
is difficult to define. Two styles and two ages intermingled, until
such time as the new overcame the old and took its place. At the
accession of Charles VIII, French art was still mediaeval and
Gothic ; in the time of Henry II, it had become classical, and was to
remain so. These two styles, the one upheld by a long tradition,
the other by the charm of novelty, both benefited by the revival of
national energy, and Gothic art was never more exuberant than

132

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 271. — CHATEAU D AMbOISE.

{Photo. Neurdein.)

at the moment when it no longer flourished alone on French soil.
But the new art was exclusive ; it was permeated by the spirit and
the severity of system ;
it aimed logically at ne-
cessary consequences, and
rejected all compromise ;
Gothic art resisted less
stoutly, and was soon
eliminated. Architects
began by admitting a few
pilasters, and ended by
building classical temples.
It will be sufficient to
juxtapose the names of
Louis XI and Francis I,
and the civilisations they
evoke, to suggest the im-
portance of the moral

revolution which French society, or at least the monarchical world,
the heart of that society, had undergone. The France of the
thirteenth century, that of the bishops and burgesses, had given
to Christian Europe Gothic art, the art of the Church and the
Communes. Gothic art, born in the lle-de-France, had spread
more especially throughout northern Europe. It was absolutely
the creation of the Christian society of the Middle Ages. Classical

art was the continuation,
or the resumption of an-
tique art, firstly on Italian
soil, whence it had never
entirely disappeared, and
then in the other coun-
tries of Europe, where
it appeared for the first
time.

Gothic art was so
natural a consequence of
mediaeval society that it
had ceased to be well
adapted fo the France
of the sixteenth century.
Architects had invented the cathedral to -receive the dense popula-
tions of the great communes ; but the active and ardent faith of

133

FK;. 272. — CHATKAU DE CHAIM"\T.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG 273.— CHATEAU DE PLESSIS-Lfes-TOURS.

{P/ioto. Lc Richc.)

these populations was a necessary factor in its execution, and cathe-
drals the building of which had been interrupted waited in vain

for completion. Modern
churches, less immense in
plan, no longer demanded
the mgenious and complex
construction of the Gothic
vault, and architects
found less lofty vaults
without flying buttresses
more economical. In
monarchical France, the
feudal fortresses were
irrevocably condemned.
Even in the representative
arts, the men of the thir-
teenth century had a
system of images by which
they expressed their emotions ; but in the sixteenth century this
iconography no longer corresponded to the collective sentiment.
The secular mind had outgrown the system of scholastic symbols
and the imagery of the Golden Legend ; even to believers, certain
traditional motives began to seem somewhat childish ; the men of
the Reformation and those of the Counter- Reformation were almost

at one in their rejection or
amendment of these.

For some considerable
time past, sculptors and
painters had been no
longer exclusively at the
service of their religion.
They were attracted by
living forms, they were
less absorbed in the Christ-
ian drama, and more in-
tent on the beauty of
human expression. The
artists of Italy, and more
especially those of
Florence, had preceded them on this path ; they were at the root of
that classicism which was about to revivify French art. After the
idealism of the thirteenth century, the Florentines, like other artists,

134

FIG. 274. — FORTRESS OF PEKl'UiNAN.

(P/ioto. Neiiriiciii.)

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

{rhoto.

5. — CHATEAU I)E MEILLANT
(CHER.)

" Monuincjits Hisiorit/iies.")

had at first practised a direct and

brutal realism ; but in the course of

the fifteenth century the}' had

applied themselves to the study of

the human form with such passion

and method that they had taken up

the thread of antique art. The

Gothic artists, men of the north,

Frenchmen, Flemings or Germans,

contemplating Florentine figures,

realised how uncertain, timid and

incomplete their own plastic science

still was. French art, like all the

others, had to graduate in its

humanities at the school of Florence.

Like the others again, it lost

something of its originality in the

process. Florentine art, indeed,

reached its goal m a universal ideal

which it recognised in the works of antiquity ; it was therefore able

to take up the Graeco- Roman tradition, and, following in its wake,

French artists gradually discovered antiquity beyond Italy. The

French intellect in its turn was to adapt to its own uses that classic

language which had been already refined by the Greek and the

Florentine intellect.

The Renaissance, or in other
words the penetration of Italian
methods into northern art, was a
European, and not merely a French
phenomenon. Its manifestations are
to be traced not only in the royal
domain, but in every part of
France, and are as clearly seen in
the provinces, as yet but loosely
attached to the monarchy, as in the
monarchical centre. The agents of
this classicism were the travelling
artists so numerous at the close of
the Middle Ages, the Italians in-
vited to France by private patrons,
by cities, and by the king, the
Frenchmen and Flemings who

I-IG. 276.- CHATEAU DE I'l.OlS.
LOUIS .Xll's ENTRANCE,

135

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 277. — CHATEAU DE bLOIS.
FRANCIS I'S STAIRCASE.

returned from Italy with portfolios full of drawings. And thus it
came about that classical forms made their appearance more or less

everywhere during the first thirty
years of the sixteenth century.
Churches, tombs and mansions
were transformed even m the reign
of Louis XII ; mythological figures
in the Italian manner took their
places in all the traditional arts of
France, in tapestries, in illuminated
manuscripts, in the painted glass of
Pinaigrier, as in the enamels of
Leonard Limosin and the Peni-
cauds. It was the Italian pottery
which put Bernard Palissy on the
track of a new technique. Classic
decoration was adapted to the par-
ticular art of each province. Local
tradition in every district attaches a
famous name to this diffuse evolu-
tion : Hugues Sambin at Dijon,
Philibert Delorme at Lyons, Ligier-Richier in Lorraine, Dominique
Florentin in Champagne, Jacques Marchand at Orleans, Michel
Colombe in Touraine, Pierre Sohier at Caen, Jean Goujon at
Rouen, Nicolas Bache-
lier at Toulouse, Leonard
Limosin at Limoges, Ber-
nard Palissy in Samtonge,
Jean Cousm we know not
where.

Toulouse, the capital
of Romanesque art and a
centre where Gothic art
had been but coldly re-
ceived, was better dis-
posed towards the Re-
naissance style, in which
it recognised the classical
and Latin spirit. Nicholas
Bachelier placed columns
of stone and marble upon the Toulousain bricks ; at the Hotel
d'Assezat they are superposed, and form, together with the

136

FIG. 278.-

-CHATE.'VU 1> .VZAY-LE-KIDEAIJ.

{Photo. Neitrdein.)

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

KIG. 279. — CHATEAU DE CI1AMI50KU.

{I'hoto. " Montiinents Ilistoriiptes.")

entablatures and openings of the facade, a very skilful arrangement
by which the dismal heavmess of the brick structure is relieved
(Fig. 193). On several
private houses the Co-
rinthian order bears a rich
decoration of sculptured
marble. One of the
lateral doors of Saint
Sernin, and the door of
the Dalbade are among
the most charming adapta-
tions of the Italian style in
France.

The great Eastern
region, as yet but feebly
welded to the centre, that
ancient Lotharingia tra-
versed by the artisans of the north on the way to Italy, was also
to be permeated by the classical spirit. Lyons was the city of
great fairs, a metropolis of French commerce ; since the time of
Louis XII, it was the centre whence the king watched the affairs of
Italy. Aix, where King Rene's Flemings had worked, readily
accepted the Italian forms ; on the doors of his cathedral, Gothic
ornament is superposed on the Italian arabesques. Avignon still
received the artists of the north, but they now worked in the Italian
manner. In the middle of the century, when there was a great

dearth of painters m the
kingdom, a Champenois,
Simon of Chalons, estab-
lished in Provence, in-
troduced figures copied
from Michelangelo and
Raphael in his religious
compositions with some

skill (Fig. 363).

When she lost her
Dukes, Burgundy also
lost her artistic person-
ality ; but Dijon still en-
joyed its admirable situa-
tion on the highway to Italy. This city also had its Renaissance,
marked by a robust exuberance of style and a certain heaviness.

137

i.f-

I'lt;. 2S0. — CHATEAU DF, SAINT-CF.RMAIN".

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 281. — CHATEAU DE CHENONXEAU.

(P licit o. Neurdcin.)

It finds expression in the facades of various mansions, and in that of

the Church of Saint Michel, as also in the furniture carved by

Hugues Sambin (Fig.
309). Franche-Comte,
rich in black marbles and
in alabaster which was
used by the Dijon sculp-
tors, had lived in artistic
dependence upon Bur-
gundy. The great nobles
had caused splendid mau-
soleums to be erected for
themselves. In the six-
teenth century these tombs
lost their Gothic character,
and even their religious
significance ; pilasters and

arabesques replaced pointed arches and pinnacles, and pagan figures

were associated with Christian personages.

At Brou, a church was built to shelter tombs, rich monuments

in which the Renaissance style mingles with Flamboyant art.

Commissioned by an Austrian princess, the grand-daughter of the

Dukes of Burgundy, betrothed in the first instance to the King of

France, afterwards married to the King of Spain, and soon a

widow, and executed by a bevy of artists and workmen, among whom

were Germans, Flemings, Picards and Italians, this exuberant work

combines the style of two

ages, the Gothic and the

Classical, and reveals the

cosmopolitanism of a pro-
vince as yet imperfectly

attached to its powerful

neighbours (Figs. 305,

306, 307).

Champenois art, on the

other hand, shows a very

clearly defined character,

above all in sculpture.

From this period date a

number of Calvaries, of

sepulchres, and of single figures of saints, with faces generally

refined, and somewhat contorted, in the manner of the Flemish

138

Fiq. 282. — CHATEAU d'usse. {Pkoto. Netirdeht.)

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 203. — lilKUS EN'E VIEW OF CHANTILLV.

(From the album, " Paris vu en ballon,"
bv A. Schoelchcr and O. l'ecu.L;i>.)

painters ; they are perfectly distinct from the Tourangeau type,
those round, smooth faces characteristic of Fouquet's worthies.

Troyes has preserved a
touching St. Martha, with
^ a fine austere face ; the
^ careful servant exorcises
the town with a gesture
of dramatic simplicity (Fig.
321). A Visitation shows
us two housewives in
Sunday dress (Fig. 322)
coming from mass ; the
I folds of their gowns, the
embroidery of the stuffs,
the ribbons, the jewels,
the long plaits, and even
the bunch of keys, make
up an accumulation of details that please the eye, although the
colour is no longer there to complete the effect ; there is no trace
here of that generalising modelling which Italian masters and
antique works were soon to teach. This southern province.
Champagne, witnessed the efflorescence of a picturesque statuary
akin to that of the Flemings and Germans ; wood and stone were
elaborately worked and afterwards illuminated with brilliant colours.
This art was dear to a luxurious society, and at Troyes, as at
Nuremburg, sculptors trifled with the accessories of costume. But
about 1 540 Dominique
Florentin brought from
Italy a new manner of
treating marble ; the chisel
of sculptors was thence-
forth applied to the
modelling of supple bodies
and light draperies.

In Lorraine the Dukes
had tombs erected for
themselves in the Italian
style ; Charles IV built a
memorial chapel imitated
from that of the Medici.
A few masterpieces were evolved from the soul of the people. In
the middle of the sixteenth century arose an artist, Ligier-Richier,

139

2S4. — run OVAI. C'HKT AT lONTAINTlU.nAl'.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 285. — HORSE-SHOE STAIRCASE AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

who showed himself capable of adapting Italian forms to Christian
sentiment. A large number of religious sculptures are ascribed to

him, for the most part in
marble. The tomb of
Saint Mihiel is by an
artist who has preserved
the powerful emotion of
the Middle Ages, but
who knows how to
balance a composition in
the classical manner, and
to give elegance or violence
to his attitudes. The
Magdalen bends to kiss
the Saviour's feet with a
sinuous suppleness, an in-
clination of the neck which
reveals a technical mastery that verges on mannerism. At Bar-le-
Duc there is a skeleton due to this same art, which elevates the
ancient motives by the elegance and nobility of the new style.
The skeleton, on which some fragments of flesh are still hanging, is
mediaeval in its inspiration ; but it was carved by a learned anato-
mist, who has given this figure of a Gothic charnel-house the noble
attitude of an antique orator (Figs. 331-333).

Like all the provinces in which the Flamboyant Style had
flourished, Normandy, with its two capitals, acclaimed the new art.

Scarcely had the Palais
de Justice and the Tour
de Beurre been completed,
when Italian ornament
began to make its appear-
ance on facades and
tombs. The Chateau de
Gaillon, built for the
Cardinal d'Amboise in
the time of Louis XII,
combines all sorts of novel
amenities with the pictur-
esque arrangement of a
fifteenth century chateau.
Two magnificent tombs in the Lady Chapel of Rouen Cathedral
seem to have fixed two moments of this artistic reformation. The

140

FIG. 286. — bird's eye view OF FONTAINEULEAU.

(From the album. " Paris vu en ballon,"
by A. Schoelcher et O. Decugis.)

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

2S7. — FRANCIS I's <;AI.LEKV AT
FONTAINEBLEAl'.

KI<;. 288. — HENRY Il's BALL-ROOM AT
FONTAINEBLEAU.

first, that of Georges d'Amboise (Fig. 341), has a rich ornament
of arabesques and pilasters, a floriated decoration m the manner of
Michelozzo, such as the men of the early Renaissance were in the
habit of applying to Gothic buildings. The tomb of the Marquis
de Breze (Fig, 346), a slightly later work, with its portico of
columns surmounted by Caryatides, is a monument in the classical
manner, in spite of its equestrian statue and its realistic recumbent
figure. At Caen, Pierre Sohier (Fig. 304) was the author of an
exquisite combination in which exuberant forms borrowed from
Italian motives replace the restless lines of the Mamboyant Style.

At the close of the
Middle Ages, Brittany had
shown a great artistic vital-
ity ; parishioners crowned
their churches with airy
spires, nobles and citizens
built solid fortresses. After
the sixteenth century, at
the period when France
abandoned mediaeval forms
of sculpture and archi-
tecture, Brittany held aloof
from the common move-
ment. The peninsula

FIG. 280.-

141

-THE LOUVRE : LESCOT S WIXG ON THE LEFT.

ART IN FRANCE

290.-

-HOTEL UK VILLE OF LA KOCHEI.LE.

remained isolated, lying as it did outside the great international

highways, by means of which that interchange between Italy and

the North was carried
on, destined first to trans-
form, and then to suppress
Gothic architecture.
Thenceforth, Breton art
was behind French art
as a whole ; its Calvaries
continued to be rude m
execution ; its ' imagiers "
talked a patois, and were
Ignorant of the learned
language which all Europe
had borrowed from Italy.
Among these Breton Cal-
varies, the most ancient,

that of Plougastel, dates from the sixteenth century. At the

height of the classic period, the Plougastel Calvary preserved the

conceptions, the attitudes, the costumes of the Middle Ages, and a

purely rustic style. There is nothing in this naivete, touching as it

is, to cause us to regret that French art had accepted the Italian

discipline and antique culture (Figs. 326, 327, 329).

When we come to Touraine, we touch the very heart of national

existence ; here it was that the blood of the decrepit monarchy,

impoverished by war and

anarchy, had once more

begun to pulse vigorously ;

here it was that the kings

of France had fled for

sanctuary, before they

took to sojourning here

for pleasure ; and here it

was that the destinies of

French art were decided,

in the strongly united

France of Francis I and

Henry II.

Among the causes

which favoured classicism,

we must reckon the influence of a monarchy under the omnipotent

Francis I. Since art had become independent of religion, it had

142

FIG. 291. — COURT OF THE HOTEL CARNAV'ALET,
PARIS.

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 292. — THE LOU\"RE.
DOOR KNOWN AS JEAN GOUJOn'S
DOOR.

often accepted service under a king.

The king knew that one sure means of

immortahty was to associate himself with

the work of artists, and to attach his

name to imperishable works. Many an

Italian Maecenas had set the example.

Francis I, Louis XIV and Napoleon

successively engaged this force in their

service, and concentrated the artistic

energies of France for their own ag-
grandisement. The civilisation of towns

and of ancient communes was slowly

effaced day by day in the general life ; it

was dominated by the more brilliant

centre of the court. This centralisation

naturally tended to favour classicism at

the expense of those provincial traditions

and local arts which were so flourishing

at the close of the Middle Ages ; the

somewhat abstract generality of its principles made it acceptable

and at home everywhere, and its very universality demonstrated

the unity of the kingdom.

The entry of the French into Milan, Florence, and Rome during

the wars of Charles VIII, Louis
XII and Francis I was merely an
incidental cause in an inevitable
evolution. Even had these wars
never taken place, French art would
have passed from the Gothic to the
classic phase ; for no country in
Europe, neither Spain, nor Flanders,
nor Germany, was able to preserve
its originality in face of the seduc-
tions o( Italy. But in a monarchical
and aristocratic country like France,
the periodical descent of its king
and Its nobles into Italy naturally
hastened the adoption of ultra-
montane fashions by imposing them
at the very heart of French life, the

court of the king. Louis XI was purely Gothic. But in 1495,

his son, Charles VIII, wrote from Naples, saying hew he had been

143

l-Hi. 293. — HOTEL D ASSEZAT,
TOULOUSE.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 294.— HOTEL BOURGTH^KOULDE,
ROUEN.

dazzled by the beauty and richness
of the paintings ; he had already
made up his mind to bring back
Itahan artists to decorate Amboise.
Some years later Louis XII declared
to the Florentines that he was
anxious to employ " Master Leonard,
their painter." It was, however,
only Francis I who succeeded in
attracting the great Florentine. The
kings companions, visiting the
galleries of the palaces, and the
gardens of the villas, marvelled at
the luxury and the smiling charm
which " the fair speech of Master
Alain Chartier, the subtlety of
Master Jean de Meung, and the
hand of Fouquet would be power-
less to set forth, describe or paint." For this Gothic feudality,
such a civilisation was a new thing, fashioned by masters in the art
of enjoyment.

Fouquet, however, had been in Italy as early as the middle
of the fifteenth century. He had admired Michelozzo's ornamental
style, and on his return had decorated the background of his portraits
with simulated pilasters and sculp-
tural arabesques. His contempor-
aries, Bourdichon and other minia-
turists, began to replace the Gothic
churches they had hitherto depicted
by Italian palaces, and occasionally
even produced compositions or
figures imitating Florentine or Um-
brian paintings. Decorative elements
are, indeed, very easily borrowed,
and the same pictures are under-
stood and admired without difficulty
in very different countries. On
the other hand, architecture and
religious sculpture, which are bound
up with deeply rooted habits and
customs, are not to be modified
instantaneously ; a new system of

FIG. 295. — HE.VRY IV S COURT,
CAriT<1LE, TOULOUSE.

144

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

Fir,. 296. — THE GRANDE I'l.ACE, ARRAS.

decoration will not suffice to transform them. Italian architects and
sculptors, when they took part in great artistic enterprises in

France, were obliged to adapt
themselves to local customs ; they
threw a veil of Italian decoration
over tombs and chateaux, monu-
ments constituted in the image
of French life by very ancient
usages. Pictures, on the contrary,
were a court luxury, and Italian
painters such as Andrea Solario,
Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea
del Sarto, and later, the whole
school of Fontainebleau, were
able to work in the heart of
France without modifying any of
their

FIC;. 297. — HOTEL D ECOVH.I.E, CAEX.

alien
hab-

its. The field of action lay open to
painters.

The fortresses, which look so
white and delicate in the Gothic
miniatures, seemed very dismal
dwellings in the tranquillised king-
dom of the sixteenth century ; their
solid walls enclosed narrow and
sombre existences. During the
peace which lasted from the reign
of Louis XI to the outbreak of the

145

FIG. 298. — rriE UOL'RSE, I.II.I.i:.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 2Q9. — h6tEI, DE VII. l.E, AK'KAS.

religious wars, architecture, too, was
able to disarm, and to lay aside its
heavy cuirass. The castles were
thrown open to the light of day ;
the dwelling emerged from the en-
compassing walls ; it was erected in
the midst of gardens, or in a park ;
trees, fountains and flowers contri-
buted to the attraction of the dwell-
ing, and in the walls which formerly
presented a solid surface, large
windows were made to open upon
the smiling surroundings. From
their windows and terraces, the
nobles loved to contemplate the
wide plains of the Loire or the Cher.
It was the art of building which
expressed most fully the joyous
expansion and the graceful fancy of the monarchy and aristocracy
of France. A like enthu'^iasm inspired all ranks. The king,
the great nobles, and high functionaries spent the greater part
of their revenues on the construction of
exquisite chateaux. Humbler persons
ruined themselves by building, and
Philibert Delorme speaks of the distrust
felt by expectant heirs for architects.
The least enterprising were eager to
transform their old manor-houses in ac-
cordance with the taste of the day ; they
gutted their ancient towers to pierce them
with windows ; they added a modern
block of buildings to a Gothic or Roman-
esque keep. The new style tended to
regularity and symmetry. But the
necessity of preserving majestic and im-
posing fragments forced architects to
display a certain ingenuity. They de-
vised unexpected aspects ; they were
entertained by the unforeseen combin-
ations produced by the feudal architec-
ture of castles intermingled with the urban style of palaces, and,
a little later, with classic fagades in the Italian manner- From

146

HL,. 300. — CATHEDRAL OK
TOURS.

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

HG. 301. — ORLEANS CATHEDKAL,
.SOUTH TORCH.

Louis XI to Charles IX, the num-
ber of French chateaux is consider-
able, and their variety is such that
it IS impossible to classify them in
accordance with a clearly defined
type, such as that of the Florentine
palace, or the Roman villa.

Nevertheless, in the variety of
combinations, certain elements re-
appear persistently. The Renais-
sance chateau in its earlier mani-
festations was only the feudal
castle transformed. It retained the
great towers, the curtains ^vith their
battlements and machicolations, and
occasionally, the moat in which the
basement of the building was submerged. Each of these organs
was preserved for the beauty discovered in it now that it was no
longer useful. The chateau, havmg descended into the plain, cast
the reflection of its battlements and machicolations into the slow
waters of a river, and these martial symbols became an amuse-
ment for the eye.

The main block of an urban
mansion, with large square windows
and a lofty roof loaded with dormer
windows and chimneys was attached
to the great feudal towers. The
new towers, of a less ponderous
design, were sometimes corbelled
out at the angles of the building.
Later, antique decoration made its ap-
pearance, with Its columns, pilasters
and pediments ; the Greek orders
enframed doors and windows, and
soon the somewhat geometrical
regularity of these motives imposed
on facades a symmetry unknown to
the Middle Ages.

The transformation in French
architecture began before the pene-
tration of Italian influences. The last castles built in the time of
Louis XI are still defiant of aspect. At Chaumont (Fig. 272) the

147 L 2

kk;. 302 — nooKWAY ok the dlcai.

I'AI.ACE, XANCV.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 303. — NOTKE DAME

DE l'ei'ine, near CHALONS-SUR-

MARNE. {Photo. Ncurdein.)

arrangement of the building as a strictly
enclosed fortress was one day to appear
very dismal, and one of the four blocks
of buildmgs which enclosed the quadri-
lateral was pulled down to open out a
prospect over the valley of the Loire.
At Usse (Fig. 282) again, a large
breach had to be made to give hght
and air to the chateau. Its inhabitants
no longer sought safety behind a screen
of solid walls ; its offices, its terraces,
its courts and approaches were spread
out freely around it. Even structures
which retained their formidable features
were surrounded by gardens ; behind
the great tower and the grey masonry
of Langeais flowers bloomed in gay
parterres. Architecture allowed itself
to be disarmed at last, and associated

itself with the peaceful charm of nature.

The king set the example in this transformation. To judge from

the fragments of it that still exist, the famous castle of Plessis-les-

Tours, where Louis XI died, was no austere prison, but a mansion

of red brick and white stone in a charming valley enclosed by

softly swelling hills. Charles VIII

died when he was superintending

the transformations he had under-
taken at Amboise. The Chapel of

St. Hubert (Figs. 336-338), and the

faqade towards the Loire built for

him were still purely Gothic, richly

flamboyant, and appear all the

more delicately elaborate from their

luxtaposition with massive feudal

masonry (Fig. 27 1 ). Louis XII, the

son of Charles d'Orleans, the captive

poet, was born in a fortress at Blois,

which Froissart described as "fair,

strong and sturdy, and one of the

finest in the kingdom " (Figs. 276,

277). When he became king of

France, he did not desert the

FKi. 304. — Al'SR OF SAINT-l'IERRE,

CAEN. (_P/io/o. h'eitrdcm.

148

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 305. — TOMB OF MARGUEKITE
mc HOUKBON, IN THK CIIUKCH AT BKOU.

landscapes of his childhood. He
began the reconstruction of the
old castle, and raised a graceful
block of buildings of brick and
stone, crowned by a high roof
with Gothic dormer windows.
Francis I was, as said Ducerceau,
" marvellously addicted to build-
ing." This architectural king
was, indeed, the creator of Cham-
bord, Madrid, Saint - Germain,
La Muette, Villers - Cotterets,
Blois, Fontainebleau, and Pierre
Lescot's Louvre. In each of
these buildings, we can trace the
progress of classic decoration.
At the beginning of the sixteenth
century, only a few motives are
introduced ; but very soon one of the latent principles of classicism,
regularity, is imposed upon the facades and plans of modern build-
ings. Nevertheless, even when this royal architecture seems an
imitation of Italian palaces, it differs from these, because it answers
to different requirements. The Italian villa was a place of rest
arranged primarily with a view to the delight of the eye ; it is
placed on a picturesque
site, which is agreeably
contemplated from a
belvedere. In times of
peace, the chief amuse-
ment of the king of France
was the hunting of stag or
wild boar. Thus nearly
all the royal chateaux
adjoin a vast forest ;
many of them were
originally hunting lodges ;
the images of St. Hubert
found in some of them,
at Amboise and Pau, for instance, were not without their special
significance ; such a statue would not have been out of place in
any of the royal houses. In the pictures and tapestries in \\hich
they are represented, the king, his court and his pack of hounds

149

IK;. 3*. — NOOIl-SCKEKN IN THE CIllKCH W V.KOV.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 307. — TOMB OF MARGUERITE
OF AUSTRIA, IN THF, CHURCH AT BROU.

nearly always figure in the fore-
ground.

The open staircase (Fig. 277)
in Francis Is wing in the Castle
of Blois is a Gothic structure
with Italian decorations ; loggias
conceal the curtain of the ancient
fortress, and give the faqade an
aspect of magnificence which also
characterises the Chateau de
Madrid. At Chambord (Fig.
279) feudal towers flank a
symmetrical buildmg ; this regular
quadrilateral is obviously not the
work of a mediaeval architect,
but the chateau has retained one
very Gothic characteristic, the
accumulation of all the decoration
on the roof. Italian ornament has been borrowed, to be arranged in
the French manner ; there is an elaborate architecture of chimneys,
dormer windows and lanterns, which recalls the delightful acces-
sories of the chateaux depicted by the illuminators of the Duke of
Berry. At Saint-Germain (Fig. 280), a feature of southern
architecture, a terrace, from which the king could contemplate
his forest, and follow the windings of the horn from afar, was
substituted for the customary roof. But even here, the mode
of construction is French ; this terrace rests on an ogival roof, to
sustain the arches of
which it was necessary
to encase the building
with buttresses; arcades
and galleries in the Italian
manner are applied to this
Gothic skeleton, but they
do not mask it.

Following in the royal
footsteps, the rich men
of the kingdom rebuilt
their dwellings. Two of
the most graceful chateaux
of the sixteenth century,
Azay - le - Rideaux and

FIG. 308. — ROOD-SCREEN OF THE CHURCH OF THE

MADELEINE, TROVES. (,P/ioia. Neurdeiti.^

150

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

fk;. 309.— church of saint-michel,
"dUon. {Photo. A. Jolict.)

Chenonceaux (Figs. 278-281), were begun about 1518-1520 for

financiers. They are among the most charmmg of French buildmgs,

and they make but the slightest

decorative concessions to the Italian

fashion. Their very original charm

lies entirely in the elegance of their

outline, their happy proportions, and

the picturesque arrangement of their

turrets, windows and dormers.

Fontainebleau, the most famous
of the royal houses, is far from
being one of the happiest achieve-
ments of this period of ingenious
architecture. But Francis I, "who
caused it to be built, took mar-
vellous pleasure therein, so that he
sojourned there for the most part,
and enriched it with all sorts of
commodities, with galleries, halls,
chambers, bath-rooms, and other
adjuncts, the whole embellished with all kinds of histories, both
painted and in relief, done by the most renowned masters the king
could collect in France, and in Italy, from whence he also obtained
some fine antique pieces. And in short all that the king could

find that was excellent, was for
his Fontainebleau." Hence this
chateau, the general conception of
which is rather poor, contains a
number of admirable motives,
not always in very close relation
to the main body of the building :
these include porticoes, staircases,
sculptures, and above all, a mar-
vellous internal decoration, which
is its great original feature (Figs.
283 288).

By the middle of the sixteenth
century, architects had almost
abandoned all recollection of
feudal buildings. They seem
thenceforth to have ignored the
turrets, the dormer windows the

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. ^11. — CHUKCH UF SAINT-ETIE.NNE
DU MONT, PARIS.

machicolations, the battlements,
which gave such graceful adorn-
ment to the first chateaux of the
century. The general arrangement
was no longer governed by the
accidents of the site ; the structure
developed its symmetrical members
on an even surface ; architectonic
beauty became less and less de-
pendent upon the charm of details,
and the picturesque unexpectedness
of their disposal ; it inhered rather
m the art of the proportions, and
the unity of the whole. The chateau
was no longer to be distinguished
from the urban hotel. Four blocks
of buildings, one of which, smaller
than the rest, formed a gallery,
gave a rectangular quadrilateral. To ornament the flat fagades,
architects applied the principles of Roman construction as they
were beginning to know them from Vitruvius, from antique ruins,
and from Italian buildings : these consisted in arranging on the
facade, in such a manner as to enframe the windows, columns or
pilasters supporting entablatures or
pediments ; in superposing as many
orders as there were storeys in the
building ; the Tuscan or Doric order
for the ground-floor, the Ionic order
for the first storey, and composite
columns or Caryatides for the
second. Between the columns, if
space permitted, niches were hol-
lowed for the reception of statues.
This general ornamentation was
repeated indefinitely all along a
facade ; the monotony was relieved
only by projecting pavilions, with
higher roofs. Thenceforth, archi-
tecture was reduced to drawing, and
a knowledge of proportions. The
decorative elements of French
palaces admitted of little change ;

152

FIG. 312. — FAfADE OF THE CATHEDRAL
OF TOUL.

(,Fhoto. " Moniiwents HUtorigucs")

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

VIC. 313. — VIRGIN AND

CIIII.U ; CHURCH OF SAINT-

GALMIER, LOIRIi.

the distinction between one building and
another, and even between one period and
another, was very shght. If we omit the
internal arrangements, the history of French
architecture could be followed almost com-
pletely in the fashion of disposing colon-
nades on a facjade. Nevertheless, limited to
these methods, it created varied styles and
forms that were always pure ; in proportion
as it restricted decorative invention, the art
of building owed more to measurement and
calculation.

In the middle of the sixteenth century,
three men were brilliant exponents of this
architecture, which had already become
the classic French style. These were
Pierre Lescot, Jean Bullant, and Philibert
Delorme. Pierre Lescot was commissioned
by Francis I to rebuild the Louvre. He
gutted Charles V's palace, and built the south-west corner of the
square court, two blocks of buildings which were to serve as
models to many architects ; they were the nucleus of that new
Louvre, the building of which went on for three centuries. All
those who successively
added a pavilion, a gal-
lery, or a facjade were
dominated more or less by
Pierre Lescot's concep-
tions. ' This surface of
masonry is so rich in
columns, friezes, archi-
traves and all sorts of
architecture, and of such
excellent symmetry and
beauty, that its equal is
not to be found in all
Europe " (Androuet du
Cerceau). Those who
continued it would occa-
sionally strive to be richer or more majestic ; but that initial
Louvre in which the genius of Lescot and of Goujon met, re-
mains the most brilliant and one of the most graceful inspirations

153

FIG. 314.-

-ROOD-SCRF.EN OF SAINT-ETIENNE
DV MONT, I'AKIS.

ART IN FRANCE

-TdMB OF FKANXIS OK BRITTANY
NANTES CATHEDRAL.

of the Renaissance (Fig.
289).

Jean Bullant showed
even greater submissive-
ness to antique forms, and
was the first to make use
of the " colossal order" ;
at Ecouen, instead of re-
ducing the colonnade to
the dimensions of the
storeys, he enlarged it to
the scale of the facade ;
and instead of superposing
small columns, he erected
lofty columns which rise
from the soil to the summit. Philibert Delorme was also an
enthusiastic admirer of antiquity ; he had studied its treatises and
measured its monuments. In the Chateau d'Anet, the Tuilenes, and
Fontainebleau, he not only derived certain ingenious decorative
forms from antique ruins, but actually re-captured that harmony of
proportion which was the soul of Greek architecture. Yet his
conceptions are not merely those of a designer ; they are essentially
those of a constructor ; in his book on architecture, if he is much
pre-occupied with the mea-
surements of columns and
entablatures, he loves to ex-
ercise his skill on the diffi-
culties of masonry, on spiral
vaults and double winding
staircases ; he does not neglect
comfort, and is concerned to
build chimneys that will not
smoke. His vigorous intelli-
gence was able to master
the two artistic eras, the
Middle Ages and Antiquity,
and to select freely and
without idolatry from the
traditions of the French
master-masons and the works
of Vitruvius. He sought to
adapt, not to imitate. He is

FIG. 316. — THE VIKGIN
OF OLIVET.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FIG. 317. — STRENGTH.

MICHEL COLOMBE.
NANTES CAIHEDRAL.

154

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 318. — TEMTEK-

ANCE. MICHEL

COLOMHE.

NANTES CATHEDRAL.

to be reckoned among those
architects, so numerous m
France, who were thenceforth
to complam of bemg sacrificed
to foreign fashions. He even
prided himself on having created
a French order by erecting
ringed columns here and there
to hide the joins in the drums.
The cathedral also sub-
mitted to the classic influence.
Throughout the sixteenth cen-
tury, the churches still pre-
served their traditional consti-
tution : groined vaults with dia-
gonal ribs supported on pillars
and re - inforced by flying
buttresses. But this Gothic
skeleton was overlaid on every
side with an Italian decoration.

I'k;. 319. — I'lil'DENCE.
IMICHEL COLORIUE.
NANTES
CATHEDRAL.

There is no kind of resemblance between the antique temple and
the French church, and yet a gradual transition from one to the
other of these diverse archi-
tectures was effected. Unlike
classic art, the Gothic style is
very adaptable, and will ac-
cept an eclectic decoration.
The Greek temple was a fixed
and complete organism,
in which nothing could be
changed. It continued immu-
table throughout antiquity, and
in the second manifestation it
enjoyed among the moderns.
The Gothic cathedral, on the
other hand, was an organism in
a perpetual state of transforma-
tion, one which readily received
all kinds of architectonic grafts.
In the time of Louis XI
and Louis XII, ingenious
artists, constructors rather than

KK;. 320. — JUSTICE

MICHEL COLO.MliE.

NANTES

CATHEDRAL.

I'U;. 321. — SAINT-

MAKIIIA.

ClUKCH t)K THE

MADELEINE, TKOYES.

155

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 322. — THE VISITATION.
CHURCH OF SAINT JEAN, TROVES.

decorators, tried the fashionable ornaments of the day on its vast
sides. In time, they intermingled Italian arabesques and the fantasies

of the Flamboyant Style ; then the
ornamental grammar of the ancients
was accepted in its entirety, for nothing
prevented architects from designing
antique pilasters upon buttresses, or
carving Corinthian capitals to support
the arches of a vault. In those parts
of the church of Saint Pierre at Caen
which were built after 1 520 by Pierre
Sohier (Fig. 304), we find this com-
bination of the Flamboyant Style and
Italian decoration. The pinnacles of
the apse are in the form of curved
vases, with convolutions and sculp-
tured arabesques which destroy the
soaring lightness of the Gothic lines.
In the interior, crockets and consoles
hang on the ribs of the vaults like
some heavy vegetation. But in the
over-rich decoration, there is a latent principle of regularity and
symmetry which was subsequently to simplify this exuberant style.
A little later, Pierre Lemercier, in building Saint Eustache in
Paris (Fig. 310), remained a mediaeval architect ; but the limbs
of this Gothic body, the
pillars and flying but-
tresses, are clothed in
the classic manner. The
sixteenth century built
few churches ; it showed
little originality in this
work, and it was not
until the following century
that the innovations passed
from the decorations to
the skeleton of the build-
ing itself. The literary
language of France un-
derwent a like transfor-
mation ; to imitate Latin more closely, French writers loaded their
orthography with etymological letters, and their vocabulary with

156

FIG. 323.

-SAINT GEORGE KILLING THE DRAGON.
MICHEL COLOMUB.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

borrowed words ; but a more profound assimilation was required

to win the logical regularity of classic syntax.

Sculpture was too closely associated with the religious life for any

abrupt mterruption of its normal

evolution. In every corner of

France, Italian art found sculptors

who were working at tombs for

great nobles, or carving the tradi-
tional figures of saints for the people.

In the course of the fifteenth century,

there were certain motives which

made a special appeal to Christian

sensibilities : the groups which illus-
trate the last moments of Jesus, the

Crucifixion, the Virgin of Pity : the

stricken Mother weeping over the

corpse upon her lap, a sombre tete-

a-tele which sums up all the sorrow

of the Passion. The Entombment

was further a tragic spectacle

which gave rich opportunities to

the artist : a corpse, the sumptuous

costumes of Nicodemus and Joseph

of Arimathaea, the attitudes and the mournful faces of the Virgin

and the Holy Women. These groups appear in many churches,

some among them of the most
modest kind ; very often they
were executed by country crafts-
men, who carved the stone
rather heavily, without any pre-
tensions to elegance or correct-
ness. Rarely admirable for their
skill, these works are always
touching in the pity that animates
them. The naive and sorrowful
figures are grouped solicitously
round the dead, whose body is
dimly seen in the background of
a low chapel, dark as a tomb.
The most famous of these

" Sepulchres" are that at Solesmes (Fig. 325) and that by Ligier-

Richier at Saint-Mihiel (Fig. 331). The Solesmes Entombment

157

FIG. 324. — THE MAGDALEN.

FIGLKE OF T.HE "SErULCHRE" AT

SOLESMES.

325. — SEI'UI.CIIKE IX THE
SOLESMES.

Ar.r.EV OF

ART IN FRANCE

dates, no doubt, from the close of the
fifteenth century, and shows more
than one pilaster in the Italian manner.
But these borrowings are applied,
not assimilated ; the artist has
juxtaposed them boldly with the
Flamboyant ornament. The figures,
on the other hand, reveal no traces
of an alien art. This entombment
is a tranquil scene ; a certain
placidity, a kind of expressive im-
potence, becomes an advantage to
the artist, and gives a peaceful
ijiiMWMiiMwi^^M majesty to the drama. Italian art is

|'~*'''^SBHHSi^| ^ prone to emphasise gesture till it

verges on paroxysm. Here, on the
contrary, we have neither violence
nor grimace ; the holy women are
not convulsed by moral suffering, and the weight of the corpse
has not evoked attitudes of painful effort in the bearers. The
robust figures of Solesmes are akin to the minute personages Fouquet
painted so agreeably, if a little languidly. The finest of them, that
of the Magdalen, recalls one of the peasant girls transformed

FIG. 326. — THE CALVARY AT PLEYBEN.

by that artist into saints. She is
apart from the rest, like a discreet
servant. This art, lacking aspira-
tions towards truth and beauty, is
yet full of a sweet serenity.

One name dominates the art of
Touraine at the beginning of the six-
teenth century : Michel Colombewas
of a country and of a period which
eagerly collected all the motives of
Italian decoration and inserted them
even in Gothic monuments. But he
continued to chisel his figures in the
French manner, that of an artist who
was not concerned to elaborate his
modelling, and did not trouble him-
self about anatomical subtleties.
The S. George l^illing the Dragon,
which he carved with great care

158

weeping quie

tly.

somew

hat

327. — THE CALVARY AT
I'LOUGASTEL.

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 328. — CLAUDE OK FKANCK.
CHURCH OF SAINT-DtNIS.

{l'/u>to. Mkusfiiniit. )

for the Chateau de Gaillon (Fig. 323)
lacks elasticity and fire. The marble
demands more nervous forms than those
of this rigid knight on his heavy charger.
In the tomb of Francis II of Brittany
at Nantes, the general architecture re-
mains that of the Middle Ages : a
sarcophagus with sculptured sides sup-
porting two recumbent figures with
clasped hands. But at the first glance
we feel that we are no longer in the
Gothic age ; the panels are overlaid
with the branching ornament of the
Flamboyant Style ; the pilasters are
decorated with delicate Italian bas-
reliefs ; the ornamentation, although still
rich, IS so far chastened as to permit a
precision of lines and planes which is
already classical. The mourners (pleurants) subsist merely in the
shape of little ornamental figures ; they have made way for apostles.
But above all, the four great allegorical statues at the angles. Justice,
Strength, Temperance, and Prudence, proclaim their remoteness
from the mediaeval iconography. The princes and kings for whom
tombs were to be erected thenceforth would prefer radiant divinities,
suggesting ideas of glory, to
the hideous insistence on
Death, characteristic of the
Gothic tomb. A little later,
they caused the sides of their
sarcophagi to be carved with
representations of their ex-
ploits, and with trophies of
victory. But all this was
more than a change of style
in architecture and sculpture.
A pagan joyousness took the
place of the melancholy of
Christian sentiment. Michel
Colombe's cardinal virtues
were not as yet wholly classical in type and costume ; but they were
no longer mediaeval. Their vigorous elegance, the tranquil majesty
of their attitudes, heralds a world in which the figures disdain

159

329.- ficjIkks cik ai-osti.ks .\y ri.Kviii-;\.

ART IN FRANCE

and are content wi

FIG. 330. —CHARLOTTE OF
FRANCE. CHURCH OF SAINT-
DENIS. {Photo. ISIicusetnent.)

expression,
beauty.

Michel Colombe is not a very clearly
defined figure in art-history ; but the
anonymous works which, in their quest
for paternity, naturally group themselves
about him, add considerable substance to
this shadowy personality. Throughout
Touraine there were sculptors who
carved in stone or marble beautiful
Virgins, at once elegant and artless, calm
and healthy, and free from vulgar real-
ism. In earlier figures of this type, a
violent movement of the hip had pro-
duced a tumultuous disorder in the
draperies. This disappears ; the figure
IS drawn up, and the robe falls about it
in quiet folds. These statues are charac-
teristised, not by the sovereign majesty of the Virgin Queens of the
thirteenth century, but by the somewhat rustic elegance dear to
Jean Bourdichon and the Master of Moulins. The violent
" imagiers " are now modelling gentle feminine faces. The Virgin
of Ecouen, and still more, the Virgin of Olivet (Fig. 316) are
among the most seductive figures of French statuary. Here
nervous energy and will-power were not demanded ; the artist gave
himself up to a novel pleasure, the delight of creating and contem-
plating a charming form. The men who loved these works were
as yet unacquainted with
Italian beauty, but they
were fully prepared to
receive and welcome it.
They were beginning to
essay the refinements of
the Italian craftsmen.
Florentine art was about
to teach them to endue
the whole body, in its sup-
pleness of attitudes and
draperies, with that purity
of line they had already
achieved in the features
of the face. Had she

FIl.. 331. — SEI'ULCHRE IN THE CHURCH OF

SAINT-ETIENNE, AT SAINT-MIHIEL.

LIGIER-RICHIER.

(Photo. " Monuments Histoyiijucs")

160

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

332.— FIGURE OF A CHILD.
LIGIER-RICHIEK.

(Tlie Louvre, Paris.)

been born a few years later, the
Virgin of Olivet would have been,
not more graceful, but less homely in
her elegance, and her draperies
would have been more delicate in
texture.

When, at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, Jean Perreal be-
came the overseer of the tomb of
Francis I, Duke of Brittany, he chose
marbles at Genoa, had them trans-
ported at great expense to Lyons,
and carted from Lyons to Roanne ;
thence they followed the course of
the Loire to Nantes, where they were carved by Michel Colombo
and his pupils. It was not only a new material which was then
brought into France, The beautiful marble, destined to become
more and more the medium of the sculptor, exacted a delicacy of
execution impossible with the stone of the old " imagiers " ; its
close and tender grain, its whiteness, its polished surface necessitated

suppler and more precise modelling. The
ornamental vocabulary was the first thing to
be transformed. The interlaced ribs and
serrated foliage of the Flamboyant Style
disappeared from an architecture of regular
lines. Flat pilasters and entablatures were
decorated with candelabra, arabesques, and
garlands in low relief ; a decoration sub-
ordinated like an embroidery to the plane of
the surface and its framework. The Italian
workers in marble, who had come to France
as early as the reign of Charles VI 11, inter-
mingled their ornamental style with that of
monuments, the figures of which remained
purely Gothic. But very soon these figures
themselves began to cast aside their pecu-
liarities of costume and physiognomy, general-
ising, idealising, and tending towards that
type of beauty which Florentine discipline
and the study of the antique had recently
revealed. It was then only that French art
was penetrated to its depths by the classic spirit.
161 M

Flc;. 333. — SKELETON IN I'HI

CHUKCH OF SAlNT-EriENM

AT liAK-LE-DUC.

I.K'.IEK-RICHIER.

{r/ioto. Laurent.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 334. — SCRKEN FROM AUfiEROLLES,
IN THE CLUNY MUSEUM, PARIS.

Around royal or princely
sarcophagi arose beautiful alle-
gorical figures clad m those con-
ventional draperies known as
antique, which reveal the form
of the body. The recumbent
figure was no longer encased m
rigid armour ; he wore the
cuirass of the Roman pattern,
outlining the breast, the abdomen
and the thighs. Very often he
rose on the funereal slab, and
rested on his elbow after the
manner of an antique river-god,
or knelt before a fald-stool.
The face was still a portrait,

but the figure was that of an impersonal hero.

The monuments at Saint Denis demonstrate this transformation

of sculpture very clearly. In order to pass from the Gothic world

to that of the Renaissance, we must make a pilgrimage through this

Way of Tombs. The evolution of form corresponds to a moral

evolution. The sculptors of the Middle Ages had fixed images of

death in these recumbent

kings, and the royal insignia

added little to the miserable

prestige of the stone corpses.

But in the sixteenth century,

the king is not even repre-
sented in the rigidity of

death ; he is seen kneeling

upon a beautiful sculptured

structure, surrounded by fine

allegorical figures ; for the

sinister " pleurants'no longer

attend Louis XII, Francis I

and Henry II. The tomb

of Francis I, constructed by

Philibert Delorme (Fig.

347), is a triumphal arch,

and the base, sculptured by

Pierre Bontemps, records the exploits of the king. In the tomb of

Henry II, the great figures cast by Germain Pilon are not there to

162

FIG. 335. — THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, ON THE
CHOIR-SCREEN IN AMIENS CATHEDRAL.

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

336. — TUF, CHATIil. OF THE
CHATEAU u'AMiiOISE.

{Photo. Neurdein.)

lament the dead, but to recall his
virtues and his glory. The idea is
as pagan as the architecture, and as
the divine bodies of the figures. In
spite of the sculptured corpses that lie
beneath the arcades, these tombs are
no expression of the humble Gothic
philosophy ; the man is not stretched
out upon the slab, resigned and sub-
missive ; he has not accepted death ;
his tomb IS no temporary resting-place
in which he awaits his resurrection ;
it is a triumphal monument which
commemorates and amplifies an illus-
trious life, and assures him of the im-
mortality of glory after his brief exist-
ence on earth.

Setting aside Cellini, goldsmith and
metal-worker, the artists Italy sent to France were chiefly painters,
and yet it was above all the French sculptors who most readily
assimilated Florentine plastic art. There is no common measure as

between the amiable masters of
Moulins, or the graceful miniaturists
of the school of Bourdichon, and
tne superb draughtsmen of Florence.
The interval which the Flemings,
the most supple and gifted of crafts-
men, only bridged over by a century
of application, was not to be spanned
instantaneously. Two admirable
sculptors, however, succeeded in
assimilating the refined elegance
and the supreme science of Floren-
tine design. Jean Goujon (born
about 1515) translated Primaticcio's
long and supple figures with their
clinging draperies, into bas-reliefs.
In his figures at Ecouen, in the
Louvre, and on the Fontaine des
Innocents, he adheres very closely
to a madel which we feel to be, not a solid body in space, but a
drawn or painted figure. He applied himself to the achievement

163 M 2

|mfe \

'■'"■• 337-— UOOKS OK THE CHURCH OF

SAIN T-SArVFUK. AT AIX IX I'KC )\-FN'CF.

ART IN FRANCE

338. — CHATEAU d'aMBOISE ;
DOOR OF THE CHATEL.
{Photp. Ni-Jirdcin.)

o[ one of the most difficult subtle-
ties of Florentine sculpture ; in
bas-reliefs of the most attenuated
type, in which, however, the
bodies take the most undulatmg
attitudes, some few centimetres of
relief very elegantly indicate the
gestures of a figure m motion.
Even the superb Diana of the
Chateau d'Anet, so proud in her
divine nudity, seems to be adapt-
ing her haughty head and her long
limbs to the exigencies of a faijade
(Fig. 352). The sculptor's supple
forms assume the attitude best
adapted to the space with a grace-
ful ease, just as do those of the
decorative painters at Fontaine-
bleau. But the pupil has more
youthful freshness than the Italian masters he imitates ; his chisel
strengthens and sharpens the contours of the decadent painter ; he
brings all the probity of a Primitive to bear upon his transposition
into marble of the somewhat languid grace of the last disciples of
Correggio. In the Fontaine des Innocents, he has confined the
forms of Undines in the narrow spaces between the pilasters, and
on their limbs, suppler than sea-weed, he has thrown draperies as
fluid as the waters that flow from their urns (Figs. 349, 351).

In the less exclusively
classical work of Germain
Pilon (born in 1 535), the
unlettered and naively
naturalistic art of the fif-
teenth century "imagiers "
survives. On the tomb
of Birague (Fig. 354)
and on that of Henry II,
he has placed vigorous
portraits ; but these exact
effigies are of bronze after
the manner taught by
Cellini, and the sculptor,
although he has frankly

FIG. 33g.-

-CHOIU SCREEN IN THE CATHEDRAL OF
CHARTRES.

164

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

KK;. 340. — TO.MB OF UENE II OF

LORRAINE ; CHURCH OF THE

CORDELIERS, NANCY.

{Photo. Acurdfin.)

reproduced the peculiarities of faces T
and costumes, shows a sovereign
elegance, unknown before the Italian
influence. How majestic are these
figures in their fine draperies ! This
precision of style, combined with
grandiloquence, was long to persist in
French sculpture, and more especially
in the statuary of tombs. Germain
Pilon was one of those who most
admirably combined fidelity of por-
traiture with the rhetoric of a funereal
oration. He has a further claim to
distinction in the French school, in-
asmuch as he, as well as Jean Goujon,
discovered the secret which enabled
the Florentine masters to give a kind
of subtle life to the marble ; he
borrowed their flexible forms with
their refined extremities ; he endued his works with certain tactile
qualities, which makes us feel the suppleness of the tissue and the
quiver of the satiny surface on the epidermis of his nymphs. The
Fhree Graces or Theological Virtues who were destined to carry
the hearts of the royal couple have a brilliant elegance which

thenceforth never failed in its
appeal to French taste ; it is
only surprising that the precious
burden should have been confided
to young girls whose vocation for
the dance is so obvious (F13.

355).

Gothic art, both religious and
feudal, had asked very little of
painting, and m the artistic
centres of France, pictorial pro-
duction was not, generally speak-
ing, comparable to that of the
" imagiers " and architects. Thus,
during the seventeenth century,
when the king desired to asso-
ciate painting with royal luxury,
he could not find in his own

HG, 341. — TOMIi OF THE CAKDINAI.S OF
AMBOISE ; ROUEN CATHEDRAL.

165

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 342. — FIGURES ON THE TOMB OF IMllI.iri'K
UE COMMINES.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

kingdom the resources which were so abundant in the case of

architecture and sculpture. He accordingly appealed to the

foreigner ; painters came
from Flanders, and, above
all, from Italy ; they
brought the manner of
their own country with
them, and did not find m
France a national style
with which they had to
compound. The works
they left behind them on
French soil are to be ex-
plained by their native,
and not by their adopted

country. Once again it is on record that Flanders sent out excellent

craftsmen, while Italy bestowed on France, together with her

artists, a new aesthetic process.

Francis I had already made some attempts to attract the most

famous of the Italians, and after the battle of Marignan, he brought

home Leonardo da Vinci, who died soon afterwards ; he then

addressed himself to Andrea

del Sarto, but was unable to

retain him ; at last he succeeded

in capturing II Rosso, a pupil of

Michelangelo and Pnmaticcio,

a decorative painter trained in

the facile school of Correggio.

Others came to attach them-
selves to these two masters.

The innumerable frescoes with

which they covered the walls of

Fontamebleau have disappeared

for the most part, destroyed by

time or damaged by restoration.

But their work is less interesting

in itself than in its relation to

the new conceptions it intro-
duced in France. II Rosso and

Primaticcio represented an art

quite unknown there ; they practised the Florentine manner, that is

to say, a learned art. They were thoroughly versed in the

166

FIG. 343. — TOMB OF LOUIS XII AND ANNE
DE IlkETACiNE AT SAINT-DENIS.

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

344-

-I I'l'KK I'AKT OF THE FIREILACK IN T}IK
CHATEAU d'eCOUEX.

subtleties of anatomy and perspective ; they represented supple and

graceful bodies moving in space, with ease and mastery. This

school of drawmg com-
pleted the mstruction

derived from casts of

antique works. The

painters II Rosso, Prima-

ticcio, and Niccolo dell'

Abbate, in conjunction

with Greek statues and

the treatises of Vitruvius

and Serlio, were the most

active agents of classicism

in France. Through the

teaching of these artists

and of these works,

French art was led to

assimilate the Italian and

the antique doctrine, of which it had hitherto only understood and

imitated the decorative amenities ; and it discovered that the

worship of the human body was the basis of classic art. This

pride m physical beauty, and this
audacious display of nudity were
new things in France. The me-
diaeval artists had tolerated nudity
only as a method of insistence on
human misery, on the shameful
nakedness of the unredeemed ; they
imaged the glorious splendour of
the elect as adorned with rich
stuffs, furs, and jewels. The beau-
tiful nude forms of classical art
delighted a court distinguished by
gallantry of manners and avowed
sensuality. And this art taught a
further aesthetic lesson, one ^\'hIch
was not at first very clearly under-
stood, but which gradually per-
meated French art ; it learned that
beauty of drawing is related to the

ideal proportions of the human body ; the architectural treatises

which were translated at this period further taught the canon of the

167

FK.. 345

I.AI.I.EMKNT.
(("liiny Museum, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

classical orders. French art pondered
long the geometry of beauty which
Florence had re-discovered, and thence-
forth it was never to forget it. It was
at Fontainebleau that it took its first
lesson. Jean Cousin seems to have been
one of the most learned professors of the
new style (Fig. 370).

The Italians also brought with them a
new iconography. It was necessary to
give names to their beautiful figures, and
a significance to their gestures. It is
quite possible that the painters of the
period felt but little interest in the ad-
ventures of Ulysses or of Diana ; but the
learning of the Humanists was about to
familiarise the French intellect more and
more with the world of mythology and of
Grasco-Roman history. That antiquity
which presented itself somewhat con-
fusedly to the imagination as a domain where humanity seemed
to lack all typical individualism was the ideal epoch for the
existence of those slightly abstract figures French artists were

FIG. 346. — TOMB OF THE DUC

DE nntzt IN

ROUEN CATHEDRAL.

thenceforth to create. In the

FIG. 347. — TOMB OF FRANCIS I, AT
SAINT-DENIS

second half of the sixteenth
century, obscure poets and me-
diocre painters prepared the
ground for the two forms of art
in which the French classical
spirit was to find its highest ex-
pression : tragedy and historical
painting.

The great compositions at
Fontainebleau delighted the im-
agination with splendid visions,
but they were only indirectly
related to contemporary life, by
means of allegory or mythological
allusion. There was room for a
realistic art, that of portraiture.

From the reign of Francis I,
a veritable mania for portraits
obtained at the French Court.

168

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

KK;. 348. — C.ER.MAIN I'li.DN.
HUST OF A CHILD.

(The Lou vie, Paris.)

At that period of elegance and gallantry,
men and women elaborated the art of
pleasing by every refinement of toilet and
of physical culture. They delighted to see
themselves reproduced in miniatures or
pictures ; throughout the century, artists
were occupied in depicting with delicate
colours and dainty brushes gala costumes
and carefully manipulated faces. In the
inventory of Catherine de' Medici's fur-
niture, three hundred and forty-one
portraits figure among the tapestries,
enamels, and mirrors.

Once again it was the painters of the
North, the Flemish immigrants, who
applied the minute sincerity of their
methods to French sitters. Their style
was similar, if their skill varied. The
majority of these portraits represent the
face only ; the attitude of the body was very rarely used to complete
the individuality of the type. The Flemings of the fifteenth century
had also loved to enclose the face and the hands of their models
in a little frame. But though the later artists show the same
scrupulous precision, their honesty is less brutal. In the cultured
society of the day, they learned to be truthful and yet amiable ;
Flemish realism was tempered by the tone of good society, by
French courtesy. To judge
by contemporary portraits,
men, down to the reign of
Francis I, were extra-
ordinarily ugly ; after this
date, agreeable drawing
and colour give a certain
elegance to the most
vulgar types. The paint-
ing is light, delicate, and
slight in texture ; but the
smallest gradations are
cunningly utilised, and
every stroke of the brush
tells.

The Clouets arc the

169

Krc;. 349. — JEAN r.oujON.

FONTAINIJ IJIJS INNOCENTS, I'AKIS.

ART IN FRANCE

most famous of these Flemish crafts-
men, pohshed by French amenity
(Figs. 365, 366) : the father, Jean
Clouet, no doubt from Brussels, who
worked at the Court, in Touraine ;
his son, Francois, called by his con-
temporaries Jannet ; and Corneille,
called Corneille de Lyon, and some-
times Cornelis de la Haye, who was
working at Lyons about 1 540. As
befits mere portraitists, these painters
are more shadowy to the historian as
personalities than their sitters ; the
few authenticated works by them, and
the numerous pictures which are
grouped around these by analogy,
evoke the aristocracy of the sixteenth
century with great vitality. There are
few historical periods the actors in
which are more familiar to us than those of the reigns of Francis I,
Henry II and Henry III. If they could revisit us, we should
recognise all the men who lived round Francis I : the king with
his large nose, and his sleepy eyes, broad-shouldered, and decollete
like a woman, and all the gentlemen of the religious wars, scented
and affected like their

FIG. 350. — GERMAIN rll.ON.
BUST OF HEXRY III.

(The I.ouvre, Paris.)

kings, the three sons of P
Catherine de' Medici,
whose shivering senility
and puerile coquetry they
imitate. Jannet and
Corneille de Lyon have
admirably rendered the
aristocratic pallor and
milky complexions of the
Court ladies, with tints as
light as water-colours ;
their painting, consisting
entirely of glazes, is
diaphanous as a fair skin.
In the portrait of Elisabeth
of Austria, the brilliant accessories of the costume, the silk, and the
gems of the ornaments make the fine porcelain textures of the flesh

170

^^B - ^1 '^^

HHMF^PWVif::

FIG. 35T. — JEAN GOUJON. FONTAINE DES
INNOCENTS, PARIS.

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

appear still more fragile
and delicate. Corneille de
Lyon was fond of setting
these white faces against a
green background, for the
sake of the rosy irradiation
such a scheme imparts to
them. Few colours were
used in these portraits ;
sometimes these were
dispensed with altogether ;
simple drawings, with a
few touches of red chalk,
suffice to suggest the
vivacity of the glance and

FIG. 353. — TOMli Ol-' I'llILiri'U

1)1". CMAnirr.
CJ'he Louvre, I'aris.)

tion, that this, after having
created the Gothic form,
should have abandoned it
altogether in favour of
classical art. The other
European countries went
through the same meta-
morphosis. But the classic
regions, such as Italy, had
never fully accepted

rU".. 352. — JKAN C.OUJiiX. DIANA, FHOM THiJ

chAtkau u'anet.
(The Louvre, Paris.)

the nervous fold at the corner of the
mouth in a smooth and carefully
made up face. We are indebted
to this fashion of chalk drawings for
our knowledge of the figures in
history down to the time of Louis
XIII. Stripped of all non-essentials,
and reduced to a few lines, this art
gives a keen and penetrating subtlety
to the definition of types, even
when the artist's hand lacks decision.
It seems a strange development
in the destinies of French civilisa-

i-ii;. 354.

-CiF.RMAIN I'lI.ON. KENIi; L)K lilKA(;LE

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 355. — GERMAIN PILON
THE THREE VIRTUES.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

pointed architec-
ture, and the true
homes of Gothic
art, England,
Flanders, and
Germany, never
achieved classical
purity. France,
on the contrary,
spoke the modern
language of the
seventeenth and
eighteenth cen-
turies with the
same sincerity she
had shown in the
use of the me-
diaeval tongue of
the thirteenth
and fourteenth
centuries. She
change her ideal, and

: 356. — SIDEnOARD, TIME
OF HENRY II.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

alone was able to change her ideal, and to create works which
expressed her genius and propagated it beyond her frontiers in the

age of faith as

m the age of

reason.

Like Chris-

tianity, the

art of the

thirteenth cen-
tury extended

beyond the

political

frontiers,

which were,

indeed, by no

means clearly

defined ; re-
ligion, which

was its soul,

made it a

u n 1 V e r s a 1

FIG. 357. — SIDEBOARD, ATTRI-
BUTED TO HUGUES SAM BIN.

(Museum of Bourges.)

FIG. 358. — BERNARD PALISSY.
ENAMELLED I'OTTERV.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

\72

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

language. At the close
of the Middle Ages, the
enfeebled religious spirit
made way for naturalism ;
the plastic arts, more
deeply rooted in the soil,
drew inspiration from it,
and the unity of Christian
art was broken up. Clas-
sicism came to re-unite
European art, imposing

a common ideal, bor- (The Louvre, Paris.)

rowed for the most part

from antiquity. From this time there has been at the base of

artistic language a kind of essen-
tial syntax, a sort of abstract
universality, which becomes very
apparent as soon as there is a
dearth of original temperaments.
In this classical art, the pre-
occupation with pure beauty
became more and more en-
grossing to the artist ; construc-
tion, painting and sculpture were
so many learned and difficult
exercises, designed to evoke
feelings in which very little
religious sentiment had survived.
Orthodoxy was forced to make so many concessions, that theologians
conceived scruples as to

360.— HERNAK'l) lAl.ISSV.
(The l.ouvre, Paris.)

the maintenance of re-
lations between faith and
art. The men of the
Reformation, and then
those of the Counter-
Reformation, watched and
condemned the fancies of
painters and sculptors.
Theologians, as well as
artists, thought it more
seemly that plastic pro-
duction should be exer-

361.— JEAN rri.NICAVD I. ENAMELLED liU'TVClt.

(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

173

ART IN FRANCE

362. — TAl'ESTRY OF THE LEIJEND
OF SAINT-QUENTIN.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

Roman divinities, born of a
collaboration between artists
and poets, never ceased to
belong to them. In all
countries and in all ages,
those who seek to vivify an
ideal body turn back to
paganism. The worshippers
of pure beauty all meet on
Olympus. Christianity was
a creed still too vital and too
jealous to lend itself to the
caprice of artists ; paganism,
on the other hand, belongs

cised upon images other
than those of Christian
iconography. Religion

withdrew from art, and
circumscribed its domain
that it might the more
easily defend it. From
the sixteenth century on-
wards, artists and poets
alike demanded new re-
sources from antique
mythology ; the Grasco-

KIG. 364. — DIANA AND HEk NVMl'HS.

(Museum of Rouen.)

174

ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

(Museum of Avignon.)

to them ; plastic genius
suffices to bring the
heathen gods to life again.
It is true that when
French art abandoned its
religious and mediaeval
traditions, it caused many
vigorous roots to wither in
the ground. It has often
been made a reproach to
the French classical school
that it lacked the artless

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 365. — JEAN CLOUET.

FRANCIS I.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FU;. 366. — FRANCOIS CLOUFT.

Fn.ISABETH OF AUSTRIA.

(The T.Diure, Paris.)

and absolute sincerity of the Gothic artists, that it offered a
superior sort of pastime to cuUivated minds, and did not represent
the French soul in its entirety. It may be urged without any subtle
intention, that French sculptors and painters show more sincerity
in the representation of Venus or Apollo than in that of Christ or
the Virgin ; in the fcrmer, they are concerned to produce pure
plastic forms, and lack of candour is no longer an outrage, when all
are agreed that art is merely a diversion. As early as the fourteenth

century, the
French
m 1 d d I e
classes were
so far in-
structed in
the history
and religion
of antiquity,
that the
pagan ori-
gins of their
own civil-
isation were

Fir,. 367. — CHARI.KS IN.
W.\X MKDAII.I.ION.

(Cluiiy jMuseum, Paris.)

FK;. 36S. — CATHICRINK I)K MkDICI.
WAX M]-:i>Al.I.ION.

(Cluny Museum, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

one day to be more
familiar to them than the
hnks that bound them to
Christianity ; while this
pseudo-antique art was
m process of formation,
Humanism was instruct-
ing a public to the end
that it might understand
its mtentions. It was, no
doubt, an artificial cul-
ture ; it made distinctions
between popular and
scientific art ; it severed
the innumerable ties, which, in the Middle Ages, united a Christian
people and its religious art. And yet this classicism was never,
in France, isolated by its aristocratic character. The most sincere
poets of classical art, Poussin, Lorrain, David, Prudhon and Ingres
were not very profound Humanists. Erudition plays no part in the
pagan charm of their masterpieces ; but an instinctive and profound
predilection sometimes reveals to us the close kinship between the
French genius and antique modes of thought and feeling.

369--

-RAI.I, AT THE COURT (IF HEXm' III.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FIG. 370. — JEAN COUSIN.
THE LAST JUDGMENT.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

176

FIG. 371. — FRANfOIS CLOUET
CHARLES ly.

The Louvre, Paris.)

GOTHIC STYLE TO CLASSICAL ART

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

L. de Laborde, La Renaissance a la cour de France, 2 vols., Paris, 1850-1855; Comple Jes
Batimenh duRoi de 1528a I 571 , 2 vols.. Paris. 1 877- 1 880. ^. Miniz, La Renaissance en I lalie
el en France a I'ipoque de Charles VI I L Paris, 1885.^ Mrs. Mark Pattison, The Renaissance of
Art in France, London, 1879. — W. Liibke. Geschichle der Renaissance in Frankreich (Archi-
tekiur), Stuttgart. 1883. — H. von Geymijller, Die Baukanst der Renaissance in Frankreich,
Stuttgart, 1901.— L. Palustre, La Renaissance en France,} vols., Paris, 1879-1889. - A. Berty,
La Renaissance monumentale en France, Paris. 1864, 2 vols.— P. Vitry, Tours et la Touraine
(Les Villes dart). Paris. n.d.-F. Bournon, Blois el Chambord ( Les Villes d'arl), Paris, n.d.
Pfnor, Monographic du Chaleau d Anel, Paris. -Champollion-Figeac and Pfnor. Monographie
du Palais de t-onlainebleau, Paris. 1863,2 vols. - Philibert de Lorme. Noucelles Invenlions
pour bien bastir, Paris, 1561 ; L'Archileclure, vol. I, Paris, 1567 Cvol. II not published). —
M. Vachon. Philiberl de I'Orme, Paris, 1887.— H. Lemonnier, P/i(7/5er/ c/e Lorme (R.A.A.M.,
1898, I),-H. Clouzot, Philiberl de I'Orme, Paris. 1910. J.-A. du Cerceau, Les plus excellenls
basliments de France, 2 vols.. 1 576- 1 579. -R. de Geymiiller, Les du Cerceau, Paris, 1887.—
L. Vitet, Le Louvre, Paris, 1853.- A. Berty, Topographic hislorique du Vieux Paris (neighbour-
hood of the Louvre, 2 vols., Paris, 1866-1868. — L. Batiffol. Le Louvre el les plans de Lescol
(C.B. A., 1910, I).-G. Charvet, Les Edifices de Brou {R.S.B.A. D.. 1897).-J. Gauthier,
L'Archileclure civile en Franche-Comle au XVT si'ccle iR. S. B. A. D., 1899). -Abbe
Bouillet Sainl-Elienne-du-Mont, Paris, 1897.— V. Calliat and Leroux de Lincy, £g//5e Saint-
Euslache, Paris, 1850. — L. Courajod, Alexandre Lenoir, son journal et le Musee des Monu-
ments franfais, voh. II and 111. Paris. 1886-1887.- R. Koechlin and Marquet de Vasselot. Lo
Sculpture a Troyes et dans la Champagne meridionale au XI I^ siecle, Paris. 1901. Paul
Denis, Ligier-Richier, Nancy, 1906. A. Castan, L' " Archilecleur" Hugues Samhin (R. S.
B.A. D.. 1890).- E.Thioliier, Sculptures foreziennes de la Renaissance (G. B. A.. 1901. 1).—
P. \/hry, Michel Colombe el Sculpture francaise de son temps, Paris. 1901. Reveil, CEui're de
Jean Goujon. engraved by Reveii, Paris. 1 868. R. Lister, Jean Coujon, his Life and Work,
London, 1903.- H. Jouin, Jean Goujon. Paris, 1906. P. Vitry. Jean Goujon, Paris, n.d.-
L. Palustre, Germain Pilon (G. B. A.. 1894, I). A. de Boislisle, La Sepulture des Valois a
Saint-Denis {Mem. de la Societe de I'Hisloire de Paris, vol. Ill, 1876). Vitry and Briere.
L'Eglise abbaliale de Saint-Denis el ses tombeaux, Paris, 1908. J. Gauthier, Conrad Meyl et
les sculpleurs de Brou iR. S. B. A. D., 1898). De Champeaux , f/is/o/re de la Peinture
decorative. Paris, 1890. L. Dimier. Le Primatice, Paris, 1902. E. Miintz. L'Ecole de Fon-
tainebleau el le Primatice (G.B. A., 1902, II). H. Bouchot, Les Portraits aux crayons des
XVI'' et XVI F siecles conserves a la Bibliotheque N alionale, Paris, 1 884 ; Le Portrait en I'rance
au XVr siecle (G. B.A., 1887,11) ; LesClouetei Corneille de Lyon. Pans, 1892. A.Germain
Les Clouel. Paris, n.d. F. Wickhotf, 'Die Bilder ueiblichcr Halhfiguren (J ahrbiicher of the
Museums of Vienna. 1901). L. Bourdery and E. Lachenaud, Lc'onarc/ Li'mous/n, Paris. 1897. -
E, Dupuy. Bernard Palissu. Poitiers. 1902. — Edm, Bonnaffe, Les Faiences de Saint-Porchaire

(C.B. /I.. 1895, 1).

77 N

I'lG. 372. — THE LUXEMnnURG I'AI.ACE, PARIS.

CHAPTER II

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

Roually in Paris.- The New Architecture in the Towns : Town Houses and Country Houses. —
Religious Architecture : the Jesuit Style. Sculpture : the Decoration of Facades \ Memo-
rial Sculpture ; Royal Statues. Painting Becomes an Integral Fr-.lor in French Life.
The Immigration of flemish Painters in Provence and in Paris. - The Royal Academy
of Painting and Sculpture. Italian Influence. Simon Vouei ; Lesueur. Contemporary
Life, C allot, the Brothers LeNain. Sebastien Bourdon. The Classical Style: Poussin, the
Antique, Christianity. Composition and Execution ; Influence of Poussin on the Taste nf
His Time. — Claude Gellee, called Le Lorrain.

From the time of Francis I, art had been too closely allied to the
monarchy not to feel its misfortunes. It languished during the years
of religious strife, evil administration, and foreign warfare. All
great enterprises were abandoned, and the painters of Fontamebleau
vegetated idly around the palace. When the peace came, there
was a revival of artistic activity. When Henry IV found himself at
last safely established in that Paris which he had entered with so
much difficulty, he hardly quitted it for the rest of his life. The
monarchy, nomad in the sixteenth century, had become sedentary
and Parisian. It established itself in the Louvre and the Tuileries,
and began the construction of the great gallery which was intended to
unite them. In spite of the multiple cares of the monarch, and the
brevity of his reign, the capital of the kingdom gained considerably
from becoming the royal residence. With Henry IV the masons
entered the city, and masons are followed by painters and sculptors.

178

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. ^7". — THE SMALL GALLERY OF THE LOUVRE

(gALERIE u'aIOLLON), FKom AN ENGRAVINC; I!Y

LSRAEL SILVESTRE.

(r;ilillothc(iiie Natioiiale, Print Rodin.)

A modern Paris was soon to take the place of the mediasval town ;
its present physiognomy began to develop. The classical style,
which was popularised by
mansions, churches, and
private dwelling-houses,
has never ceased to
dominate French archi-
tecture from this period.
In the renovated city, the
only Gothic buildings that
were left after a short
time were religious struc-
tures, spared by virtue
of their sacred character.
Houses with heavily loaded roofs and slight walls strengthened by
cross-beams ceased to be built.

In the engravings of the seventeenth century we already find the
modern street with its more regular alignment, and the high square
facjades with their symmetrical windows. Very soon private houses
began to show pilasters, capitals, and cornices. But at first, archi-
tects were content with the quiet and unostentatious cheerfulness
obtained by the picturesque combination of red brick, white stone,
and blue sla^e. It was suitable to a society which, constrained to
recuperate financally, and rejoicing in its recovered tranquillity, was
content to put off its artistic pretensions to the future. This style

was not so Netherlandish
and "Huguenot" as is
sometimes supposed. Its
amenity had already found
favour in the days when
Louis XI inhabited his
Plessis " at Tours. But
in the seventeenth century,
Vitruvius and Serlio were
so widely read that French
architecture could not long
abstain from the adoption
of the classic orders.
Brick was considered a
vulgar material. We may
judge of the favourite effects in this medium from the remains
of the Place Dauphine (Fig. 375). the Place Royale (376), and

179 N 2

I "'• 374-~l"l' LONG (iALLERV OF THE LOUVKE,
FROM AN EN(. RAVING liV LSRAEL SMAESTRE.

(I!i1)l!nthcque Nation.Tlo, Print Room.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 375. — THE PLACE UAUPHINE, FROM THE I'ONT-
NEUF, FROM AN ENGRAVING BY P^RELLE.

(Bibliotheque Nationale, Print Room.)

the central pavilion of the palace of Versailles (Fig. 478). In
the heart of Louis XIV's majestic building, the modest country

house of his father still
exists.

But the transformation
of the towns was not con-
fined to the style of their
facades. It is certain that
the good king Henry IV
had conceived a new plan
for his great city. Like
all mediaeval towns, Paris
was choking within its
walls ; the Seine was its
sole great highway ; the
city could only breathe on
the banks of its river. The congested Gothic buildings rose to
a great height ; no clear spaces were reserved round churches and
palaces to secure their scenic effect. Classical architecture, with
its regular facades, requires a spacious setting if the eye is to
appreciate its unity of composition. The design of streets and
squares was also complementary to the architecture : the Place
Royal and the Place Dauphine are built on a unique plan. Public
buildings, such as the College des Quatre-Nations (Fig. 388),
were provided with broad wings, that they might present an im-
posing theatrical appearance to the king's sight. At the beginning

of his Di scours de la
Melhode, Descartes
speaks of the perfect
town, geometrical and
regular as an architect's
plan. In Poitou, in the
very heart of the country,
Richelieu realised this
ideal ; like many other
works of pure reason, it
lacks nothing but life.

In Pans, architects
were unable to expand
freely. The Louvre made
laborious attempts to extend its long faqades in the midst of a
congested district. It remained entangled in a maze of private

180

FIG. 376. — PLACE DES VOSGES (fOR.MKRLY PLACE
ROVALE), PARIS.

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

!t.^ i

«^^«^1

'^^:S^-f3

377. — CIU'KT OK 'DIE IIOIICI, SL Ll.V, I'Al^ls.

houses, while Marie de' Medici erected her palace of the Luxem-
bourg outside the town, in a region of gardens and convents. The
Florentine queen was
thinking of her Pitti
Palace at home ; but the
haughty ostentation of
strength characteristic of
Tuscan architecture could
not find favour in Pans.
Salomon de Brosse built
an hotel on the French
plan, between courtyard
and garden ; the fagades
with their lofty roofs are
enlivened by the simple
design of the windows,
and the beauty of the
dressed stone ; though it lacked the ornamental richness of the
new Louvre, the general effect has a very refined elegance
(Fig. 372).

Following the royal example, the nobility and the middle classes
began to make new dwellings. Richelieu had lived in the Petit
Luxembourg in order to be near the Queen-Regent ; he had the
Palais Royal built to be near the king. The quarter of the Marais
and the He Saint- Louis
were soon covered with
stately houses. In the
interiors were galleries
adorned with stucco and
paintings, en the facades,
the somewhat frigid deco-
ration of the classic orders.
Domestic architecture in
its turn adopted this
system of ornament,
hitherto reserved for
royalty. The mansions
in the Marais which have
survived still preserve a
kind of melancholy dignity,
though tradesmen's vans have replaced coaches in their courtyards.
On those facades which architects designed m accordance with the

181

FIG. 378.

TAI-AIS CAKI>1NAI. (lUHI.lo I lll\(Jt'Ii
N A riON A I.k), VA K I S.

ART IN FRANCE

l-U;. 379. — FOUNTAIN IN THE GARDEN
OF THE LUXEMBOURG, PARIS.

rules of Vitruvius, commercial
advertisements now hang upon
the crumbling cornices and
weather-worn stone (Fig. 377-
378).

The wealthier citizens had
also country-houses (" maisons
des champs "). where they could
entertain their guests on a larger
scale. These houses retained no
trace of the feudal construction
still visible in the chateaux of the
sixteenth century. They are
regular buildings, square on plan ;
the faqades, though they are
ornamented with pilasters and
pediments, owe their agreeable
elegance to the design of the
windows and the beautiful roofs. Lateral buildings project, enclos-
ing a fore-court ; the building itself seems to be coming to meet the
visitor and conduct him to the hospitable threshold. How different
are these cheerful dwellings from the closely guarded, distrustful
Italian palaces ! At the back of the house, the garden presents
itself as a kind of perennial gala decoration ; flowers or clipped
shrubs make a heavy lace-work on the soil ; jets of water fall into
flat basins ; then there are radiating alleys, with trees ranged on

either side to amuse the
eye without shutting out
the horizon. The engrav-
ings of Perelle and Israel
Silvestre show us the
kind of life for which
these chateaux were de-
signed ; they depict
carriages and horsemen
arriving, and passing
through the iron gates into
the fore-court, or gentle-
men and ladies grouped
about the fountains and
fl ower-beds of the gardens,
FIG. 380.— h6 TEL DE viLLE, AT LYONS. cxchangiug cercinonious

182

IlllflSllffl

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

greetings and conversing.
It was for the reception
of visitors that M. de
Maisons built the chateau
on the banks of the Seine
which bears his name,
and that Fouquet erected
the Chateau de Vaux ;
it was to make his re-
ceptions more magnificent

Fit;. 382. — IKON fiATE IN THi;

GALKKIU d'aTOLLON, I.OLVKE.

1-KOM THE CHATEAU DE .M.\ISONS-

I.AI-i-ITTE.

{Photo. L'A rchitectc. )

tion of art effected by
contact with Italy and
antiquity. It was content
to exercise a gentle con-
trol over the pagan ex-
uberance which had taken
possession of the plastic
arts, and might have
shocked thoughtful

FIG. 381. — CH.\TEAU DE CANY.

that the King of France created
Versailles (Figs. 381-385).

The first half of the seventeenth
century was marked by an extra-
ordinary Catholic revival. Religious
orders, either new or re-constructed,
re-captured some of the territory lost
by Catholicism since the Reformation.
This Christian emotion found expres-
sion in architecture, sculpture, and
painting ; but all it contributed to
these was a renewed fervour ;
Catholicism accepted the transforma-

Flr;. 383.— CHATEAU DE M AISONS-I.AFFITTE.

183

{Photo. L'Architcctc.)

ART IN FRANCE

4. — CHATEAU DE DAMPIERRE.

Christians. The Jesuits, who, in their colleges, reconcile Christian
theology and antique 'thought, taught very elegant combinations.

Wherever they have
directed the intellect, in
education as m art,
they have found a
classical language for their
Catholicism,

They it was who de-
termined the architectonic
forms which were to re-
place the Gothic style.
Pere Martelange designed
for urban churches and
convents reductions of St. Peter's at Rome, and of the Gesii
Church. This Roman style was widely distributed, thanks to
the religious orders, just as was the rejuvenated authority of the
Pope. Nothing was left of the Gothic principle of directing
pressure to the ribs, pillars, and flying buttresses ; once more,
the building relied for solidity upon compactness, and the problem
was how to give this mass an elegant silhouette, and to mask the
masonry with a decorative^fa<;ade. This so-called "Jesuit architec-
ture' seems to be a revival
of Romanesque, because
both are derived from
antiquity, the one by filia-
tion, the other by imitation;
they have the same affinity
as the learned terms created
by the Humanists, and their
popular equivalents. But
the Romanesque masonry
was extremely simple ;
the new architecture im-
plied a scientific system of
stone-cutting ; it was the
work of draughtsmen who
had made very correct plans
treatises and the proportions

FIG. 385. — CHATEAU DE VAUX-LE-VICOMTE.

on paper, inspired by classical
of Roman monuments. Never-
theless, these divergences were not irreconcilable ; at Notre-Dame-
des-Doms, the people of Avignon succeeded in applying a
classical decoration to an old Romanesque building.

184

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 386, — FA(,:ADF, of the ClIUNCH OF
SAINT-GERVAIS, PARIS.

In the interior, the eye, accustomed to the soaring move-
ment of Gothic vauhs, finds the barrel vauUs resting on the

supporting walls very heavy ; the
windows pierced in this vault
increase the effect of heaviness
by revealing the thickness of the
masonry ; the pilasters, the capitals,
the cornices display the elegant
purity of their design on every
side, but they are powerless to
lighten the square pillars and the
solid forms. The Italians ampli-
fied this style by ornamental
pomp ; in France, decoration re-
mained more sober ; it was by
happy proportion that French
architects sought to satisfy the re-
ligious sentiment of their day, as in
the churches of Saint Paul, Saint
Louis, the Sorbonne, the Val-de-
Grace, Saint Louis des Invalides,
and Saint Sulpice (Figs. 386-389).
A similar transformation took place externally ; the vault

still had to be supported, but the flying buttresses, instead

of describing a frank angle,

were curved inwards as if to

disguise their function, and thus

lost something of their supporting

power. The facade became a

kind of architectural exercise,

where the same elements had

always to be arranged : two or

three antique orders surmounted

by a triangular pediment. The

angle formed by the upper storey

and the lateral aisles was adorned

by a console which affords a kind

of transition. This type of facade

was not constituted all at once ;

the first architects who had to

apply them to the latest Gothic

churches show indecision and

185

1 U.. 387. — CHURCH OF THE SORBONNE.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 388. — CHAl'EL OF THE COLLEGE

DES QUATRE-NATIOXS (I'ALAIS

DE l'iNSTITUT, 1>AKIs).

fantasy. At Saint Etienne du
Mont (Fig. 311), the architect is
still very far from the chilly
simplicity of the classical style.
The stone is gay with decorative
amenities, like a piece of Renais-
sance furniture. Pierre Biard's
rood-screen is of a period when
architects were still pre-occupied
with dainty details. But Saint
Gervais is correctly cold and
bare ; Salomon de Brosse adapted
his columns and entablatures with
some elegance to the project-
ing cornices ; this ingenious deco-
ration was, however, too narrow
for the body of the building,
which protrudes on either side
(Fig. 386).
In this architecture, imaginative effort is confined to the dome ;

this was the problem to which all constructors, after the creation of

Santa Maria dei Fiori at Florence, and St. Peter's at Rome,

had aspired to devote their talents. All the principal Parisian

churches of the seventeenth century have a cupola, Val-de-Grace, the

Sorbonne, the Invalides, the Chapel

of the College des Quatre-Nations ;

they dominate the city, and like

the Gothic towers and spires,

indicate the church of God from

afar. But when French architects

borrowed the Italian cupolas, they

modified them a little ; they re-
tained the national taste for a

high timber roof, and were thus

enabled to give additional height

to the exterior silhouette of

their spherical vaults. Their little

cupolas, ornamented with sculpture

and decked with metal, swell

proudly heavenwards, without

pressing heavily upon their points

of support.

-CHURCH OF VAL-DE-GRACE.

186

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

I-'IC. 390. — BLST Ol-- ilKNKN' IV.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

There has been some injustice in
the frequent reproach brought
against this architecture of its lack
of sincerity and of expressive power.
It IS to the full as Christian as that
of the thirteenth century ; but the
Christianity it stands for is no longer
that complete Christianity which
concentrated the whole thought and
life of man. The Frenchmen of
the seventeenth century demanded
a system of definite ideas from
their religion ; their churches had
to be lecture-halls, of majestic,
but reasonable proportions. Their
somewhat low-pitched vaults re-
echoed the periods of eloquent
Oratorians ; a cultivated public assembled beneath them on
appointed days to listen to well-constructed sermons on morality,
which confirmed their faith by making it as intelligible as
possible.

The activity of the architects benefited the sculptors and painters.
Statues were required for the new churches, and for town-houses
and their gardens. The king set the example : Henry IV ordered
the works at the Louvre, interrupted in the reign of Henry II, to
be resumed. The financiers, in their turn, coveted a richly
decorated gallery, a reduction of that of Fontainebleau, or of the
small gallery in the Louvre, which was just finished. On the
ceilings, nymphs and Atlantes intermingled with the arabesques, and

supported the framework of the paint-
ings ; the same mythology re-appeared
in the gilded stucco-work and in the
pictures. The gardens began to be
peopled with statues, m the Italian
fashion. Finally, on the more sump-
tuous facjades, statues enrich the archi-
tectonic decoration. At the Louvre,
Jacques Sarrazin crowned Lemercier's
j:)avilion with a pediment on grace-
ful Caryatides. But this classical
sculpture found its only brilliant culmin-
ation at Versailles.

I"U;. 391. — GLII.I.AUME UUrKE.
HIINKV IV AND MAKII5 DK' Ml^DICl.

187

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 392. — JEAN WARIN. GAS.SENDI.

Henn de Conde by Sarrazin at Chan-
tilly (Fig. 402), and that of Mont-
morency at Moulins, by Francois
Anguier (Fig. 399). The others are
modest, but always serious m their in-
spiration. If they lack the subtle charm
of the Florentines, or of the French
sculptors of the sixteenth century, the
faces and attitudes express profound
sentiments with a sincerity which takes
the place of eloquence. There is more
conviction than grace in these calm
portraits and folded hands. Their sculp-
tors have not always succeeded in giving

The Renaissance had not disturbed
the mediaeval tradition of funereal
monuments. The most famous men of
the seventeenth century had their tombs
in the churches. But small chapels
cannot contain huge monuments. For
the most part, these memorials were
reduced to a decorative facade of black
and white marble applied to the wall.
Some few princely monuments retain a
certain pomp, with mourning Virtues,
and genu in tears, as on the tomb of

393. — JEAN WARIN.
RICHELIEU.

I-Ui. 394. — JEAN WARIN. ISUST OF

RICHELIEU (BIBLIOTHEQUE MAZARINE,

PARIS).

lightness to the Louis XIII costume,
so gallant in wool or silk, but heavy
and massive in stone or bronze ;
only a few among them ever thought
of following the example of Germain
Pilon, and throwing a loose mantle
over the shoulders of their figures,
to simplify a complicated equip-
ment, or soften a too rigid skirt.
Their works were frank and uncom-
promising images of serious and
believing burgesses.

All the portraits, however, were
not executed for tombs. A fashion
introduced from Italy, that of
portrait-busts, soon became popular.

188

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

1 u;. 395. — DAKTH^LEMV I'KIKIK.
MAKIE I)E liARBANCON-CANV.

(Museum, Versailles.)
(Pl'oto. Mieuseiiioit. )

Naturally, it is the great personages of

the realm, the king and his ministers,

who appear in these works of marble

or metal. Dupre and Warm, who

engraved medals with elegant ex-
actitude, also modelled bronze busts

with delicate minuteness (Fig. 391-

394). But patrons were not content

with these reduced portraits. From

Henry IV onwards, all the French

kings had their statues. All who

crossed the Pont-Neuf, completed in

the reign of Henry IV, passed before

a bronze effigy of the king, mounted

on a horse cast in Italy. At the

corners of the pedestal, Francheville

placed long, contorted, uneasy seated

figures, following the tradition of

Michelangelo. At the Hotel-de-Ville,

which the king completed, there was

a bronze bas-relief by Pierre Biard on the tympanum of the central

door, representing Henry IV on horseback. The son of this

sculptor executed a Louis XIII for the Place Royale ; here again the

King of France bestrode an Italian horse.

The Louis XIV of the Place Vendome at
last was given one of French race. At the
entrance of the Pont au Change there was
a monument on which three bronze figures
by Simon Guillain, represented Louis XIII
as a soldier, and Anne of Austria in court
costume, turning towards the little Dauphin.
In each of these statues there is a robust,
if slightly heavy sincerity, which was
habitual when art did not allow itself to be
guided, and ruined, by Florentine idealism

(Fig. 398).

At this period, the glorification of French
kings by statuary in accordance with a ritual
first Roman, and then Italian, was a novel
idea. Henry IV, Louis XI 11, Louis XIV,
and Louis XV had not, like their ancestors,
monumental tombs in Saint Denis. No re-

I k;. 396. — riEKKE

iram;hk\ii.i.k. ohi'Hels.

(The I.ouvre, Paris.)

189

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 397- — BARTHELEMY

rUIEUR. ABUNDANCE.

IMONTHIORENCV MONUMENT

(The I.nuvre, Paris.)

cumbent effigy on a marble slab commemor-
ates them as it did the mediaeval kings ; we
have not even one of those hvmg images of
them, kneeling before God, with which the
Valois kings adorned their monuments.
Royal statues now glorify only royalty ; they
rise in the public squares like idols, or the
symbols of a new worship. The monarchy
benefited by this imitation of the Marcus
Aurelius, who, from the top of the Capitol,
still extends his dominating gesture over
Rome.

Painting more especially reminds us that
we are entering upon a new era. In the
Middle Ages, the true painters were the
makers of coloured windows and the illumin-
ators. These mediums of colour died with
Gothic art. After the Renaissance, the
monarchy, the Church, and the middle
classes patronised painting, to which they
looked for decorations for their palaces and

their churches, and pictures for their dwellings. It is in this art,

more docile than sculpture, and apter in the expression of emotion,

that we shall henceforth find the most delicate manifestations of

French thought. The new religious architecture employed painters

very freely. Innumerable "saintetes

(sacred pictures) were required for

the newly built churches and con-
vents. In certain towns, such as

Paris, Avignon, and Aix, citizens

were in the habit of associating

painting with their pious exercises.

Every year, in the month of May,

the Goldsmiths' Guild in Paris gave

a large picture to Notre- Dame.

These " Mais," which the whole

town saw, sometimes served to

demonstrate some youthful talent.

It was by amiable customs of this

nature that the cities of Flanders

and Italy, from the Middle Ages

onward, recognised their spiritual

190

FU;. 398. — Sl.MOX GUILLAIN.

LOUIS XIII, ANNE OF AUSTRIA, AND

THE DAUl'HIN. MONU.MENT

FORMERLY ON THE I'ONT AU CHANGE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. ;:;qC). FKANCOIS ANGLIER. TOMU (11-

THK DUC 1)1-; MOXT.MOREN'CV, CHAl'KI.

OF THIC I.'S'CHE, AT Mori. INS.

(/V/oA). Nciirdciu.)

solidarity in their collective ad-
miration of a masterpiece. France
had too long been deprived of
such sentimental communion, which
fires artistic energies. A Parisian
public of increasing refinement
was henceforth to assure the con-
tinued vitality of French art.

A continuous immigration from
the North is to be found at the
source of this French painting.
Flanders had always allowed her
surplusage of artists and craftsmen
to overflow into other lands ; they
propagated their industry in the
majority of the French provinces ;
they set out to study Italy, or
merely in search of work. Dutch-
men, Flemings, Picards, Lorrains,
and Champenois, they went from
town to town, painting portraits or Church pictures. Sometimes a
long undertaking kept them stationary, and they settled where
they were, forgetting their native land and the Italy of their
dreams. They founded colonies in many of the large French
towns, and it was because they Gallicised the Germanic syllables
of their names that we do not at once recognise their origin.

It was one of these
travelling artists, who,
passing through Nor-
mandy, determined the
vocation of Poussin. At
Bordeaux, Flemish artists
were painting portraits of
the jurists, while Dutch-
men were draining the
marshes of Saintonge.
When Scbastien Bourdon
came to Montpelhcr. he
found that Netherlandish
artists had long been
established there. At
Toulouse, the Flemings

FIG. 400. — FRANCOIS ANGVIUK.
.MOMMFNT OF- TIIIC I.ONGfEVII-I-I-: FAMILY,

(The Louvre, P.irls. )

191

ART IN FRANCE

fig. 401. — miciiki. r.ouhdin.

tomb of louis xi, at notre-dame

de-cli';rv.

{.Photo. LiiiiovsiH.)

and their pupils painted the notables
of the district in a stiff and serious
manner, representing them clothed
in black, and kneeling at the foot of
a Crucifix, with the insignia of the
magistracy. But it was more
especially on the high road to Italy
that they left traces, at the great
halting places, Paris, Lyons, and
Provence. The dynasty of the
Stellas, the men and women of which
alike painted and engraved, settled
at Lyons. The churches of Provence
contain a number of pictures which
illustrate the continuous infiltration of
Flemish art, from the manner of
Van Eyck to that of Rubens, with all
the intermediate styles. At Aix,
several pictures by Finsonius, a
native of Bruges, show the strong
colour of the Flemings struggling with the black shadows of
Caravaggio, and the glowing yet murky atmosphere of Tintoretto.
Other painters of the same group, such as Jean Daret (of Brussels),
watered down Flemish effects in Bolognese compositions. Rubens
alone was strong enough to elevate this heavy realism by a mighty
breath of inspiration. Avignon continued to be a centre of art,
and a town which welcomed painters. It had a public capable of

understanding them, of
attracting them, and of
giving them work. Its
churches still contain a
great number of pictures
painted for pious donors.
They are large composi-
tions, m most of which
the rounded figures dear
to Guido Rem move
among the opaque
shadows of Caravaggio.
Some of them have re-
tained a certain natural-
istic solidity, which the

FI<;. 402. — JACQUES SARRAZIN. TOMB OF HENRI DE

COND6. FROM THE CHURCH OF SAINT-BAUL.

CHATEAU DE CHANTILLV.

192

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 403.— I'lllI.U'l'E UE CHAMl'AIGNE. DKAI) CHRIST.

(The Louvre, P.iris.)

commonplace elegance of the prevailmg mode has not succeeded In
enervatmg.

One of these artists, Nicolas Mignard, called Le Romain,
became famous even in Paris by painting sacred subjects with
logical exactitude. His somewhat frigid culture is more naturally
displayed m portraiture. The nobility of Comtat and Provence did
not lack painters to fill its galleries with family portraits. The
province continued to capture artists on their way to and from Rome.
This did not suffice to constitute an original school ; but it made the
region fertile in painters.

in spite of much restoration and demolition, Flemish works are
still very numerous in the Parisian churches of the seventeenth
century. They consist of small, facile panels, gaily coloured with a
fat impasto, or large altar-pieces in which the painter has attempted
to speak the tongue of Rubens. The Louvre and various private
houses also welcomed
Flemish decorations
of mythology or landscape.
Henry IV retained Pour-
bus, who was passing
through Pans, and Pour-
bus has soberly recorded
the jovial malice of the
" Vert Galant," and the
somewhat heavy majesty
of the queen. In 1620,
when Marie de' Medici
was seeking a painter
for her great gallery in
the Luxembourg, she

;. 404. — I'HII.llM'l-; UK CHAMI'.\1GNE. I'OKTKAIT OF

MOTHER CATHEKINE, .\<;NES AKNAII.T
AND or SISTKK CATHERINE, SAINTE SIZANNE.

(Louvre, K'lris.)

193

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 405. — CLAUDE MELLAN.
I'ORTRAIT OF PEIRESC. (ENGRAVING)

(Bibliotheque Nationale, Print-Room.)

summoned Rubens. There could,

of course, have been no question

of keeping him permanently ; but

he left a considerable sum of

work behind him, and also several

of his pupils, such as Justus van

Egmont and Van Mol. The

painter of the Queen-Regent at

a later date was the Brussels

master, Philippe de Champaigne

(1602-1674). He was asso-
ciated wtth the Jansenist party,

and his works reflect their gravity

of thought and the austere piety

of their lives. The robust method

he had acquired in his native

school was not used by him to

play with the beauty of appear-
ances, but to elevate painting to • r» J

the nobility of Christian and philosophical meditation. His Dead

Christs and his portraits combine a profound sense of reality with

an intensity of moral life very
unusual in Flemish art. Cham-
paigne and Poussin had so many
similar preoccupations, that we
must suppose the Fleming often to
have waived his naturalistic ten-
dencies under the influence of a
psychological idealist. He must
be classed with those innumerable
immigrants from the north who
brought their manual dexterity to
France, and, in exchange, took
over French modes of thought
(Figs. 403, 404, 406). A crowd
of competent craftsmen of second-
ary rank worked in addition to the
famous masters most in favour ;
they sold landscapes, sea-pieces,
and copies at the fairs ; they
painted flowers, birds, draperies,
and vases in cartoons for the

FIG. 406. — PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE.
PORTRAIT OF RICHELIEU.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

KIG. 4C7. — LAGNKAU. rok IKAI T.

(Drawing in the Louvre, Paris.)

Gobelins tapestries, around figures
by Le Brun.

Throughout the seventeenth cen-
tury, French painters, when com-
pared with Flemings and ItaHans,
may be seen to have possessed
original qualities ; but they lacked
dexterity of execution ; they were
like children whose education has
been begun too late ; they were no
longer of an age when artlessness
is attractive, and they had none of
the easy assurance of maturity. The
French School further lacked that
technical or theoretical certitude
which was the strength of the
Flemings and Italians.

Even in the first third of the
century, the sculptors, and more especially the painters who
gathered in Paris, were numerous enough to generate a certain
esprit de corps. They were no longer isolated workers, attached
for some temporary task to the person of the king or some other
Maecenas ; a large circle of middle class and ecclesiastical patrons

upheld their industry. But in order to sell
their works, they had been obliged to enrol
themselves in the ancient guilds of their
craft. They belonged at first to the
venerable corporation of St. Luke. But
this approximated them to mere artisans,
and this confusion, impossible even in
societies where painting is a tradition, and
has deep roots in the soil, must have
seemed still more intolerable in France,
where this art, a new comer, so to speak,
presented itself with the titles of nobility
acquired during the Renaissance. An
Academy of Painting and Sculpture was
formed, under the royal protection. This
institution, which dated from 1 648, existed
until the Revolution. It was, from its very
foundation, and it continued to be, a cor-
poration which defended the interests of

195 o 2

FIG. 408. — J.\CQL'i;s CAI-I.OT.

ACTOKS OF THE CO.\ll';i)IK

riAI.IlCtJNE.

(I'.ibliothcque Nationale,
I'rint-Koom.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 409. — DANIEL UUMONSIIKK.

I'OUTRAIT OF THE DL'C

DE LON(;UEVII.I.E.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

its members, an academy or learned
society bent on elaboratmg a doctrme,
a school which formed pupils ; under
Louis XIV it became, in addition,
a sort of administration which regu-
lated artistic work, and it was more
especially in this character that it
was not irreproachable. Its organiza-
tion, in fact, permitted the State to
govern the artist. But, on the
other hand, it is incorrect to say that
it ever set itself in opposition to
national taste by its doctrines. Under
the ancient regime, it included all
artists worthy of the name ; the
number of its members was un-
limited. The rare dissidents re-
mained outside the fold for personal
and not for doctrinal reasons. It
represented successively the most
diverse forms of French art, the style of Le Brun, the style of
Boucher, the style of David.

During the time when this modern painting was born and was
growing in France, a variety of influences was at work, and it
is impossible to find any common tendency in the innumerable
caprices of French artists. While craftsmen innocent of doctrine

were pouring in from the
North, French painters
were seeking for a creed
in Italy. The great
Italian masters were no
longer brought into
France ; but French
novices went in great
numbers to study their
methods. For France,
as for all Europe, the
universal source of art
vvas Rome. Those who
never crossed the Alps
were not the least
Italianised ; they were

FIC. 410. — JACQUES CALLOT.
THE SIEGE OF I.A ROCHEI.LE (FRAGMENT).

(Bibliotlieque Nationalc, Print-Room.)

196

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 411. — JACQUES CAI.LOT. EXKCLTION OF MAKAL DFKS I.N "'LES MISEKES

DE LA GLEKRE."
(I!iliIiothei]ue Xationale. Print-Room.)

inspired by copies and engravings ;

412. — AISRAHAM n<iSSE. I.E I'Al.AIS ROVAI..

(Bibliotlicque Xalionale, Print-Room.)

antique models. Others
painted from nature, like
Caravaggio, with great
brutality and emphasis,
and violent contrasts of
light and shade. But all
had adopted the practice
of drownmg their com-
positions in a gloomy at-
mosphere. How many
French painters, like La
Hire in Pans, and more
especially Valentin at
Rome, accepted this

they were less under the
influence of contemporary
Italian art. and more
under that of the six-
teenth century, which was
itself retrospective.

It was the art of the
Boloonese, then in its
full vitality, which French
painters saw in action.
Some were still held by
the tradition of Florentine
idealism ; they sought for
moral expression, and
drew beautiful forms, after

FU;. 413.- ABRAHAM BOSSK.
VISIT TO THE NEWLV DELIVERED WOMAN.

(Hibliotheque Nationale, Print-Room.

197

ART IN FRANCE

nocturnal tone ! The latter painted, with a certain vigour, gipsies
or soldiers in caves, revealed by a sudden gleam of light (Figs.

420-422).

Italy, it is clear, did not
impose any single man-
ner ; there is scarcely
any form of art she did
not represent. Artists as
diverse as Poussin, Lor-
rain, Valentin, and Callot
were able to spend their
lives, and work success-
fully there, without any
sort of resulting similarity.
After Freminet and Du-
bois, the successors of the
school of Fontainebleau,
the most influential master
was Simon Vouet (1590-1649). He showed much skill in utilising
the inventions of the great Italian decorators. Judging from
Dorigny's engravings, some of his compositions seem to have been
little more than copies of Veronese. But his talent was purely
superficial, and such of ; his paintings as have survived show but too
clearly that he had not

FIG. 414. — THE BROTHERS LE NAIN.
IN'TERIOK, WITH A FAMILY.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

assimilated the Italian s
charm of colour. With
its heavy reds in the
shadows, its insipid pallor
in the light, his colour at
once becomes discordant
when he attempts to make
it brilliant (Fig. 424).
Many of these faults re-
appear in his pupils, Le
Sueur, Le Brun, and
Mignard. But he has a
true historical importance
as the master of some of
the greatest artists of the
French classical school.
He embodies the transition between the decorators of Henry II
and those of Louis XIV, Together with his pupils, he propagated

198

FIG. 415.

-ATTRIBUTED TO THE LE NAIXS.
CARD PLAYERS.

(Museum of .•\ix.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

IIG. 416. — LE XAIN. I'OKTKAIT OK A
ME.MUER OF THE P^RUSSY FAMILY.

(Museum of Avignon.)

the monarchical mythology of Fon-

tamebleau m the houses of private

Citizens.

Le Sueur (1616-1655), no

doubt, owes his somewhat flaccid

facility to Vouet. He never

visited Italy ; hewas, nevertheless,

thanks to the engravers, a fervent

admirer, and sometimes even a

copyist of Raphael, especially

when he exerted himself. In the

numerous works this painter, who

died young, executed for financiers

and for religious houses, there is

something of the sincerity and

ardessness of the Primitives. He

does not make use of the

Bolognese method of great masses

of shade ; his general tone is

light and pallid ; the draperies often show that acid crudity to which

devout painters have always been prone. The sentiment is never

obscured by the technique ; his mourning Virgins with their pallid

tints express grief- in the terms of a melancholy saturated with tears.

Sometimes he gives us certain
figures peculiarly his own, some
little frail and gentle maiden saint,
with the fair head of a sentimental
school-girl. These fragile types
are the real creations of his genius,
and stand out as such among the
glut of white beards and classical
profiles, which were the common
stock of all the painters of the
day. The series illustrating the
Life of Saint Bruno consists of
rapid and not very skilful paint-
ings. The nudity of the narrative
and the simplicity of the com-
position are appropriate to the
subject, and to the place for which
It was designed, a Carthusian
church ; but the asperity of the

199

I IG. 417. — IE NAIN. THE HLACKSMITII.

(The Louvre, Paris.) {Photo. Ncurdciii.)

ART IN FRANCE

l-IG. 418.— SUl'l'OSED l'ORTl;Air OF
JACQUES STELLA.

(Museum of Lyons.)

work is modified by a certain
tenderness (Figs. 427-431).

The religious architecture which
had established itself in France
was more hospitably disposed
towards pictures than Gothic
architecture had been. The light
in the new churches was not
broken, diffused, and tinted by
pillars and coloured glass. Two
columns surmounted by a pedi-
ment over the altar offered a
suitable framework for a large
composition illuminated by an
equal light. Pictures were also
hung in the Gothic churches,
and here they remain, swallowed
up in the gloom of chapels, for
pictures and stained glass are

irreconcilable. Many of them are respectable, if not for their

beauty of execution, at least for their sincerity of feehng.

Painting and sculpture have left us many portraits of the men

and things of this period. In this first half of the seventeenth

century, fashion had not given a

uniform type to every head, as

Clouet's mannered elegance had

done, and as the conscious majesty

of Louis XIV portraiture was to

do. Sculptors like Dupre and the

Fleming, Warin, draughtsmen like

Lagneau and Daniel Du Monstier

(Figs. 407, 409), engravers like

Claude Mellan (Fig. 405), painters

like Sebastien Bourdon and the

three Le Nains, have recorded very

vigorous individualities ; martial and

gallant cavaliers, with twisted mous-
taches and lace collars ; students,

writers, humanists, and savants of

a sturdy, plebeian type, with sedate

velvet caps on their heads, always

ready to anathematise each other

200

FIG. 419. — ATTKIIiUTEU 1 O
THE LE NALVS. TOl'ER AT TAIiLE.

(^luseum of .\iiiiens.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 420. — \A1.KNTI.\. A (ill'SY AND SOI.DIF.KS.

(^lusciim of Avignon.)

in Latin ; old-fashioned burgesses with full beards a la Sully ;

others whose faces have been sharpened by the pointed beard a la

Richelieu, and kneeling echevins in profile, looking sideways at the

spectator.

Engravers, less in bondage to raditional motives, were able to copy

the world in which they

lived. Abraham Bosse

shows us a somewhat stiff

Parisian society, in his

precise style (Figs. 412,

413). Callot, a Lorrain

like Gellee, gave him-
self, like Gellee, to Italy.

He is a creature of weird

imagination ; his thin,

pointed, broken line

scratches or presses, ren-
dering the agitation of a

swarming crowd, the pic-

turesqueness of rags and of military accoutrements, the gesticulations

of Italian mountebanks, or of little devils harassing Saint Anthony.

It is an art in which precision and caprice are strangely mingled,

which reflects the world of that day and its two great distractions,

war and the theatre, and in which
something of the old mediaeval
diabolism still lingers (Figs. 408,
410, 411).

It is interesting to studj^ con-
temporary reality in the works of
the Le Nam brothers. Natives of
Laon who had migrated to Paris,
Antoinc, Mathieu, and Louis Le
Nam also painted some church
pictures with harsh illumination and
very realistic figures, in the manner
of Caravaggio. But like all the
I northern artists before Rubens, they
I lacked the decorative imagination
I capable of elevating and animating
the numerous figures of a large
composition. Their portraits have
(The Louvre, Paris.) neither fire Hor beaulv ; but their

201

Fit;. 421. — I.A HIKE. I'OI'E NICOL.\S V
AMJ SAINT FRANCIS.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 422. — VALENTIN. CONCERT.
(The T,ouvre, Paris.)

narrow style is scrupulously sincere, and their little familiar scenes
breathe an emotion very unusual in the art of their age. They
represent peasants eating, drinking, resting, or " carousing " sadly

enough. The prosaic
heaviness of the brush
gives a kind of torpor
even to enjoyment ; sober
and subdued tints render
only too faithfully the
haggard faces and drab
rags of the models. The
work of these men is a
strange accident in the
history of painting. Their
peasants are not of the same
race as those of the Dutch-
men and the Flemings.
The Brueghels, Teniers
and Ostades are brilliant
craftsmen who are amused by their grotesque models. In the
seventeenth century these subjects were known as bambochades, and
spectators looked for comic effects in them ; in our age, we approve
the Le Nains for evoking pity (Figs. 414-417, 419).

Ex-decorators of Fontainebleau, portrait-painters in the Flemish
manner, imitators of the
Italians, pupils of the Car-
racci or of Caravaggio,
French painters show a
certain indecision through-
out this evolution of a
national style. Artists
more dexterous than sin-
cere, like La Hire or
Sebastien Bourdon, com-
bine all these discordant
elements in their works.
^The latter was capable
of an elaborate bam-
bochade in the Flemish
manner, and of a pasticcio on the style of (Poussin with its clear-cut
design and its simplified landscape. But he lacked the picturesque
fertility of the men of the North, and his mind was never vigorous

202

FIG. 423. — BOURDON. HALT OF GIPSIES.
(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

, 424. — VOUF.T. WEALTH.
(The Louvre, Paris.)

enough to achieve the vigour of
Poussin's composition ; his nervous,
and even incisive brush disperses
v\'here it should concentrate. His
manual dexterity and his powers
of observation stood him in good
stead in his portraits. Many of
these are finely-conceived figures,
lacking all amenity of colour, and
enveloped in the smoky, russet
shadows of CaravasgioJ(Figs. 423,
425, 430). ^-^

How was a French School to
emerge from this fusion of North and
South ? It was in the work of
Poussin that the French classical
genius first awoke to a conscious in-
dividuality. As he developed, French
painters showed less indecision ; by the
mi4dle of the seventeenth century, all recognised him as their master.
fPoussin's mind dwelt habitually in antiquity. His aim was to
place before our eyes the personages of history and of Greek
mythology^ He could not live anywhere but in Rome ; and this
was not because he wished to mix in the somewhat noisy society of

artists who thronged from
all countries to the great
picture-fair, but that he
might live in contemplation
of the statues which ^vere
excavated day by day, and
of a region still haunted
by the names of the past.
It was here alone that he
felt himself surrounded by
the memories, the monu-
ments, and the relics
he worshipped. Here
he could piously draw
the ruins and measure the
statues to discover the
secret of their beauty. One day when he was walking with a
stranger, " he picked up from among the grass a handful of earth,

203 •

FIG. 425. — R^BASTIFN liOUKDON.
CHILDREN nKAWINc;.

(Museum of Mouti>flliLr.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 426.-

-COURTOIS. CAVALRY SKIRMISH.

(Tht: Louvre, Paris.)

with fragments of lime, and grains of porphyry and marble : ' Here,'
said he, ' take this back to your museum, and say : this is ancient
Rome.' " Nothing could tempt him from his beloved city. He

wished to live and die on
that soil in which a whole
world slumbers, in that
atmosphere, heavy with
memories, the grave poetry
of which entered into his
soul.(fle dreamed literally
of giving a picture of
antique life : he read
ancient authors to glean
characteristic traits of
manners) He did not
place a wand surmounted
by a hawk's head in the hand of a priest without due reflection. It
was to indicate that this priest was an Egyptian, and the procession
one sees in the distance in the Burial of Phocion serves to indicate
the date of the Athenian hero's death. He is always well pleased
when his archaeological knowledge prevents him from inventing.
But more than this : to illustrate ancient events is, of course, to

return to the forms of Greek

sculpture. The heroes of
Plutarch and Livy have this
advantage over modern cele-
brities, that they present them-
selves to us in all the grace of
antique statuary. Thus the
claims of truth and beauty,
which are at the root of classic
thought, are reconciled. The
painter made no distinction
between art and history, be-
tween Alexander and Apollo.
\He had, however, to work
for The religion of his time,
and to depict a martyr or a no.. 427.
miracle occasionally. But
church paintings demanded a
rhetorical grandiloquence, and Poussin had to strain his voice to
address the crowd from afar. He preferred to condense some

204

LE SUEUR. MELPOMENE, ERATO,
AND POLYHYMNIA.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 42a. — 1,E SUELK. SAINT
SCIIOLASTICA AND SAINT BEMCOICT.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

Biblical or Gospel thought in small
compositions^ He has treated the
sacred Books as he has treated pro-
fane literature, with no more tender-
ness or mysticism, and with the same
anxiety to be perfectly intelligible.
All that IS necessary in order to
understand him, is to have read the
works that inspire him. Yet his
manner was not absolutely novel ; it
was that of Raphael, the painter of
the Loggie and of the Cartoons.
Raphael was the inventor of this
iconography in which the plastic,
psychological, and archaeological dis-
coveries of the Renaissance were
turned to account.
Poussia^ndeed, admired Raphael as much as he admired the

antique. ( He was little concerned with the youthful Urbinate of

radiant Madonnas and luminous landscap^ he carried away nothing

from the Vatican Stanze beyond a few beautiful attitudes, and the

group of the Muses on Parnassus. But he penetrated to the very

soul of the narrative art of the Loggie and the Cartoons. It was

in this " illustrated Bible " that he

learned how to tell a story in

attitudes, physiognomies, and

agitated draperies, enframed in

landscape and architecture.

Poussm was not, like certain of

his contemporaries, Rubens or

Rembrandt for instance, the

creator of a pictorial world ; his

originality lies primarily in his

organising faculty ; (his genius

manifests itself almost^entirely in

his powerful composition, a pic-
turesque composition which knits

lines and planes of light closely

together, a moral composition

which subordinates a variety of

attitudes and types to a dominant

idea. A strong intelligence

FIG. 429. — I.E SUEIK.
SAINT lAlI. I'KEACHING AT El'HESLS.

(Tlie Louvre, Paris.)

205

ART IN FRANCE

governed his execution. Even when
the painter is most inspired, he
never seems to be carried away by
his ardour ; he has none of those
bravura passages so frequent among
the Italians and the Flemings, who
are intoxicated by a fine effect, and
give themselves up tothe delight
of rendering it skilfujIyT) Even his
vocabulary has an abstract charac-
ter. ^;4e drew a great deal from
antiques and from Nature, but did
not paint with the model before
his eyes. Nothing in his works ever
makes us feel the contact of reality ;
accent reveals the joy of a

1- k;. 430.

S^BASTIEN ISOURDON.
FOUQUET.

(Museum of Versailles.)

painter in the contemplation of the
beautiful. His study of antique
statues has given him a taste for
clearly-defined forms, simple planes, and rhythmic attitudes ; his
nymphs and satyrs have an elegance of form and attitude which implies
a long plastic educaJidfrj; they were fashioned by antique and
Renaissance art. (His drawing is marked by a virile grace ; the

forms are a little hard and sculpturesque,
and in spite of colour that sometimes
lacks consistence, they have that con-
centrated energy, that density peculiar
to large figures reduced to a small scal^
An occa^onal (fij^ccAana/ or Triumph
of Flora just serves to indicate that
the master was sometimes fired by the
ardour of Titian \\in these cases the
nudities which recline on the dusky
grass become more amber or ruddy of
tone, and a golden twilight overlays the
deep, dark blue of the sky. But this
was a transient phase in his art ; in
general, Poussm does not look to colour
for the enrichment of his thought. He
groups his attitudes mentally in very
simple landscapes. The light is diffused
in broad patches, bringing the masses of
206

FIG. 431. — LE SUEUR. DE.\TII OF
SAINT BRUNO.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

FIG. 432. — I'OfSSlN.
HIS PORTRAIT, ItV HIMSELF.

(The Loiivru, Paris.)

the ground and of the fabrics into a
few planes, and throwing the figures
into rehef by frank contrasts of
light and dark surfaces) When his
conception had taken definite form
in his mind, he felt no anxiety as to
its realisation. He painted with
a steady hand, innocent alike of
nervousness and dexterity, but the
tissue of co'our was less closely
woven than the structure of the
light and the design. Hence, when
his aging hand began to tremble,
his pictures suffered very little ; the
vigour of conception remained un-
impaired, and ensured the cohesion
of his loosely painted composit^ns.
He composed his ru;)blest(Jand-
scapes)in his old age. /The harmony
of his lines becomes broader and calfneriwhen it is noT"encumbered
by the gesticulations of a human 'drama. His Nature has no fresh-
ness ; it IS instinct with an austere majesty, untouched by any fantasy
of light or colour ; all brilliance is suppressed that the structure of
trees and soil may be the more nakedly presented. The great over-
hanging clouds are echoed

by the simple planes of f ~ f

the ground and the dense
foliage. An impression of
serene eternity breathes
from this balanced har-
monyP This landscape in
which the ruins slumber is
that described by V'irgil,
when Saturn, reigning over
Latium, had not yet
abandoned the earth to
mortals. The Humanists
of the seventeenth cen-
tury were not surprised
to find gods, satyrs,
nymphs, or some river deity leaning on his urn, by the roadside,
or on the banks of the Tiber.

207

FIG. 433. — I'OUSSIN. RESCUE OF THp;
VOLTHFUL PVRRHLS.

(The Loiivio, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 434. — POUSSIN'. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

Although he spent very httle Uljie in Pans, Poussin had many
fervent admirers in the capital. (_Scarcely was his glory assured in
Rome, and his work well known in his native land, when he had no
rival in FranceT) Collectors overwhelmed him with commissions ; a
picture was looked upon as a great favour, and when one arrived in
Paris, the little society of Poussin's devotees was all astir. They
assembled in front of the new painting to discuss its merits. The im-
portance of these little works in the history of the French mind is
very considerable. In the first place, Poussin satisfied the contem-
porary taste for antiquity. He had assimilated all that could be
known or divined on the subject, and had condensed it in his com-
positions. His pictures
were not destined, like
those of the Flemings, for
princely galleries or Jesuit
altars ; they are not, like
those of the Dutchmen,
marvels of dextentv and
precision; they never
astonish, nor do they teach
the science of painting.
But they afford a kind
of discipline, and always
associate the intelligence

FIi;. 435. — POUSSIX. THE SHEPHERDS OF

• (The Louvre, Paris.)

208

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

-rOL'SSIN. THE CHILDHOOD OK BACCHUS.
(Coiide Museum, Chantilly.)

With the pleasure of the
eye. Adapted to the
dimensions of our field of
vision, so that a single
look can take in the whole
composition without losing
a single detail, they re-
quire to be analysed and
examined in a small room.
Like the great French
writers of the seventeenth
century Poussin condensed
into brief works sentiments
which were floating
vaguely in space, not having yet found their perfect forms. The
virile poetry of this great logician blossomed under the sky of Rome,
and passed afterwards into the French soil.

The enthusiasm of archaeologists and artists does not fully explain
the fascination of Rome for the men of the North. Throughout the
ages, Celt and Teuton have dreamed of Italy, and have succumbed
to her charm. The Germans of Barbarossa and the Frenchmen of
Louis XII knew the nostalgia awakened by that smiling land, where
they tasted a joy not easily evoked under their o\s'n sterner skies.
Thus the countries whose artists crossed the Alps in great numbers
were those who had to wait longest for men to depict their own
landscapes faithfully ; the vision of transalpine landscape painters was
long obsessed by memories of Rome or Naples. Among those poets

born of the contact of
North and South, Claude
Gellee was one of those
who most fully api)reciated
the warm light of Mediter-
ranean skies. Claude
Gellee, called Le Lorrain
(1600-1682), lived at
Rome in a cosmopolitan
circle, where men of every
nation went by the name
of their native land. An
Ignorant and simple spirit,
he was little concerned
with the historic memories
1'

FIG. 437. — I'OLSSIN.
DIOGENES THROWING AWAY HIS

(The Louvre, Paris.)

209

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 438.— POUSSIN. Al'OLLO IN LOVE WITH DAI'HNE.

(The I.ouvre, Paris.)

which breathe from
Roman soil. His work
appeals to no Humanist
curiosity, and his compo-
sitions, in spite of their
nobility, have little to say
to the discursive classicism
of Frenchmen. His land-
scapes deal with the soft
splendour of southern
skies. His dazzled eyes
beheld a magic architec-
ture. Sometimes it is a
port ; the sun, before dis-
appearing into the ocean,

darts its expiring rays caressingly on facades of marble, and gilds the
crests of innumerable little waves. Or it is a plain, and dark groves
of trees make the illimitable distance lighter and more limpid. All
the shade and solidity are in the foreground, near the edge of the
frame ; in the centre of the picture, the objects become brighter as
they recede, penetrated by the light and set ablaze as it were by the
ardent atmosphere. These landscapes were lovingly contemplated :
they have been copied and plagiarised extensively. Claude brought
something of the radiance of Italy everywhere with his colour ; even
in the works of mediocre imitators, there is some reflex of those
glowing memories which never fade from the mind of the Northerner
who has once crossed the Alps. -vi\/

Between the brilliant Renaissance and the sun of Louis XiV,

the first half of the seven-
teenth century seems to lie
somewhat in the shade.
But in this twilight, that
classic spirit, the discipline
of which was thenceforth
to govern all forms of
intellectual activity in
France, was definitely
evolved. The generation
of Louis XI 11 appears to
have been sacrificed, be-
FiG. 439.-POUSSIN-. THE DELUGE. causc the magnificence it

(The Louvre, Paris.) made possiblc was only

210

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

'■"'■"

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^S^M^fit,

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KIG. 440.-

-Cl.ALOK l.i)IU<AIX. CAM1'(J VACCINO.
(The Louvre, Paris.)

realised under Louis XIV.
The monarchy which
made France so great
asked little from its artists.
It suspended the sumptuous
caprices of Fontainebleau,
and left Versailles a pretty
brick country house.
Artists worked more es-
pecially for the private
citizen and for the re-
ligious orders, building
mansions and churches and
adorning them with Chris-
tian or mythological pictures. Under the somewhat depressed
vaults of Saint Paul or Samt Nicolas du Chardonnet, the serious mind
and the robust faith of the times still make themselves felt ; sombre
paintings and tombs devoid of splendour lurk in their dark chapels.
These rugged images lack neither vigour nor sincerity, and it is easy
to forgive those we can respect for making no attempt to dazzle,
nor even to please.

In the Place Royale and in the mansions of the Marais, again, we
can evoke the art-loving burgesses of the day. Never were painters
and sculptors more constantly employed than those of this apparently
unproductive period. They went from one great house to another,
occupied for years on the decoration of a gallery. When we read
their biographies, :t even seems as if society were asking of art more
than art could yet give : the culture of luxury, admiration for the
antique, and refinement of
taste were even more pro-
nounced among amateurs
than among professionals.
From this time forth we
see Parisian society direct-
ing and accelerating the
movement of art.

Paris assumed that ex-
traordinary preponderance
of intellectual life which
contributed so greatly to
the unification of French
art. It concentrated the

KIC. 441. — CLAUDE LOKRAIN.
WASHED PEN AND I.VK DKAWINC.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

p 2

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 442.

-CLAUDE LORRAIN. SEAl'OKT AT SUXSET.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

intellectual life of the
country; artists and
writers came to settle
there. How many of
these must the Quartier
des Augustms have seen
wandering in its narrow
streets ! The most fa-
voured of them obtained a
royal brevet and lodging
in the Louvre, in the
gallery overlooking the
river. Some bore the
proud new title of Aca-
demician. Their apprentices worked for the shops on the quays
and bridges ; the Flemings sold their little panels at the fair of St.
Germain. This active agglomeration constituted a kind of Parisian
School, which became the exemplar of all the provincial groups.
Artistic centralisation was a fact before it became an institution.
A uniform classical style was about to spread throughout the country in
spite of local diversities, and to extend to all the frontiers of France.
After the quarrel with the Fronde, the king had made his peace
with Paris. In 1660, he was living in the Louvre. From his lofty
windows, the young Louis XIV looked out upon a marvellous urban
prospect, each monument
of which recalled the suc-
cessive stages of his great-
ness, the history of his
house, and that of France ;
there beneath him lay the
Seine with its dense ship-
ping, the cupola of the
" Quatre Nations," the
college whose title com-
memorated the recent
triumphs, the conquered
provinces, and the ex-
tended frontier ; to the
left the Pont Neuf with
its swarming crowds ; his
grandfather, Henry IV, prancing at the extremity of the Cite ; the
imposing mass of the Palais de Justice with the spire of Saint Louis

212

FIG. 443.— CLAUDE LOkUAIN. SEAl'ORT.
(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE EVOLUTION OF CLASSICAL ART

rising above it, and further off, beyond the still Gothic roofs, the
severe towers of Notre Dame, the cathedral of Philip Augustus,
friend of the Communes, and the builder of the primitive Louvre.
Louis XIV understood that the first work of his reign ought to
be to complete this landscape by finishing the Louvre. True, he
soon perceived that the mighty city could not contam the monarchy
without threatening to suffocate it, and that he must create a royal
town. AH the artists of the day were pressed into the service of
Versailles. But the continuity of national art was not mterrupted.
Versailles was still Paris ; Versailles was not a new centre of
energy, but the collective product of the Parisian and the French
School.

BlBLIOGRAf^HY

H. Lemonnlor, L'Ail au temps de Richelieu cl de Mazarin, Paris. 1893. Louis Savot,
L' Architecture franfoiie dcs baslimens particuliers, Paris. 1642. Le Muet. M anfere de bicn
bastir pour toutex sortes de personnel. Paris. 1647. De Chambray, Parallele de I architecture
antique et dc la moderne--, Paris, 1630. For the architectural history of Paris in the classical
period : Germain Brice, Description de Paris, Paris, 1 685, 2 vols. Sauval. Histoire des
Antiquites de la cille de Paris, Paris. 1724. 3 vols. Dom Felibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris,
Paris, 1725, 5 vols, i'iganiol de la Force, Description de Paris, Paris, 1 742, 8 vols. Le Beuf.
Histoire de la ville et de tout le diocese de Paris, Paris. 1734, 15 vols. (edit. Cocheris, 1883,
6 vols., and 1 vol. <( rectifications and additions by Bournon). Jaillot, Recherches critiques,
historiques ... sur la ville de Paris, Paris, 1772, 3 vols. Fcr the views, see the engravings of
Israel Silvestre and dc Perelle. Charvet, Etienne Martellange, Paris, 1874. E. Bonnafe, Les
Amateurs de I' ancienne Irance, le Surinlendant Foucquet, Paris, 1882. Chalelain. Lc iuri'i-
Icndant Foucquet, Paris, 1903. — L. Vitet, L' Academic royale de Peinture et de Sculpture,
Paris. 1851. Memoircs inedits sur la vie el les ouvrages des Membres de i Academic royale de
Peinture et de Sculpture. Paris, 1834, 2 vols. Armand Samson. Les frcres Anguier. Paris, 1889.

- H. Stein, Fesfrires Anguier (R. S. B. A. D., 1889). P. Vitry. Le. Boudin et les Bourdin
(G. B. A., 1896, II). J. Guiffrey. Cuillaume Dupre, graveur en medailles (.V. A. A. F.. 1876;.

Chabouillet, Cuillaume Dupre, sculptcur et graveur en pierres fines (A'. A. .4. F., 1880). -
Fleury. Cuillaume Dupre, Paris, 1883. L. Courajod, /can Warin .. Paris, 1881. Blanchet,
Jean Warin, .\otes biographiques, 1888. A. Felibion. Entrctiens sur la vie et sur les ouvrages
des pluH excellents peinlres, Paris, 1666-88, 5 vols. The fourth volume contains an important
biography of Poussin. Bellori, Ki7e de' Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti moderni, Rome, 1672.
R. de Piles, Abrege de la vie, c/cs peinlres, Paris, 1699 P. dc Chennevieres. Recherches sur la
vie el les ouvrages dc quelques peinlres provinciuux de I ancienne h ranee. Pans, 1847-62,
4 vols.: Qucnt'in Warin, L. Finsonius. J. Darct (V. A. .4. /'., 1887^: Notes sur I' Art
francais, Paris. 1894. P. I.afond, I'rancois et Jacob Bunel, peinlres dc Henri IV {R.S. B. A.D.,
1898). H. Bouchot, /. Callot, Paris, 1889. M. Vachon, / Callot. Paris, Sd. A, Valabreguc,
Abraham Bosse, I'ans, 1891. Champfleury, Essai sur la vie et I'a^uvrc des Le .\'ain, Paris. 1830.

— J. Guiffrey, .'intoine. Louis et Mathieu Le Nain, IWnuvcaux documents (.V. A. .4. h .. 1876).
G Grandin, Documents sur les artistes dc Laon (.\'. A. A. F.. 1894-93) : La famillc Lenain
(R. S. B.A. D., 1900) A. Valabregue. Lejreres Le Nain, Paris, 1904. Gazier. Philippe cl
Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne, Paris. 1893. L. Vitet, Eustache Le Sueur, Paris. 1833 : Sur Le
Sueur {A. A. /■"., 1833. and .'V. .4. A. I'., 1877-78). Ch. Ponsonailhc, Sebasticn Bourdon, sa
vie et son acuvre, Paris, 1891. Nicolas Poussin, Lcllres publices par Quatrcmcrc de Quincy,
1824. Maria Graham, Life of .\'icolas Poussin (1821). H. Bouchitle, Le Poussin, Paris, 1838.

P Desiardins. Poussin. Paris, 1903. Mrs. Mark Pattison (Lady Dilke), Claude Lorrain,
Paris, 1884. R. Bouyer, Claude Lorrain. Paris, 1904.

213

yiC. 444. — CENTRAL I'AVILION OF THE COLONNADE OF THE LOUVRE.

CHAPTER III

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

Colbert's Projects and Institutions. The Continuation of the Louvre. The Function and the
Work, of Charles Le Brun. Mignard. The Sculptors Girardon and Coysevox. Pierre
Paget. ' Mansart's Versailles : the Marble Court ; the Decoration of the Apartments ; the
Royal Allegory ; the Great Gallery. Le Notre's Park, the Groves and Fountains ; the
Allegorical and M ythological Statues. The Symbolism of Versailles. Paris ; the Provinces.
- Results oj Colbert s H ork ; Technical Progress and Centralisation.

The " Century of Louis XIV " glorified by historians was no
spontaneous growth. Its artistic prosperity was prepared and
organised by ministerial instruction. /As soon as Colbert had got
the superintendence of royal buildingsSn his hands, he set to work
to produce French artists for the service of the king;" He hoped
by means of monuments to fix that glory which survives civilisations,
and dominates the ages as do the grandiose ruins of Rome and of
Egypl^ French classical art was inclined at the moment to forget
its country and its age. The monarchy brought it back to both.
Sculptors, painters and architects dreamed of antiquity ; they were
now required to think of Louis XIV. The State, in return, under-
took their education. Colbert became the protector of the Royal
Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and was able to intervene in

214

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

l-IG. 445. — THE COLONNADE OF THE LOUVRE.

the instruction of its pupils ; he sent the best of these to Italy, and
founded the French Academy at Rome in their interest. The
king's scholars worked for
him there, completed their
apprenticeship, and exe-
cuted copies of master-
pieces for the royal parks
and galleries, when the
originals were not to be
bought. Thus the king
became almost the sole
Maecenas of French artists,
and the habitual organisa-
tion of French art was
centred in State institutions.
Colbert's authoritative
and practical mind left its impress on every one of these insti-
tutions. Their object was to realise fully and rapidly all that
the French genius could yield. It is unjust to say that they put
French art in subjection to Italy. For over a century France had
been labouring to assimilate the manner of Rome or Bologna, and
it was Colbert who did more than any other to enfranchise her
from this vassalage. He thought jealously that French art, like

French luxury, should be the
product of French craftsmen.
Not content, like Francis I,
with buying fruits from Italy,
he determined to grow them
on French soil. The Acad-
emy, under the direction of
Le Brun, was ordered to
evolve from the masterpieces
of antiquity, of the Renais-
sance, and of Poussin, the
surest method of attaining
beauty and constructing a
Manual for the perfect painter
and sculptor. Modest crafts-
men endeavoured conscien-
tiously to found a system of
aesthetics in accordance with contemporary modes of thought. But
aesthetics is a philosophic exercise which is of little use to artists.

215

FIG. 446. — rOE^TE SAINT-DENIS, I'AKIS.

ART IN FRANCE

ru;. 447.

-CHURCH OF THE INVALIDES,
PAKIS.

This enterprise of the Academy

throws a good deal of hght on

classical thought ; but it cannot

have done much service to art.
The Italians, it was said, had

been led to the pursuit of beauty

by Greek and Roman works. In

France, the soil yields but scanty

relics of the past ; Colbert supplied

the deficiency to the utmost of his

power. He collected a great

number of statues in Pans and at

Versailles, and when originals were

unobtainable, he ordered copies.

It was not to be supposed that

Trajan's column could be brought

to Paris ; but the professors and

pupils of the Academy were

enabled to copy its bas-reliefs from casts obtained at great expense.

Colbert, indeed, showed such avidity in his purchases, that there

was a kind of revolt among the Roman populace, enraged at seeing

these elements of the national wealth carried off. These works,

pillaged of old by Roman pro-consuls, and now bought by the

French king, transmitted from age to age, from Greece to Italy,

from Italy to France, the languid elegance of Hellenistic art.

But it was not enough to prepare for the future. The king's

glory required immediate masterpieces. The first project was to

complete the Louvre,
which had been in pro-
gress since the reign of
Francis I. Bernini, the
Pope's architect, was
brought to Paris at great
expense. He drew out
a plan, executed a bust of
Louis XIV, and pro-
nounced judgment on
French art and the
education of French
artists very freely. None
of his utterances were lost
on Colbert ; some of the

FIG. 448.

-PORTE DE PARIS, I.ILLF..

216

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

I-H; 449. — (ilKAKDON. KliUUCTIOX Uf
THE STATU E OF LOUIS XIV.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ministerial instructions bear their
imprint : but the minister could not
bring himself to allow a foreigner to
build the palace of the King of
France. Even when the first stone
was laid, he would not put the
Italian's name on the commemorative
medal placed in the foundations, and
after Bernini left, his plans were
very soon abandoned. Colbert,
like all the rest of the world, ad-
mired Italy, but his admiration took
the form of desiring to emulate her,
not of installing her in Pans.

Bernini was disposed to raze the
whole quarter to the ground, to
make room for a great Roman
palace, solemn and austere. Claude
Perrault (1667-1674) designed a
more agreeable fagade ; between the ground floor and the entabla-
ture, detached columns form a gallery.
The defect of the design is that it is not
adapted to the divisions of a modern
house ; an over-zealous admiration for
antique architecture led men to apply the
colonnade of a temple without storeys to a
building of several storeys, and the mis-
taken flatness of the roof was masked by
the entablature and its balustrades (bigs.

444, 445).

But we must not overlook the decora-
tive merit of this architecture, and the
elegance of this colonnade between the mas-
sive base and the rigid band of the enta-
blature. Perrault made no attempt to
astonish the spectator by the grandiose
majesty of his design. The proportions
were calculated by an artist too skilful to
allow them to appear gigantic. He built
only the one fa<;ade ; but this one sufficed
to acclimatise the "colossal style" in
France for ever. Mansart, Gabriel and

217

450. — rum AND COLLUiNOX.
TOMB OP l,E HRUN'S

MOTHER,
AT SAINT-NICOI-AS-nU-
CHARDON.NET, PARIS.

ART IN FRANCE

Louis adopted its methods later, when they wanted to reconcile
majesty and grace, to avoid heaviness and affectation. Since

the Renaissance, architectural
style has lost its decorative
amenity, but it has gamed
strength and breadth. A facade
by Lescot is well adapted to
a narrow court, which forces
the spectator to note the
minute adjustment and ingenious
detail ; but the colossal style,
with its large flat lines, makes
a superb framework for a vast
space.

The Louvre, however, was
not completed by Louis XIV.
The king could not lodge
his executive and his court
there commodiously. He felt
cramped in this palace, the growth of which was held in check by
Paris. He preferred the plain of Versailles, where everything,
soil and water included, could be arranged to suit him. Colbert
deplored the king's defection ; he thought it a mere caprice, and
never dreamed that the pleasant country house built by Lemercier
for Louis XIII would one day be magnificent enough to give an
advantageous idea of the greatness of Louis XIV. In this case,
Colbert was mistaken ; the king did not change his mind. CFrom
1670 to 1685, the artistic activity of France was consecrated to the
work of VersaillefT)
fAW the artists in France collaborated here. Le Vau, Mansart
and- Robert de Cotte successively directed the building. Le Brun
(1619-1690), painter in ordinary to the king, director of the
Gobelins factory, president of the royal Academy of painting and

fig. 451. — the i'lace vendome
[des conquetes] bird's-eye view.
(From the album, " Paris vu en ballon,' by
Andrii Schoelther and Omer Decugis.)

FIG. 452. — GIRARDON. BATHING NV.NH'H.';, VERSAILLES.

218

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

sculpture, and the confidant of Colbert,ysupenntended the decora-
tionj) He crowned Colbert's administrative genius by his technical
rttastery ; (^is facility of
invention and execution
made him an excellent
organiser, always ready
to furnish models for
painting, sculpture, furni-
ture, wood or iro^

We see in his work
how classical art became
one of the adjuncts of the
monarchy. Before he
undertook the direction
of French art for the
king, Le Brun, like
others, had worked for
the Church and for

finance ; he had painted " saintetes " (sacred subjects)
' mythologies." His two idols were Raphael and Poussin.
imitated the noble design and, in particular, the emphatic
animated ^J^ovemenl of Raphael in the

fk;. 453.

— GIRARDOX. TOMIl OK RICHELIEU.

(Church of the Sorbonno.)

and
He
and

_. — J , Battle of Constantine :

in (Poussin^ whom he had known in Rome, he especially admired ^

his^klll in enshrming aVnoral drama in a picturesque composit^ion) -rOiO-^'
The professor in him preferred Poussin, whose reasoned art
appears so rich in lucid precepts ; left to himself, he would, no
doubt, have produced scenes of ancient traged}', with a great deal
of psychology and archaeology ; but he had a facile brush, and

circumstances made him a
decorator. After a period
of service with Fouquet,
he passed into that of the
king. In his academic
discourses, he declared
that painting should appeal
to the intelligence, while
at the Louvre, the Gobe-
lins and Versailles, he
was obliged to appeal to
the eye.

Le Bran's large com-
positions are unattractive.

FIG. 454. — GUII.LAUME COUSTOU. THE RHO)N'i;.

(Hotel de Ville, Lyons.)

219

^^^1

ART IN FRANCE

[■•|G. 455. — COVSEVOX. TOMl! OF MAZAUIN.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

in spite of their genuine
power of invention, because
tliey lack all the sensuous
qualities of painting, and
imply a process of reasoning
to which few spectators in
a magnificent gallery are
addicted. But Le Brun
was not only a painter ; he
designed the entire decora-
tion of his ceilings, and the
splendour he was unable to
give to his canvases glowed
in the framework of gilded
stucco, the statues and
mosaics. Hence the galleries

he painted, the Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre, and the great
Galerie des Glaces at Versailles, rival the splendour of the Doges'
Palace. His Battles of Alexander show how he preferred to
paint when he was not magnifying Louis XIV or decorating his
palaces. Vague analogies between Alexander the Great and
Louis the Great, and some slight resemblance between the two
faces, discounted the inevitable royal panegyric, and left him free to
produce "historical" pictures after his own fashion. He began by
studying antique texts and monuments, Quintus Curtius and the
Trajan Column. He then
applied his theories of the
proportions of the human
body and of psychological
expression. Le Brun was
able to group large num-
bers of figures lucidly ; his
imagination gave vivacity
to his vast " machines. "
But his over-abstract art
lacks charm ; Alexander's
battles should begin by
amusing the eye ; but they
are monotonously dull and
heavy. On each side of

the principal episodes, the bodies of the wounded and vanquished are
heaped up to fill the angles of the composition ; the portions thus

220

I'K;. 456. — NICOLAS COUSTOU. THE .SaOnE.
(Hotel (Ic Villc, Lyons.)

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

ru;. 457. — DKSJAUDiNS. UL'ST (
I'lERRE MKiNAKI).
(The I.ouvre, Paris.)

sacrificed, and lost to moral expression,
which a true decorator would relieve
by magnificent accessories, are drowned
in hot, opaque shadows. When a
passage shows some pictorial charm,
it is because he left the execution of
it to his assistants, who were for the
most part Flemings. Genoels some-
times illuminated a distant horizon ;
and some of the horses betray Van
der Meulen's brush by their brilliant,
satmy coats and fresh colour.

Le Brun had a rival and enemy in
Pierre Mignard (1610-1695), who
arrived too late to take the place of
painter in ordinary, and only lived
long enough to occupy it for a short
time after the death of Le Brun. He
was a facile and superficial artist, ready
to undertake any task, and capable of executing it with credit.
He had lived so long in Italy, and had copied so many Roman,
Bolognese and even Venetian pictures, that reminiscences came to
him all unconsciously. He, too, was employed on vast decorations
in the cupola of the Val-de-Grace,
and in the Chateau of Saint Cloud,
which he painted for Monsieur
while Le Brun was working for
Louis XIV in the gallery at Ver-
sailles. The decoration in the
Val-de-Grace is a gigantic com-
position, but it is diffuse and inco-
herent, the colour is " degraded
and flat, without any pictorial rich-
ness, without any luminous effect
to bring the innumerable figures
together. Essentially a man of the
world, Mignard had all the quali-
ties to make him acceptable at
Court, and he was a great favourite
in aristocratic society. 1 le was
the forerunner of Largilhere and
Rigaud in the domain of fashionable

221

riG. 458. — COYSEVOX. ULST OK lilE

DICHESSE 1)E BOUKtiOCiNE.

(Museum of X'ersaillcs.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 459. — rUGET. SUPPOSED BUST OF
LOUIS XIV.

(Museum of Aix.)

portraiture. Between the grave and
rigid personages of Philippe de
Champaigne, and the nervous or
richly-adorned figures of Rigaud
and Largilliere, we have Mignard's
types, whose splendour is sometimes
oppressive ; the faces are delicate,
but the " in -folio" periwigs are very
massive, and the costumes are of
stuffs so rich and so rigid that they
make the attitudes heavy (Fig.
474). The portraits of Claude
Lefebvre, at the beginning of the
reign, are among the best of the
French School. They have not, as
yet, the nobility, the impersonal
majesty of the Versailles courtiers.
The sitters have not yet been reduced
to uniformity by the taste of the
sovereign, and the artist, little concerned to paint " history,' was
content to be a good observer and a very skilful executant in the
Flemish manner (Fig. 467). The draughtsman-engraver Robert
Nanteuil sketched from nature portraits which he afterwards
engraved so vivaciously that they are as full of life and colour as
paintings ; Edelinck, too, translated the strong and variegated splen-
dour of Largilliere's and Rigaud's portraits into black and white.

Le Brun also designed for the
Versailles sculptors. Girardon
(1628-1715) was the one who
best understood the intentions of
the king's painter. His marble
seemed naturally to take the
facile and redundant softness of
form dear to Le Brun. The
Louis XIV he executed for the
Place des Conquetes (Place
Vendome) was an imposing
equestrian figure (Fig. 449).
For the Grotto of Apollo at
Versailles, he sculptured, to-
gether with Tubi and Marsy, a
triple group of nymphs, horses,

111

FIG. 460. — COYSEVOX.
BUST OF THE GREAT COND^.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

■IG. 461. — PL'GET. MII.O OF CROTONA.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

and Tritons, in the midst of whom

the Sun-God descends from his car,

cold and elegant as the Belvedere

Apollo. In the allegorical figures he

placed on certain tombs — the most

famous is that of Richelieu (Fig. 453)

— the lines of the draperies and the

bodies are very gracefully rounded ;

it IS the eloquence of a cold and

rhetorical orator, but one whose

noble or gracious tone is always

appropriate. Nevertheless, in the

Bassin du Nord, at Versailles, a

leaden bas-relief reveals a robust

sensuality under the sustained elo-
quence of the decorative style.

Nymphs are shown frolicking in

the water, and here Girardon has

given the bodies a lively supple-
ness and a suggestion of the warmth and tenderness of living

flesh (Fig. 452).

Coysevox (1640-1 720), on the other hand, was too intelligent an

artist to be submerged in the collective work of Versailles. Like

the others, he placed reclining nymphs and river-gods on the

margins of pools and fountains, and allegorical Virtues at the foot

of tombs ; but his figures have a nervous distinction. He had a

taste for truth, and understood the
expressive power of form. Few
artists have modelled with so much
daring and assurance. In spite of
periwigs, lace jabots and all the
accessories of gala dress, his heads
are strongly-marked types. When
the sitter is energetic, the sculptor
uses the trenchant emphasis of the
fifteenth century Florentines. The
image of Conde, sharply accentuated
in the bronze, gleaming with sudden
flashes of light, gives a strange reality
to the eagle glance, and the great
nose, like the beak of a bird of prey,
in the haggard face (Figs. 460, 469).

FIG. 462. — PUCF.T. GALLIC HERCULES.
(The I.ouvre, I'aris.)

223

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 463. — I'UGET. DOOR AND liALCOXY

OF THE HOTEL DE VILLE,

TOULON.

FIG. 464. — rUGET. DIOGENES AND
ALEXANDER.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

On the other hand, Coysevox treated marble with a sensual and
caressing gentleness ; his Nymph with a Shell, and his Duchess
of Burgundy as Diana, are not remarkable only for their fine
decorative attitudes ; the flesh and the stuffs are full of quivering
life (Fig. 458). This was the profound charm of the Florentines,

465. — J. JOUVENET.
FAGON.

1-ORTRAIT OF

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FIG. 466. — LE BRUN. PORTRAIT OF

TURENNE.

(Museum of Versailles.)

224

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

Fii;. 4(37-

LEFEIiVKE. A .MASTER AND HIS
PUPIL.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

as it was of certain French sculp-
tors, Germain Pilon, Coysevox and
Houdon. They were not content
with majesty and elegance in sculp-
ture, but gave a subtle vitality to
marble and metal.

The great sculptors of Versailles
sometimes turned from their labours
for the park to the decoration of
distinguished tombs. The age was
never more religious than at this
period. The famous families erected
stately monuments in the churches
over the graves of their illustrious
dead, Richelieu at the Sorbonne
(Fig. 453), Mazarln at the College
des Quatre-Natlons (Fig. 455),
Colbert at Saint Euslache, Tuienne
at the Invalides. Round the sarcophagus which serves as a plinth
to the praying statue, mourning figures recall his virtues, and the
regrets of the survivors. In his funeral sermon of Michel Le
Tellier, Bossuet describes and translates one of these tombs when
he evokes " wisdom, fidelity, justice, modesty, foresight, pity, the
sacred band of virtues which watched around him, so to speak."
It was Le Brun generally who gave the plan and the design for the
figures. In the design for his mother's tomb, executed by Tubi
and Collignon at Saint Nicolas-du-Chardonnet, he imagined a
touching Resurrection scene. From the tomb an angel has just
opened rises a poor, old,
terrified, imploring figure,
still half-encumbered by
her winding sheet, and
barely aroused from her
death slumber. Filial
tenderness substituted
human pathos for the
allegory of funeral orations
(Fig. 450).

One great French artist
only, Pierre Fuget ( 1 622-
1694), held aloof from the
activities of Versailles : he

468. — NrAKTr.S-DESJAl;OI\. TlIK I'ASSAC.E
OF rilE KIIINE.
(I he I.ouvre. I'.Tris.)

225

ART IN FRANCE

469. — COYSEVOX. LOUIS XIV.

(Hotel Carnavalet.)

sent but a single group for the park, his
Milo of Crotona, and rarely left Toulon,
where Colbert employed him on the
decoration of the royal ships. Working
remote from the Court, and independently
of Le Brun's school, Puget appears as a
kind of exile or opponent, and has gained
a certain posthumous fame in consequence.
As a fact, he was by no means a victim
of official art ; but he was more akin
to Bernini and the Italian successors of
Michelangelo than to the peaceful deco-
rators directed by Le Brun. His dramatic
group of Milo of Crotona, convulsed with
effort and agony, must have astonished
the serene or playful divinities which
surrounded it at Versailles (Fig. 461).
And in his Diogenes relief, a huge
marble picture, tumultuous as a Rubens,
the swelling muscles and violent gestures
show that his impetuous genius could not subdue itself to the calm
lines of an architectural decoration (Fig. 464). When Puget
placed figures in a group, it was to give them attitudes of effort or
impulsive movement, like those Victories
on the prows of vessels which carried
the fame of the king to distant places,
and those suffering athletes at the Town
Hall of Toulon, who struggle desper-
ately to bear up the crushing weight of
the balcony (Fig. 463). The architects
of the Louvre or of Versailles would
not have allowed such violence on their
calm fa^jades. Puget's impetuosity had
full play, unfettered by the restraints of
good taste ; the artist's fiery tempera-
ment animates the marble, and endows
it with a superhuman energy ; a muscular
frenzy swells the limbs and torsoes, and
would recall Michelangelo more legiti-
mately if the figures grimaced less, if
their strength were less akin to that of
a porter, and if the dramatic eloquence

226

FIG. 470.— LE r.UUN.
r.KACE BEFORE MEAT.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

Flli. 471. — TOUKMEU. DESCENT FROM

THE CKOSS.

(Museum of Toulouse. )

of their creator had less of a

Marseillais accent.
(^^ must go to Versailles to

judge the art of Louis XIV, the

work of Le Vau, Mansart and

Le Brun. Approaching from

Pans, we see the buildings spread

out on a slight .slope, the roofs

levelled to a uniform horizontal

line. As we gradually advance

between the two projecting wings

towards the heart of the palace,

we understand the process of its

development. Immense wings grew

from either side of a little body/

Louis XI I Is building, a modest

faqade of white stone and red

brick, which Mansart enriched,

but which he had to respect. Qx

imposed its simple and cheerfur style on this entire side of the

paiaceX here were lodged the royal executive, the ministries of

Peace-and War, Colbert and Louvois. In the eighteenth century

Gabriel erected columns against these parti-coloured facades ;

Louis XIV had reserved this
ceremonious style for the facade
which confronts the park.

\At the very threshold, the
eye was dazzled by the pomp
of the decorations. The " Am-
bassadors' Staircase rose, a
structure of polychrome marbles.
The apartments sustained this
decorative richness. On the
walls, Le Brun's_DUpils recorded
the king's actioji^/; these great
paintings, which would have been
adequate enough as cartoons for
tapestries, do not give a very
impressive idea of the French
school. ^On the ceiling, the
gods of the ancients continue
to drive chariots and hurl

IKi. 472. — I'OKTUAIT OF A \VO.M.\N.

(.Museum of Montpellier.)

227

Q 2

ART IN FRANCE

FKi. 473. — NlCi-ILAS JIKi.NAKU.

(Museum of Avignon.)

thunderbolts. The great
gallery was meant to be
the most luxurious part of
the palace. The decora-
tion of the ceiling occupied
Le Brun for a long time.
When it was unveiled, the
courtiers saw the history
of the whole reign
magnified by mythology
The king, an Imperator in
helmet and cuirass, gives
orders, hurls thunderbolts;
surrounded by France,
Minerva, Hercules,
Monsieur, Conde, and
Turenne (Fig. 478). Confronting him are various towns bowed
upon their shields, terrified and suppliant ; Spain, Holland and
Germany, the three-headed Hydra of the Coalition ; fugitives and
captives. Rivers imploring deliverance, and Fame, or Mercury,
ready to carry to distant lands the terror and the glory of the
king's name. A certain epic strain runs through this rhetoric ; Le
Brun has embodied the essence of the triumphant years ; he shows
the king in attitudes addressed to posterity ; the poet of this reign
was a painter, not a writer. (\n this gallery, the products of the
Gobelins, of Beauvais and of oaint-Gobain, furniture, tapestries,
mirrors and goldsmith's work, were spread in rich profusion. Of

all this splendour, the
ceiling IS the sole remain-
ing relic; it contrasts
strangely with the nudity
of the floor^ To imaginq
all this vanished magnifi-
cence, we must evoke
those portraits by Rigaud,
in which crimson velvet
and rich brocades billow
to the very edge of the
frame, and break their
shimmering folds at the
base of marble pilasters and
precious vases (Fig. 482).

FIG. 474. — P. MIGNARD. MME. DE MONTESr.\N
AND HER SON.

(Museum of Avignon.)

228

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

FU;. 475. — CHAIF.AU "F VERSAILLES.

/[The Gobelins factory, enlarged and directed by Le :Brun, made
the furniture for Versailles ; the thousand products of this human
hive composed a naturally harmonious framework ; the forms of
marble, metal and wood were all determined by the king's pamter.
Among the Gobelins artists, the cabinet-maker Boulle has a person-
ality. With ebony and brass, with inlays of pewter and tortoise-
shell, he built up cabmets which were much appreciated by his
contemporaries ; they were marked by the qualities dear to the
age ; these pieces of furniture, with their precious materials and
careful workmanship, were an epitome of the decorative wealth
displayed in the galleries (Fig. 483).

From the lofty windows of the Galerie des Glaces the king could
contemplate the majestic arrangement of Le Notre's park. On this
side the palace presents its ceremonious fac^ade, unrelieved save by
the play of light on its innumerable windows and pilasters (Fig. 477).
Mansart was not oblivious of the Louvre colonnade ; like Perrault,

he has decorated a storey

FI<;. 476.— VEKSAILLES. LA COUK l)E MAKHUK.

229

above a solid ground-
floor with columns and
pilasters, hidden his roof
behind an attic storey,
and broken the monoton-
ous line of the upper
balustrade with a few
vases and trophies. Be-
low IS a bare terrace,
for nothing was allowed
to detract from the
proud majesty of the

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 477. — CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES. FAfADE FROM THE GARDEN.S.

architecture. (Two large sheets of water reflect the evening flames
kindled by the setting sun in the windows of the palace. Colossal
bronze figures, representing the rivers of France offering the
homage of their waters to the king, recline upon the margins
obedient to the imperious horizontality of the site. Then the
ground falls away on every side, leaving the palace in superb
isolationy From the depths of the park, through a leafy vista at
the end of an alley, it appears, white and luminous, with the
magical aspect of some fairy structure in the garden of Armida.

Q-rom the terrace, the eye commands the vast park, Le Notre's
masterpiece ; to the left, towards the south, is a flower-garden,
where box and blossoms
spread an embroidered
carpet upon the soil ; on
a sunk terrace below
this are the orangery
and the piece of water
known as the Piece d'eau
des Suisses ; to the right,
towards the north, are
terraced parterres, de-
scending to the Fountain
of Neptune. In front,
towards the west,
stretches a wide turfed
avenue, bordered by walls
of dense foliage ; it ex-
tends from the Fountain of Latona, at our feet, to the Fountain of
Apollo, ^where Apollo advances on his car, drawn by four galloping

230

FIG. 478. — LE BRUN. LOUIS XIV GIVES ORDERS TO

ATTACK HOLLAND. FRAGMENT OF TH% CEILING

IN THE. GALEKIE DES GLACES.

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

FK,. 47q. — \ ENSAII.LES. KKIRZE OF THE SAI.ON DE L (EII,-DE-I'.i EU 1

horses ; beyond lies the tranquil mirror of the canal, and the
prospect melts mto the illimitable horizon beyond the par^ On
each side of the Green Carpet, behind the leafy screen^'tTe Notre
arranged his labyrinth of groves ; their regularity is only recognised
upon a plan ; the visitor soon loses himself in the labyrinth,
•^^a point where four alleys meet, is a fountain ; in the centre;
lustrous, dripping bronze figures recline, gazing upward at a jet
of watery A population of white statues gleams against the foliage ;
antiques, modern works, and copies, they line each side of the
avenues. From their pedestals, they looked down on the splendid
procession of king and courtiers. The great nobles of Rome were
the first to set the statues exca-
vated from the soil among their
vines. The men of the seven-
teenth century were not astonished
when they came upon naiads and
'rural divinities. When a certain
indifferent painter, one Cotelle,
represented some perspectives in
the park, he enlivened them with
mythological figures, as if the
statues, when they were alone,
came down from their pedestals
to frolic on the gravelled alleys,
ride upon the clouds, or gambol
in the fountains. La Fontaine
loved to people the melancholy
majesty of great parks with the
figures of Flora, Pomona and

FI<;. 4S0. — ROIiERT DE COTTE.
THE CIIAI'EI, OK VERSAILLES.

231

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 481.— VERSAILLES. THE TAPLS VERT.

nymphs, whose white forms he had seen among the green
branches.

( Like the paintings In the apartments, the statues in the park were
— no mere accidental acces-

sories ; they played a
part in the general
iconography of the mon-
archical cult. At the
entrance to the palace,
the two groups between
which the visitor passes
recall the triumph of
France over Spam and
the Empire, and the
sculptured figures which
guard the Marble Court-
yard are symbols of the royal virtues. At a time when Louis XIV
came to Versailles only for relaxation, Girardon showed Apollo
completing his daily course, and the nymphs pressing round to serve
him. Apollo on his car reappears in the centre of the parO
Latona, the Seasons, the Hours, the quarters of the globe, tfie
elements gravitate about the Sun-God. A continuous allegory gives
significance and unity to this mythology ; a common sentiment
animates this world of statues. vTo-day, the vast galleries with

their blackened paintings, the
alleys with their weather-worn
and mutilated statues, are like a
deserted temple and the ruined
accessories of a vanished fait^
The perennial beauty of trees
and flowers is powerless to dis-
sipate the melancholy which
hangs over this marvellous setting
of an interrupted fete. Be-
sides, we moderns demand from
works of art a subtle expression
of personal sentiment. Here,
painters and sculptors worked m
bands under Le Brun's direc-
tion, and it is difficult to seize
any individual traits among these
figures. Hence, in this palace,

232

FK;. 482. — VERSAILLES. THE GALERIE
PES GLACES.

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

as in the great enterprises of the Middle Ages, we must not look
for personal expression, but must yield to the spell of a diffused
inspiration. To evoke the stirring majesty of Versailles, the

spectator must be able
to re-kindle many extinct
emotions, either by the
power of history or of
sympathy. There are no
false gods save those who
have no worshippers. If
we wish to hold com-
munion with this art,
we must think the
thoughts of monarchical
France, who admired
herself in the image
of her king, and

FIG. 483. -THE LOUVRE. GALERIE d'aI'OM.oX. I • yy 1 \ r

put Louis AlV on
a colossal pedestal, that he might appear greater.

Moreover, the art of this age was not merely decorative. There
was never a period when more works of public utility were under-
taken. Colbert constructed ports ; Louvois fortified the frontiers,
and even now their structures are not all obsolete. Colbert caused
the first observatory to be built, and that same Claude Perrault,
who had designed a stately colonnade for a king, was wise enough
in this case to avoid all useless ornament, and to look for beauty
only in fitness. Louvois lodged the wounded veterans of the army

in the Hotel des In-
valides ; Liberal
Bruant did not attempt
to mask the severity
of his facades under a
veneer of classical
orders ; he was con-
cerned only with a just
arrangement of a
building which was not
quite either a barrack,
a monastery, or a
hospital. The church

I'H;. 4S4. — LK UKUN. I.OUIS XIV VlSniMi Tllli J J J 1 » «

cioBEi.iNs 1-ACTOKv. GoiiEi.iNs TAi'ESTKv. auucu by IVlansart to

(Photo. MaHu/aclwc des Gobelins.') BrUant S, IS, On the

233

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 405. — VAN ])ER MEULKN. THE KING
ENTERING ARRAS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

contrary, an official building designed for the glorification of
the king ; its facjade and cupola are perhaps the masterpieces

of the "Jesuit style"
(Fig. 447).

Meanwhile, Pans,
abandoned by the mon-
archy, continued to throw
off its mediaeval aspect.
But its greatest enter-
prises still centred round
the king ; they were de-
signed to greet him when
he passed through the
city, returning from his
campaigns. Blondel and
Perrault set up triumphal
arches at the entrances of
the old fortifications ; the
royal victories were recorded upon them in bas-reliefs. These
monumental gates, built in honour of the king (Fig. 446), multiplied
around the city in which he no longer lived. He came occasion-
ally, however, for the inauguration of his statues. In the heart
of the city, two squares were designed and built on a special

plan, with the general
object of isolating the
royal effigy ; these were
the Place des Victoires
and the Place des Con-
quetes (Fig. 451).

The provinces partici-
pated from afar in this
monarchical art. Artists,
following the example of
Le Brun, styled their cor-
porations Academies ; but
the best among them
could never resist the
glamour of the capital.
Henceforth, fame was

(Photo. Fenaille.) i D •

only to be won m rans.
The transformation of urban architecture made its way into the
provincial capitals ; at Aix and Toulouse, the new mansions were

234

-LE HRUN. HANGINGS REPRESENTING
THE SEASONS : WINTER.

THE MONARCHICAL ART OF LOUIS XIV

modelled on those of the Marais. The
Place des Victoires and the Place des
Conquetes were also imitated. After
1680, an important event in the life of
the large provincial towns was the in-
auguration of a statue of Louis XIV,
paid for by the State, executed by the
Versailles sculptors, and accepted by
the king. They fell with the monarchy,
and museums now shelter their crumb-
ling remains.

Thus, in this period of unique effort,
all the artistic energies of France were
concentrated round the king. Such a
crisis could not endure ; but its conse-
quences were infinite. True, the art of
Louis XIV did not produce any of
those masterpieces which appeal beyond
the limits of a nation and an epoch to
humanity at large. This was the price
this official art had to pay. The king
had not the leisure to wait. And yet
Colbert's gigantic effort was not in vain. At the close of the
seventeenth century, French artists were very much better crafts-
men than their predecessors. There were admirable painters among
the portraitists of the king as an old man ; his childish portraits had
been contemptible as works of art. The charm of execution, formerly
confined to a Flemish or Italian work, was now to be found in the
Pans of the seventeenth century. In the fine arts, as in other
institutions, Colbert, working for the present, had prepared the future.

]

l>^9H

1
1

»*<- i

FUi. 4S7. — FONTAINEni.EAl.
TAl'ESTKIES OF THE KOVAl.

HOUSES. (P/io/o. Feiiaitle.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

P. Clement, Lc//,'ci, /'ns/ruc/ions c/ mcmoires dc Colbert. Paris, 1868-1871, 7 vols. Ch.'Perraull,
Mcmoires, Avignon. I 759. J. -J. Guiffrey, Comptes des batimcnh du Roi sous le regne dc Louis
XIV, Paris, 1 881 -1 90 1. 5 vols. ; Inccniairc ecncral du mobilicr de la Couronne sous Louis XIV,
t^aris, 1885, 2 vols. A. dc 'Vloniaiglon, Proccs-rerbaux de I Academic roi/o/c.-.( 1648-1 792),
Paris, 1875 cl seq. H. ]ou\n. Conferences dc I Academic royale • , Paris, 1883. A. Fontaine,
Conferences inediles de I Academic royale--, I'aris, nd. H.Testelin, Senlimenis des plus habiles
pcinlrcs---, Paris, 1696. Alph. Dufresnoy, L'Arl dc peinlurc, translated... with notes, Paris,
1668. A. Fontaine, Les Doctrines d Art en I- ranee. De Pous^in a Diderot, Paris, 1908. —
Chantelou, Journal de I oyage du cavalier Bernin en I ranee- , Paris, 1885.— Bertolotti, Objets,
dart Iransportes de Rome en hrancc (.V. .A. .4. I., 1880) ; Corrcspondance des Dirccteurs de
[Academic dc France a Rome--, Paris, 1887-1906. Comte Franchi-Verney della Valetta,
L' Academic de I ranee a Rome, 1666- 1903, Turin, 1903. Lecoy de la Marche, L Academic de
I ranee a Rome, Paris, 1878. E. Bourgeois, Lc Grand Sicclc, Parh, 1 896. A. Genevay, Le
Style Louis XIV, Pans, 1886. A. Felibien, Description des divers ouvrages dc peintures faits
pour le Roi, Paris, 1671. II. louin. Charles Lc Brun ct Ics Arts sous Louis XIV, Paris 1889. -

235

ART IN FRANCE

L. HoxxrUcq. L' Art academiqae (Revue de Paris, 1904).— P. Marcel, CAar/ciLe Brun, Paris,
1909. -Ch. Lhuillier. Le Peintre Claude Lefebvre {R. S. B. A. D., 1892) Ch. Ponsonailhe.
Jean Zueil---, Samuel Boissiere Con a school of painting at Montpellier) ( R. S. B. A. U., 1904;.
—Abbe de Monville, La Vie de Pierre Mignard. Pans, 1730. St.-Lami, DicHonnairedes
Sculpleurs fran<;ais sous la regne de Louis XIV, Paris. 1906. P. Auquier, Puge/, Paris, bd.-
Fermelhuis. £/oge Je Coi/serax, Paris, 1721. -H.Jouin, /In/.Coyzei'ojr, Pans, 1 883. CI. Perrault,
Les dix livres d' Architecture de Vitruve corriges el traduils, Pans. 1684. L. Uussieux, Le
Chateau de Versailles. VersaiWes. 1881. 2 vols. GiUe and M. Lambert, Versailles et les deux
Trianons. 2 vols., Paris, 1900. -L. Perate, Versailles, Paris, 1904. A. Bertrand, Versailles.
Paris, 1906— P. de Nolhac, Le Versailles de Mansart (G. B. A.. 1902) ; La Decoration de
Versailles au XVW siecle (G. B. A.. 1895, II); I'Arl de Versailles, t'E^<^''l'^''dcs Ambas-
sadeurs (R. A. A. M .. 1900) : I'Art de Versailles, la Calerie des Glaces (R A. A. M ., 1903).
— L-A. Barbet, Les grandes eaux de Versailles, Paris, 1907. Two periodicals are devoted to
the history of Versailles : Versailles itlustre and the Recue de I'Histoire de Versailles. -De
Boislisle, La Place des Victoires et la place Vendome-- (Mem. de la Societe de IHistoire de
Paris, 1888). -A. de Champeaux, Le Meuhle. 2 vols., Paris, 1883-1901. -E. Molinier, Le
Mobilier au XVII" et au XVIII" sibcle, Paris, 1899: Le Mobilier francais au Musee da
Louvre. Paris. 1903.-H. Havard, Les Boulle. Paris. 1893.— J. Guiffrey, Les Caffieri, sculpteurs
et fondeurs-ciseleurs. Paris, 1877; Les Gobelins et Beauvais, Pans nd. Gerspach, Kepcr/oire
detailte des Tapisseries des Gobelins-., Paris, 1893. M. Fenaille, Etat general des I apissenes
de la Manufacture des Gobelins, Paris, 1904-1909 (2 vols, published).

KIG. 4S8. — VF^KSAILLES. LOUI.S Xiv'.s BEDKOOM.

236

FlC. 489. — WATTEAU. GEKSAIN'T's SIGNBOAKD.

(ColU'Ct'ion of the (Itrnian Emperor.) {Photo. Bei-lin Pliotog^-aph'u Society.)

CHAPTER IV

THE END OF LOUIS XIV'S REIGN, AND PARIS
UNDER THE REGENCY

Art in Parh: .Artists irt the City. Transformation of Domestic .Architecture and its Decoration ;
the Hococo Style. Religious .Architecture, Sculpture. Paintins ; 7 ransformalion oj the
Decorative Style from Le lirun to Le Xloyne. The Influence oJ Rubens ; Desporles,
RigauJ and Largilliire. IValtcau ; flemish Technique and Parisian Poetry. — His
Imitators.

The prolonged old age of Louis XIV, the frequent intervals of
court mourning, even the reverses of the monarchy did not tend to
give a gloomy cast to the temper of French artists. Architecture,
sculpture and painting escaped the melancholy that brooded over
the last years of the reign. The disappearance of the king caused
no break in the continuity of the intellectual history of France ;
it was responsible, perhaps, for an outbreak of libertinage ; but the
brilliant fantasy ^f French painters found expression before this.
The work of Watteau, the most perfect manifestation of the
Regency spirit, was almost finished when Louis XIV died. For
a long time, ever since the death of Colbert, in fact, French art had
ceased to belong to the king. Contemplating the long-drawn setting
of the sun at Versailles, men took no heed of the dawn in Pans.

237

ART IN FRANCE

During those very years
which weighed so heavily
on the Court, the nervous
vivacity of the eighteenth
century had aheady taken
possession of the soul of
the city.

In the middle of the
seventeenth century, Pans
already had a considerable
number of collectors of pic-
tures and precious objects.
These connoisseurs formed
a society of their own, at
which men of the world
were inclined to laugh a
little. The amateurs of painting multiplied very rapidly, and though
they were not all rich enough to be collectors, they formed a very
cultivated circle, ready to admire or to criticise. When the royal
Maecenas ceased to employ artists, private patrons were ready
to give them commissions, and a numerous public was eager to
interest itself in their works. The " good society " of the city had
succeeded the world of the court. The picture-exhibitions brought
it together. Art could no longer live on abstract and purely
academic doctrines ; it had become necessary to give pleasure, and

FIG. 490. — ROBERT LE LORRAIN.

HIGH RELIEF ON THE h6tEL PE ROHAN,

NOW THE IMl'RIMERIE NATIONAI.E.

{Phc'to. Ncjirdehi.)

FU;S. 49T AND 492. — GUILI.AUME COUSTOU. THE HORSES OF MAKI.V,
PLACE DE LA CONCORDE, I'ARIS.

238

THE END OF LOUIS XIVS REIGN

FI<;. 493. — COUSTOU 'IHE YOUNCKU.
TO.MU OF TIIF »Ari'HIN.

(Cathedral of Sens.)
{P/i/>fo. A'i-tirdihi.)

if Le Brun's theories were still
repeated, they were applied less
and less. The best pupils of the
school very soon cast off their
scholastic pedantry. The high
moral position formerly claimed by
the founders of the Academy was
freely accorded to them. Most of
them belonged to the best society,
and took part in the fashionable life
of their time. The portraits of
themselves painted by these artists
show them indeed at their easels,
but in flowing wigs and elegant
costumes. One hand holds the
palette or the modelling-tool, the
other gesticulates to emphasise some
lively speech. The faces are amiable
and intelligent ; they solicit approval
smilingly. The absent, reflective

countenances of Philippe de Champaigne and Poussin look morose

among these loquacious artists. One of them, Antoine Coypel,

was even an author ; there was an incipient Boileau in him who

versified the poetics of painting.

These literary painters translated

the ideas of Virgil and Racine

into pictures rather too brilliantly.

The well-read society of the day

sought in history-pamting the same

intellectual i)leasure they demanded

from literatu'e.

At the end of Louis XIV's

reign, there was therefore a

"School of Pans.' It was not

of the same nature as those of

Italy and Flanders during the

Middle Ages and the Renaissance ;

it depended less on studio-tradi-

tinns than on the moral solidarity

of society in general. Its charac-
teristic style is also more diffi-
cult to define ; the elements are

KKi. 494. — JOUVENET.
UKSCK.NT l-KOM THE CKOSS.

(Tin- I.ouvrf. I'.Tris.)

239

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 495. — DE LA FOSSE.

THE METAMORl'HOSES HANGINGS.

RETURN OF DIANA FROM THE CHASE.

{Phofo. Fenai/h:)

sometimes incongruous, for the most diverse techniques and tempera-
ments were accepted by French taste ; transformations were rapid,
because a subtle and attentive public soon wearies ; yet there was

a certain continuity in
successive fashions and
a certain unity in the
variations of individuals.

Academic principles
had no longer sufficient
authority to enforce res-
pect from a society which
had a horror of boredom.
While Louis XIV was
seeking diversion from the
majesty of Versailles at
Marly or Trianon, and
asking his artists to be
gay and amiable, nobles
and citizens were building themselves houses arranged with great
ingenuity and decorated with elegance, to serve as the background
for their fashionable existence. The transformation of furniture
shows how intelligently craftsmen appreciated the taste of the day
and the requirements of comfort ; chairs, tables and bureaux take
forms in which grace and utility are happily combined ; the backs
and arms of chairs are inflected to support the human body, the
ingenious seats contrived at this period seem to have retained the
very attitudes of conversa-
tionalists. The cabinet-
maker associated himself
with the worker in metals
to produce solid tables
with a nervous grace of
outline ; he collaborated
with the upholsterer to
make comfortable seats ;
the curved forms and
delicate lines of the furni-
ture passed into the deco-
ration of the apartments.
The architecture of pilas-
ters, columns, attic storeys
and entablatures made

FIG. 496. — ANTOINE COVPEL.
ESTHER AND AHASUERUS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

240

La Finette.
Watteau. (The Louvre, Paris.)

;(T)

THE END OF LOUIS XIV'S REIGN

way for joinery ; marbles and
heavy stuccoes were replaced
by wooden panels painted in
delicate colours and relieved by
slight gilded mouldings curved
at the angles, and expanding
here and there into rococo
foliation. Whereas Le Brun
and Lepautre had accumulated
decorative motives untiringly,
Robert de Cotte, Oppenard.

497. — DE LA FOSSE.
OF I5ACCHUS.

TKIUMFH

(The Louvre, Paris.)

and Boffrand were quite content to
leave ceilings and walls luminously
bare, and to increase the light that
entered through their larger windows.

FIG. 498. — K. -J. DE TKOV.
THE OYSTER FEAST.

(Condd- Museum, Chautilly.)

they placed high mirrors over
the chimney-pieces. Stone fol-
lowed the example of wood, and
masonry was subjected to the
same convolutions as furniture.
Great houses such as the Hotel
de Soubise retained a classic
majesty on the exterior, which
does not always prepare us for
the amenity of the internal deco-
ration ; but the simpler houses
seem to be exerting themselves

241

FIG. 499. — I.E MOVNE.
HEUCULES AND OMI'IIALE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)
R

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 500. — RAOUX. VESTAL.

(Museum of Montpellier.)

to please the approaching
guest ; the doors have often
some shght rococo touches,
and gracefully twisted iron
balconies gave a sort of smiling
cheerfulness to facades at a
small expense.

Even religious architecture
accepted this lively style. ,The
nave of Saint Louis-en-l'lle is
decorated like a drawing-room.
Meissonier proposed to give
the Church of Saint Sulpice
a facade in which the entabla-
tures and classical capitals were
to undulate like his rococo pieces
of plate. It was not executed ;
but the architects of the day

did not always see that it was absurd, in building, to adopt the

forms of carved woodwork, engraved metal, or moulded pottery.

The chapel at Versailles is a good example of the limits within

which it is permissible to enliven the Jesuit style without making it

absolutely profane. Versailles was not, like the Escunal, a king's

monastery, a palace built round a

church. It was a country-house,

enlarged to contain the Court and

the executive of the sovereign.

But a place had also to be found

for God. The church built by

Mansart and Robert de Cotte

was connected with the palace,

to enable Louis XIV to enter it

from the level of his apartments.

Architecture, like all the other

arts, was unaffected by the melan-
choly of the monarch. Never

had the Jesuit style achieved such

a degree of worldly elegance ;

never had church decoration

shown such profane

Coypel's paintings in

The apartments have

gaiety as
the vault,
nothing to

242

I-IG. 501. — SANTERKE.
SUSANNA AT THE BATH.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE END OF LOUIS XIVS REIGN

compare with them in cheerfulness.
At Versailles, God was served after
the king ; but He was lodged more
agreeably (Fig. 480).

The same elegance characterises
the sculpture of the period. Artists
had profited by the great decorative
effort made at Versailles. The
works of the seventeenth century
after Coysevox and Girardon all

display a

1 ^^^f^v-.t,, ^f

dexterity or
execution, a
sleight of
hand which
were some-
times lack-
ing among
the honest
craftsmen of
the early
Versailles. A pupil of Girardon, Robert
le Lorrain, has left us a charming example
of decorative

l-l-;. 502. — CHARLES-AN I ulMi
CiiVl'EL. DON QUIXOTE TAI'ESTKIES.
THE ENTKY OF THE SilErHEKUISSSES.

{Photo. Fi!iai\'le.)

V\r,. 503.— CI.AUUE ALDKAX.
TArESTRY GKOTES(^>UES.
THE MONTHS, JUI-V ANIJ

AUCUST. {Photo. J-'ciiailte.)

sculpture. In
his famous
group of
horses at
a drinking
trough, over a
former stable
door of the
Hotel de Rohan, he has translated the
airy vivacity of i)ainting into stone with
admirable skill (Fig. 490). Coysevox
was continued in the work of his pupils,
the brothers Nicolas and Guillaumc
Coustou. The latter in particular
assimilated the trenchant precision of
his master. The horses of Marly
express a vigorous vitality in forms
carved by a graceful chisel. Fhe line

243

lie. 504.— EKiinEEXI H CKNURV

E.\ii;ia)ii)Kuv.
(Mus'ic des Arts dOcor.ntirs. Paris.)

R 2

ART IN FRANCE

FIG.- 505. — TOUKMEKES. . A MAGISTRATE.

(Museum of Caen.

is sharp and nervous ; from this
time forth sculpture, even when
it aims at rhetorical pomp, will
not allow brilliant and incisive
detail to be lost in commonplace
rotundities (Figs. 491, 492).

Painters were obliged to con-
form to the exigencies of the new
style of decoration. The light-
ness of fashionable rooms put an
end to the shadows of Bolognese
painting. The panels between
the white woodwork and the
mirrors had also to radiate light.
When they were painted, they
imitated the lightness and trans-
parence of the sky. The gilded
bosses and carvings which hung
heavily over the Louis XIV

galleries all disappeared, and blue skies and clouds with fluttering

figures replaced them. Decorative painters, the pupils of Le Brun,

already showed skill in giving movement to figures at a height, in

the vault of the Invalides Church.

The best of these artists was

Jean Jouvenet (1644-1717),

who, in the Norman group,

represents the School of Rouen,

as the Restouts represent the

School of Caen. He was a

painter, who, in spite of his

powerful imagination, had

adopted the healthy habit of

painting always from nature ;

he showed much facility in the

creation of robust compositions

full of dramatic force. Not

many French painters have been

so successful in giving vitality to

the corpse-bearers of the Descent

from the Cross or the fishermen

of the Miraculous Draught of
Fishes, and in combining vigorous

FIG. 506.— RIGAUD. MARQUIS DE
DANGEAU.

(Museum of Versailles.)

244

THE END OF LOUIS XIVS REIGN

gestures for a common effort. In
some mstances, we might almost
mistake him for Rubens, if his
colour were purer and clearer
(Fig. 494).

It was only in the works of
Le Brun's successors, Charles
de la Fosse, and afterwards
Le Moyne, that the human
figure moves with the supple
elegance Correggio had first
realised, half sportively (Figs.
497, 499). Academic teaching
had created a reposeful type,
somewhat heavy in its correct-
ness. Fashionable French deco-
rators soon adapted it for good
society. Faces lost the cold
regularity they had inherited

FIG. 507. — RIGAUD. GASPARO ])E GUEVD.-VN
PLAYING THE BAGPII'ES.-'

(Museum of Aix.)

from Apollo and Niobe ; noses less straight, modelling less rounded,
eyes alert enough to suggest a constant vivacity of thought,
were followed by joints gallantly supple, delicate articulations,
incisive modelling, the twisted draperies and broken folds which

suggest flexible bodies ; even
when figures are in repose
neither faces nor draperies are
immobile ; and the supple limbs
always seem ready for decorative
gambols on a ceiling. This
nervous trepidation of forms, so
characteristic of the temper of
French art, persisted until the
time of David, Avhen a sculptur-
esque style imposed immobility
even on the most furious gestures.
In the historical picture?, sacred
or profane, of Coypel and De
Troy, we recognise the divinities
of Foussin and the heroes of Le
Brun, costumed like the short-
breeched centurions of the
Trajan column, and even the

FIG. 50S. — I.ARGIl.LlfeRK.
PORTRAIT OK MME. DE GLEVOAN.

(Museum of A\x.)

245

ART IN FRANCE

I'lG. 509. — KIGAUD. I'ORTHAIT
OF BOSSUET.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FIG. 510. — FR.^NfOIS DESFOKTES,
liV HIMSELF.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

psychological and historical intentions dear to the Academy ; but
these figures have now manners of draping and posing themselves
learnt in drawing-rooms and on the stage. The personages of
historical painting have laid aside their scholastic air and adopted
the manners of fashionable society. In Antoine Coypel's /Eneid
in the Palais Royal, contemporaries recognised many a court lady.
Even religious painting was adapted to the taste of the day, and
Santerre's Susanna leaves us in doubt as to whether the author

most admired the grace of
antique Venuses or the
seductions of his Parisian
models (Fig. 501). Le
Sueur's female Saints had
already shown something
of this fragile grace ; it
had made their lachry-
mose piety all the more
touching. But, at the
dawn of the eighteenth
century, feminine faces
no longer imperilled their
FIG. 511.— LAKGii.LifeRE. I'oRTRAiT OF THE dainty bcauty by the vio-

ARTIST, HIS WIFE, A.\D DAUtJHTER. , ( n «

(The Louvre, Paris.) ience ot passion. Many

246

THE END OF LOUIS XIV'S REIGN

fascinating actresses had
learnt how to regulate the
play of attitude and physi-
ognomy, into which the
Academy had put so much
meaning, in such a manner
as to leave their beauty
unimpaired. More than
one painter like Jean
Raoux aspired to be
considered a painter of
history, when he had
done no more than give
a supple cast to silken robes.

51-'. — \VA riF.AU. PAGE IX AX

(The Louvre, Paris.)

to thf

and a touch of sharpness
soft features of pretty faces (Fig. 500).

These amiable successors of Le Brun had soon to reckon with
a new conception of painting from Flanders, which found ready
acceptance. The Academy had extracted its aesthetics from
the work of Poussin ; but this work, excellent as an intellectual
education, could not make a skilful craftsman. French decorators,
the while they discoursed on Poussin's psychology, were obliged,
for the most part, to seek inspiration from other models. These
they sought first in Italy, among the Bolognese. Caravaggio's
sombre painting invaded the decorations of the seventeenth century.
It was only the brilliance of
Rubens which dissipated
the smoky shadows of
Bologna. Even in the time
of Le Brun, there had been
enthusiastic " Rubemsts '
who had rebelled against
the propositions of the
academic dogma. The
freshness and vivacity of
Rubens' colour made
many amateurs and
painters feel the inade-
quacy of " Poussinism."
At the same time, Van
der Meulen brought some of the finest qualities of the Flemings
to the workshops of the Gobelins manufactory. But the art-world
was too much occupied with moral expression and fine drawing to

247

FIG. 513.-

-WATTEAU. I'AGE IN AN ALBUM.

(The Louvre, I'.iris.)

ART IN FRANCE

note the limpid illumination of his landscapes, and the picturesque
charm of his accessories. Humble Flemings painted animals,
flowers, and fruits in cartoons for tapestries, without any idea that
their technique contained the germs of revolt against the aesthetics
of the painter-in-ordinary. When the decorative work of the
Gobehns and of Versailles was abandoned, all these minor talents
were set at liberty, and thenceforth displayed their skill in small
genre pictures. Amateurs bought these readily for their galleries.
Collectors are not necessarily theorists. They do not admire by
deductive reason ; they buy the things that please them. Those

little masters whose manual dex-
terity is their chief asset have
always had their suffrages.

Desportes (1661-1743), was
a pupil and successor of the
Flemings. His still-life pieces
of vegetables, fruit, and game,
and his pictures of animals, have
much of the vigour and vivacity
of Snyders, though these qualities
have taken on a sedater tinge,
as beseems a historiographer of
the royal kennels. Together
with the dog and the game, he
sometimes painted the sportsman
(Fig. 510).

Certain portraitists, again, are
among the finest painters of the
French school, for they spoke
that vivid and exact speech which Rubens had used some half
century earlier; Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743), because he
copied Van Dyck assiduously ; Nicolas Largilliere, because he was
brought up in Antwerp. They translated the characteristics of
physical life into painting. Rubens had shown them that pigment
might become flesh and blood. Vouet, Poussin and Le Brun had
scorned to show the dry, harsh skin of a thin face, the pearly
epidermis of a fair complexion. Largilliere's and Rigaud's portraits
are, above all thmgs, alive.

Rigaud painted with firm touches and frank colour ; the vigour
of his sitters seems due, to some extent, to the solidity of his
technique. His brush is nervous, subtle, and incisive ; it indicates
a bony face, the cartilages of the nose, the joints of the fingers, and

248

FIG. 514. — WATTEAU. l'iNDIFF^RENT.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE END OF LOUIS XIV'S REIGN

515. — l.A.NXRET. THE ACIOUS OF
THK ITALIAN THKATRE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

the creases of satin, in clearly
defined planes. Rounded con-
tours, which are always banal,
are relieved by this clean-cut
modelling ; the face is sharpened
by it, and intellectualised, so that
we note the fire of the eye, and
the animation of all the features ;
take away the wig, and there is
an animated mask, sparkling eyes,
an intelligent mouth, a face as
eloquent as a pastel by La Tour,
or a bust by Houdon. Even
amidst the profusion of heavy
hangings, tapestries, gold and
silver plate, and embroidered
mantles, there is always a vigo-
rously modelled face, which
dominates the tumultuous splendour. It is Rigaud's rendering
that has realised the majesty of Louis XIV in his old age, and also
the malicious faces of Boileau and La Fontaine, and the frank,
robust countenance of Bossuet (Figs. 506 507, 509).

Largilliere shows more tenderness, in spite of the vigour of his
art ; he loves to paint the delicate gradations of flesh, of fine stuffs,
and of the atmosphere, the bluish
reflections of a very fair skin, the
changing lights in a saiin drapery,
or the gold of autumn dying away
into mist. Sometimes, even, a
certain insipidity seems to herald
Nattier's fatigued palette, for the
eighteenth century was about
to dilute the strong colours of
Antwerp for its faintly tinted
decoration. His brush has not
the mordant quality, which, m
Rigaud's works, sometimes gave
as much firmness to the curls of
a wig as to the convolutions of
brass or gilded wood ; it touched
rounded forms more languidly ;
hence Largilliere was a more

249

FIG. 516. — rATER.
CO.NVERSATIO.N IN A I'AKK.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 517. — WATTEAU. THE DANCE.

(Colleclion of the German Emperor.)
{Photo. Berlin Photographic Society.)

successful painter of women than Rlgaud ; he gives a certain blue
tone to his lights, and modifies his red reflections to produce an
aristocratic pallor, so that even his echevins, and his magistrates in

their robes show a sort
of coquettish elegance,
an almost feminine desire
to please (Figs. 508,
511).

At about the same
time, Francois de Troy
and many others sought
to render the elegance of
their age in the supple
tongue of the Antwerp
painters. But with most
of them, gaiety and
vivacity were blunted
by the majesty of the
past style, and preoccupa-
tion with " noble design."
Watteau ( 1 684- 1 72 1 ) come from Flanders to Pans, and gave
the most subtle expression to the Parisian spirit. Had he remained
in his native country, he would no doubt have continued the work
of Teniers. Had he come twenty years earlier, he would, like
Van der Meulen, have been enrolled among Le Brun's troop, and
have painted Louis XIV's battles, hunting-parties, and fetes. But
in 1 702, there was no longer an administrative organisation to
fetter his independence.
Gillot gave him lessons in
the art of drawing bril-
liantly. The only law he
recognised was that which
bade him satisfy his own
taste, and that of his
friends. Ama teurs had
learned to appreciate
delicacy of technique, by
studying Teniers' litde
pictures.

There was a public

J 1 J ^'^- 5^^- — WATTEAU. RURAL PLEASURES.

ready to recognise and ad- (Collection of the German Emperor.)

mire Watteau's exquisite (Photo. Berlin Photo^apkic Society.)

250

^31

n^^^

fe^^^B

fc^g^^ v^B^^ifcJi

THE END OF LOUIS XIV'S REIGN

KIG. 519. — WATTEAU.
THE E.MllARKATION FOR CYTHEKA.

(The Louvre, Paris.) {Photo. N'cuydein.)

dexterity. Even in Paris, the painter was able to continue his
education in craftsmanship before the Rubenses in the Luxembourg,
and the Venetians of the Crozat collection. Some reflections of
these masters greet
us in his little
panels : the pearly
freshness and the
liquid splendour of
Rubens, the warm
russet tones of
Titian, the silvery
satins of Vero-
nese ; but the
breadth of these
robust geniuses has
taken on a certain
keenness ; from the
sanguine, lacteous
Flemish material
the master distilled
a subtle elixir, from which the coarse odours of reality have been
banished. Invented by exuberant naturalists, this language was
applied by him to the interpretation of a refined society in its most
factitious aspects, those of the fashionable world and the theatre.
Watteau worked for operatic decorators, and his most delicate
reveries seem to have been evoked by a graceful minuet in some
fairy play. The actors he loved do not play the heroic parts of

tragedy ; they do not
declaim pathetic senti-
ments in the midst of
classic palaces ; they some-
times wear the costumes
of the actors of the Italian
theatre, but more often
dresses invented by the
painter, and like those
of his period, admirably
designed to display the
elegant ease of his little
figures. The men are

FIG. 520. — WATTEAU. THE CONCEKT. 1 1

(Collection Of the German Kmperor.) Supple and impetUOUS,

{Photo. Periin Photo^aphic Socictv.) they Stand erect on

251

ART IN FRANCE

nervous, muscular legs,
execute a pirouette ; the
proclaim them as cunning
and caressing as cats.
The ladies meet their
advances with no less
dexterity, half consenting,
half resisting. They look
alert and vigilant, and
their delicate heads, with
the hair drawn up under
their little caps, are as
mobile as the heads of
birds on their slender
necks ; their fans flutter
incessantly, and among
the folds of their silken

as ready to drop on their knees as to
sharp, eager faces of these cavaliers

FIG. 521. — LANCRET. THE FOUNTAIN OF PEGASUS.

(Collection of the German Emperor.)
{Photo. Berlin Photographic Society.)

dresses the light gleams and darts and glances, shifting in obedience
to their dainty, rhythmic gestures. These vivacious attitudes, these
glittering broken folds, are relieved against the velvety shade of
trees, or the faint blue of distant horizons. The sudden flashes
of the satin are subdued to some extent by the mystery of the
landscape, as are the whisperings of lovers by the majestic silence of

evening.

Watteau's little world is all his own.

FIG. 522. — I.ANCKET. THE I'F.F.r-SIIOW.

(Collection of the German Emperor.)
{Plioto. Berlin Photograf>hic Society.)

slender neck, all
but a desire to

the charming
please. For
252

His operatic parks bear no
resemblance to historical
landscapes, and it is amaz-
ing to see how little his
small figures have in
common with those of
the Academy : they have
neither expressive ges-
tures, nor statuesque atti-
tudes, nor any of the
learned modellings after
nature or antique exam-
ples ; the painter prefers
the play of light on silk,
the curve of a well-formed
leg, the inclination of a
gestures which mean nothing
the abstract humanity of the

THE END OF LOUIS XIV'S REIGN

FIG. 523. — LANCKET. MLLE. CA.MAKtiO.

(Collection of the German Emperor.)
(Pholo. Berlin Pliotograpldc Society.)

French school, he substituted fanciful figures, but fanciful in
the Flemish manner, and full of delicate observation.

In his Embarkation
for Cylhera, Watteau
has brought together all
the groups of lovers scat-
tered throughout his works.
The couples in this exqui-
site gathering show a cer-
tain hesitation ; they set off
not without delays and
recalcitrances, but the in-
cline is so gentle, and the
example of others so allur-
ing ! In this work, Wat-
teau did something more
than summarise all the
seductions of his nervous and caressing art. This poetic fancy is
symbolical of his whole work ; what more natural conclusion could
there be to his innumerable "Conversations galantes " than this
voyage to the island of love ? The Paris of Versailles and the
Regency must have seen something more than a graceful fantasy
here. In that society, where men and women delighted in nothing
so much as in essaying their weapons of seduction, this embarkation
for Cythera showed the
fundamental reason of all
social relations.

But if the men of the
eighteenth century greatly
admired Watteau, it was
nearly always a covert
attachment they felt. In
each of them there was a
classical theorist, nourished
on antiquities and psycho-
logy, and they could find
nothing in their doctrine
which was not hostile to
their secret tenderness.

Watteau could not be
really imitated save by Flemings not wholly Gallicised ; he was
copied by his compatriots, Lancret and Pater. They are easily

253

524. — l.ANCKET. WINTKR.

(The l.ouvre, P.-iris.),

ART IN FRANCE

distinguished from the other painters of fetes galantes and pastorals
in the eighteenth century. Their landscapes, even when fanciful,
achieve an effect of truth and a sense of reality. Their little figures
are the work of painters who never attempted to model the forms
of the human body ; they make the light play over satm folds,
lengthen their silhouettes, and sharpen their extremities to a nervous
acuteness, and are amused by the grimaces of their shepherds and
actors, just as Brueghel and Teniers were formerly delighted by the
antics of their ragged boors.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

D'Argenville, Abrcge dc la vie des plus fameux peintrcs, vol. IV, Paris, 1762. Marietle,
Abecedario--, Paris, 1851-1860,6 vols. J. Guiffrev, Zliorc/s des Exposilions de peinlure depuis
\67i jusqu'a I8C0, Paris, 1669-1875, P. Marcel, La Peinlure francaise au debut du XVIW^
siec/c, Paris, 1906. C. F^nsonailhe, Z-cs deux Ranc (R. S. B. A. D., 1887). F. Engerand,
Les Commandes officietles failes a Jean Reslout ( R. S. B. A. D., 1896). A. Valabregue, Claude
allot (G.B.A., 1899, I and II). G. Duplessis, Les Audran, Paris, n.d. E. and J. de Goncourt,
L'ArtduXVlir siiele. Pans, 1880! 883, 2 vols. P. Mantz, H^a//cQU. Paris, 1892. F'. Foucart.
Watteaua Valenciennes (R.S.B. A.D., 1892). A. Rosenberg, Watteau. Bielefeld, 1896.
E. Hannover, IVatleau, Berlin, 1889. G. Seailles, Watteau. Paris, n.d. L. de Fourcaud,
Watteau ( R. A. A.M., 1901 and 1904). P. Dorbec, L'Exposilion de la /eunesse au XVHI"
si'ecle (G. B. A., 1905, 1). P. Foucart, Anloine Pater (R. S. B. A. D., 1887). M. Henauit.
Antoine Paler (R.S. B.A. D, 1899).-P. Mantz, Largilliere (C.B. A., 1893, II).- Lady
Dilke, Les Couslou (G. B. A., 1901, I).

254

b'U;. 525. — THE n.ACE IJE l.A CUNXUKDE, I'ARIS.

CHAPTER V

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XV AND

LOUIS XVI

Artists and the Parisian Pvhiic. The Part Played hy the Monarchy. History-painting and
Decorative Painting. Boucher: Amorous Mythology and Pastorals. Book Illustration. —
La Tour. Nattier. Chardin : Painter of Interiors and Still-life. Grcuze's Sentimental
Painting. — f-ragonard. Joseph Vernet's and Hubert Rohert's Landscapes. Sculpture.—
Bouchardon. Pigalle and falconet. Sevres China,- Pajou. Clodion. and the Cajjieri. —
Houdon.- Civil Architecture, the Classical and Rococo Stules. Transformation of Paris,
Gabriel. — Town Houses. Transformation in Provincial Towns. — Religious Architecture.

The institution of exhibitions of pictures and sculpture (Salons),
and their steady success after their permanent establishment in
1 737, show the growing interest taken by the Parisian world in
the work of artists. Never, since it had parted company with
religion to become the pastime of a cultured coterie, had art
appealed to so wide a public, or found such extensive support
in society. It may be that less painting was executed as decoration
for princely galleries, but a great deal more found its way into
private houses. The amateur was no longer necessarily an ostenta-
tious financier or a fanatical collector of rarities ; statues and pictures,
preferably small in size and dainty in technique, were essential
features of luxurious furnishing ; and were designed to suit dining-
room, drawing-room, and boudoir. I he yearly exhibition of the
Royal Academy tended to educate the public. A crowd of visitors
were interested in these shows, who had no idea of becoming
purchasers ; among them were the critics, the theorists, and the

255

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 526. — OUDRY. HUNTING SCENE UNDER
I.OUIS XV. TAPESTRY.

{Photo. Fetiailk.)

large public invited to this Parisian entertainment. Works of art

were no longer produced for the satisfaction of a few great patrons ;

they appeared in the midst
of general expectation ;
artists were applauded or
criticised ; they breathed
the exciting and somewhat
factitious atmosphere
which has become a
necessity of life to modern
art.

The king was not in-
different to the fine arts ;
he made various altera-
tions in the palace and
park of Versailles ; he
even destroyed the famous

Ambassodors' Staircase to arrange some apartments in the new

taste ; his council chamber at Fontainebleau was decorated with

paintings by Boucher and Van Loo. After the Due d'Antin, who

re-established those relations between art and the State, which had

become somewhat relaxed at the close of Louis XIV's reign, the

successive comptrollers of the royal buildings, Tourneheim, Marigny,

and Angivillers, earned

out their functions actively

and intelligently, thanks

to Colbert's institutions.

The Beauvais factories

never produced more

charming tapestries than

when they were directed

by the painter J. B.

Oudry (Fig. 526), and

the china of the royal

factory of Sevres was

exquisitely characteristic

of the Louis XV style.

Marigny had revived an

idea much in favour with

former kings, who had
often commissioned landscape-painters to depict the cities and casdes
of France. He caused Joseph Vernet to paint the principal French

256

FIG. 527. — OLLIVIER. TEA-1'.^RTY A I. ANGl.AIRE
AT I'RINCE CONTl's.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

IG. 528. — BOUCHEK. MMIC.
DE I'dMPADlHl;.

(Sclilicluiiig Collection.)

sea-ports, at the very time when the Seven Years War had drawn
away all their ships. He even had dreams of turning art back
again in the direction of classical
severity. But government inter-
vention was no longer capable of
forming a style. Inspiration came
now from the great public ; an
artist coveted the fame of Pans
rather than that of Versailles.
The king was merely a very rich
patron. He demanded from
Boucher and Fragonard, not, like
Louis XIV, his glorification by
mythological allusions, but, like the
financial magnates, gay and gallant
images to amuse his eye. When
monarchical decoration abandoned
the majestic style, it deprived the
history-painters of their principal
raison d'etre. Yet they did not
disappear, and they even showed
a kind of artificial vitality again, when the State once more ordered
their works and established museums to receive them.

The history-painters followed Le Moyne's example ; they forgot
the reverence with which the seventeenth century had approached
the antique. Divine and heroic forms were elongated, twisted, and
refined at the will of the painter, and draperies were elegantly
crumpled or broken into silken reflections. The brush produced
a nervous modelling, with sharply defined planes, seeking the
angularities of form that
break the folds of stuffs,
and give definite contours
in rounded limbs. Jean
Restout, Subleyras, and
Natoire practised in this
manner with considerable
skill, although certain pic-
tures by Restout and some
by Pierre Parrocel at
Avignon, overstep the
pardonable limits of in-
sipidity ; their Jesus is too

FIG, 52q. — nOUCllEK. THI! TOII.KT OK VE.NUS.
(The I/.nivic. Paris.)

257

ART IN FRANCE

blonde and curly-haired, and their saints are mere languishing
actresses. Carle Van Loo was among the more gifted of these

painters who excelled
in making an agree-
able decoration of any
theme. Like the
others, he set grace-
ful figures among the
clouds, and left us
many charming pic-
tures of Court life
(Figs. 540, 542).
FIG. 530.— GRAVELOT. !„ the Frcnch

DESIGN FOR HEADING OF A VOLUME. 01 < 1 .

bchool, this was a
period of dexterity and facile vivacity ; no trace of the heavy
application of the first classical painters had survived. Something
of Rubens' fire glowed in the decorative painters from La Fosse
and Le Moyne onward ; they had learnt in Mane de' Medici's
gallery to colour daringly, to paint blonde nymphs with delicate
bluish reflections in the light, and vermilion m the shadows. They
refined Rubens, repudiating his over-carnal realism, subduing colours
whose freshness and splendour they could not equal, and, finally,
building up by sharp, staccato touches what the Fleming's brush
had modelled softly and
caressingly.

Boucher (1703-1770)
was the painter who most
frankly treated classical
mythology as decorative
material ; for him it was
hardly more than a pretext
for rococo draperies and
contours ; and, as a result,
he was the most popular
painter of his day until the
year 1 760. In his work
the style of his master
Le Moyne was worked
out to its logical conclusion.
The proximity of Le Brun and the majesty of Versailles had
imposed a certain gravity on Le Moyne's painting. But his figures
were graceful, and his colours tender enough to take their places in

258

FIG. 531.

-BOUCHER. DIANA AND NVMPH.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

I'U;. 532. — HALLOIN. THE TOILEI'.

(Bibliotheque Nationale, Print Room.)

the " little apartments ' of Louis
XV without detracting from the
general gaiety of effect. Boucher
was the outcome of Le Moyne,
as Le Moyne had been the outcome
of La Fosse, and with Boucher the
transformation of serious history-
painting into erotic decoration was
complete.

Boucher further appealed to the
taste of his time by his choice of
themes. He does not appear to
have always made up his mind to
treat some definite subject ; but
under his brush, amorous con-
versations between some white-
limbed goddess and some ruddy
god seem to have materialised
spontaneously, while all around chubby Cupids gambol on sub-
stantial woolly clouds. He knew and had studied Watteau, but he
did not borrow the master's fanciful figures ; he preferred rosy
nudities to rustling silks. As he was a classical student, he recorded
the loves of Olympus. Venus was his favourite divinity ; she

appears in his works,
sleeping, waking, bathing,
or in colloquy with V^ulcan,
Pans, or Anchises (Figs.
529, 531); and even
when his heroine is
another, she is closely
akin to Venus ; she has
the same white, plump,
delicate body, the same
sparkling face, the same
dimpled contours. When
they are draped, Boucher's
figures are the shepherds
and shepherdesses of
pastoral romance ; Lubin,
kneeling by Annette, offers her flowers or birds, or teaches her to
play the flute, for the painters of the day borrowed from the poets
the pleasing convention, according to which shepherds pass their

259 s 2

533. — I.A roUU. 1 Ifli Alimc HUKKT.
(Museum of SaiiU-CJueiuin.)

ART IN FRANCE

I'K;. 534. — I. A 'I'llUK. I'dKTRAlT
OF THE ARTIST.

(Museum of Amiens.)

time in the agreeable occupation
of love-making. In place of the
convenient clouds that enfold the
Olympians, Boucher gives his
eclogues a setting of bluish
verdure, of serrated foliage, cf
rococo ruins and be-nbboned
sheep. In the centre of the
panel, a strong light radiates
from the body of a nymph or
shepherd, and the painter cares
little whether there are draperies
or trees or clouds around it,
provided the colours be caress-
ing, like those of delicate and
slightly faded fabrics. We
should not be so ready to criti-
cise their excessive sweetness, or
their somewhat acid crudity, if
we could see Boucher's paintings upon the softly-tinted panelling
for which they were originally painted. Torn from their appro-
priate framework, these pictures, like all pictures in a museum,
invite a careful examination never solicited by a decorator.

The admirable decorators of
this period embellished everything
they touched. Their lively figures,
their linear fancies blossom m gold
and silver plate, chased metal-
work, china, tapestry, and engrav-
ings. The Flamboyant Style had
flourished in its greatest luxuriance
on the margins of illuminated
manuscripts ; the Rococo Style
threw its graceful tendrils across
the pages of the gravest folios.
Without colour, by pure supple-
ness of line, the burins of Cochin,
Gravelot, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin,
Eisen, and Moreau the Younger
reproduced plump carnations and
glistening materials, and have left
us the most lively records of

IK,. 535. — LA TDUK. MI.LE. FEI,.
(Museum of Saint-Quentin.)

260

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

FIG. 536. — WED. .M.MK. CKOZ.\l'.

'(Museum of -Mcint,ellier.)

Parisian life in the eighteenth
century. Worthless books were
illustrated with engravings which
are masterpieces ; the most austere
literature, as well as the freest,
accepted these coquettish adjuncts.
Boucher's broods of Cupids were
numerous enough to swarm both
here and in the treatises of astron-
omy and natural history. Science
itself in those days took on the
fashionable tone, and spoke beguil-
ingly to secure a hearing ; experi-
ments in physics and chemistry
became drawing-room pastimes,
and a passion for botany was
confounded with a taste for
pastorals. Thus in the frontis-
pieces of heavy tomes we find Cupids painting, chiselling, building,
and wielding surgical instruments. In his morose old age, Louis
XIV desired to see Versailles enlivened by groups of chubby
children. French art did not forget his counsel. On the frontispiece
of the Encyclopedia, Cochin engraved with his most delicate burin

a sort of gallant Olympus, in
which plump, coquettish forms
disport themselves among the
clouds. Nor is this engraver
wholly fanciful when he shows
us some vast engme of war,
installed and manipulated by
pretty women and Cupids.

Painting has left us records
of this society full of intense
life. Rigaud's figures, in spite
of their veracity, retained some-
thing of the grandeur of the
" Great Century. " The indi-
vidual is clothed in his hierarchic
dignities as in a majestic uniform.
Between 1 740 and 1 760. por-
traitists were able to define
typical personalities more closely.

FIG. 537. — PERKONNE.VU. MMK. UK
SOKlJU.MNVII.LE.

(David Weil Collection.)

261

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 538. — DROUAIS.
MME. DE POMPADOUR.

In each Salon, the Hvely, eager
faces of this society, in which
aristocracy, finance, literature,
science, art, and the theatre
met, studied and entertained
each other, re-appeared. All
Paris — the Tout Paris of the
hour — recognised itself in La
Tour's pastels, and still survives
in the Museum of Saint-Quentin,
where the painter's " prepara-
tions " are preserved. La Tour
(1704-1788) adopted as his
medium that pastel which had
shortly before been made fashion-
able by the Venetian, Rosalba
Carriera. He was a neurotic,
who delighted in this dry, sharp,

(Museum of Orleans.) ^^^.j ^^^^^^^ ^^j ^^^ ^^^^^^j

the rich accessories with which nobles and burgesses of an earlier
day loved to amplify their images. The light colours of the chalk,
its vivacious hatchings, its contrasted lights, sufficed him for the
revelation of a moral physiognomy. Some few rich farmers-
general or Court functionaries still
posed among the paraphernalia
which served to emphasise their
riches, their power, and the dis-
tinction of their tastes. But La
Tour's real interest centred in the
face ; it was in the fire of the eye,
and the nervous mobility of the
mouth, that he sought and seized
the life of the mind. His vision
was not for calm faces, relaxed in
the peaceful atmosphere of domes-
ticity, but for such as were animated
by the subtle fire of vivid colloquy.
The heads he shows us are lively
and alert, the facial muscles ready
for speech or laughter, the features
mobile, the intelligence behind them
at attention. His personages are

262

KIG. 539. NATTIER. MME.
DE CH.\TEAUROUX AS DAWN.

(Museum of Marseilles

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

l-IG. 540. — VAX LOO. I.OUIS XV.
(.Mu;.eiim of Versailles.)

taken from various circles, the Court
the theatre, the salons of Mme.
du Deffand and Mme. Geoffnn.
But in every case the mdividual
asserts himself, liberated by his intel-
ligence or his talent from the social
hierarchy, and even from the social
conventions which deaden person-
ality. Hence La Tour's gallery of
sitters shows extraordinary variety.
The elegant and weary king, the
proud financier, the mocking philo-
sopher, and the whole range of
theatrical women, from the careless,
laughing girl to the fragile, dreamy
Mile. Fel, who gazed at him so
tenderly. Many portraitists, it is
true, have been greater painters ;
but neither Van Dyck, Hals, nor Holbein had penetrated so deeply
into character ; their sitters show a stronger family likeness. In
spite of the uniform rouge and the identical coiffure. La Tour noted
the striking differences even in the faces of pretty women. He
said of his sitters : " I plunge into their depths, and I bring
them out whole" (Figs. 533-535).
Perronneau's pastels, which are no
less graceful and dexterous, and
perhaps even more delicate in colour,
have not quite the same spiritual
fire (Fig. 537). We must go to
Houdon's terra-cottas for a continu-
ation of La Tour's iconography.

La Tour's frankness of speech
sometimes scandalised his aristocratic
models, the Dauphin or the Pompa-
dour ; his vision penetrated the
majestic decorum behind which the
heir to the throne or the titular
favourite lay concealed. Nattier
(1685 1766), on the other hand,
contemplated the princesses who
sat to him with due respect. He
was no indiscreet reader of character.

FU;. 541. NATTIER. MME.
AD^II.AiDE TATTING.

(Museum (if Versailles.)

263

ART IN FRANCE

542-

-VAN LOO. HALT OF SPORTSMEN

(The Louvre, Paris. )j

and he was even willing
to show his sitters not as
they were, but as they
wished to be. He con-
ferred that fashionable
elegance which every
woman demands from
her hairdresser and her
dressmaker. For fashion,
as we know, is a worker
of miracles, and produces
uniformity of features
as well as of vesture.
Nattier may be said to
have fixed the type of
the Louis XV style, and
consequently, it is not
always easy to distinguish among the innumerable " Daughters of
France " whom he portrayed. A Nattier portrait characterises
not an individual, but the collective type of a period : tender
colours, a pink-cheeked face under a powdered wig, soft, rounded
lines, a charming admixture of mythological dignity and fashion-
able amenity (Figs. 539, 541).
Tocque, Roslin, and many others,
who were not only painters but
admirable costumiers, have de-
picted paniers, flowered satins
and pretty faces, illuminated by
an even and somewhat chilly light
(Fig. 543).

At the end of the seventeenth
century, artists had managed to
reconcile Rubens' painting and
classical art. The quiet influence
of the little Dutch masters gave
rise to a new kind of painting,
innocent of any classical tendencies.
The pictures of Metsu and Gerard
Dou, which were greatly admired,
showed how to give a familiar
scene in a small space, how to
please the eye by the faithful

264

543

— TOCQU£. .MAKL-V LECZINSKA

(The Louvre, Paris.)

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

544. — CHARIIIN. THE Sll.VtCU GOBLET.

(The Louvre. Paris.)

reproduction of ordinary

objects, and to draw out

their latent poetry, how

to get values of extreme

delicacy by subtle grada-
tions of colour, and how

to treat common things

with as much respect as

the heroes of antiquity.

The eighteenth century

was accordingly familiar

with the painting of still-

life and of domestic scenes.

Desportes and Oudry

were, indeed, excellent

painters, but somewhat after the manner of Snyders and Fyt, whose

fish and game pieces suggest the orgies of some fabled Gargantua ;

their pictures combine sincerity and dexterity in a very masterly

fashion, and their realism is occasionally relieved by touches of

rhetoric.

But there is a style which is less brilliant and more delicate in its

gradations ; it is that of the Dutch masters, who by means of

simple colours intermingled with light and shade, expressed the

intimate sentiment of an inte-
rior, and the familiar mystery
of its atmosphere. These
Dutch masters helped Chardin
(1699^1779) to divine the
poetry of small domestic
objects. Like them, he was
a modest craftsman, without
any scholastic culture ; he
knew nothing of classical
literature ; he had seen no
Roman ruins, and had never
made dra\\'ings from the
antique ; his imagination, un-
encumbered by mythology,
lay open to the suggestion of
humble accessories and every-
day figures. Nevertheless,
he too had begun by painting

^4=;. — CIIAUDIN. IHK SroNE-CiriKK'.

' 1 )o ( lariay Collection.)

265

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 546. — CHARDIN. THE INDUSTRIOUS
MOTHER.

(The LouvTe, Paris.)

Still-life pieces of a somewhat
ambitious character, aiming at
effect, like Monnoyer's flowers
or Desportes' game. But he
soon adopted a simpler tone to
give eloquence to the plenish-
ings of the larder. No still-life
painter has evoked their secret
soul more perfectly ; the fruits
and vegetables, the coppers and
glasses of the Dutchmen shine
with a more solicitous cleanliness
and a more picturesque brilliance.
Chardin's objects are not painted
with so delicate a brush, or such
limpid colour ; they seem to be
reflected in a duller mirror ; but
they give a stronger sense of the
silent intimacy and the diffused

sympathy of their ambient atmosphere. When Chardin mtroduces

figures into his little compositions, they hardly disturb the serene

tranquillity of his interiors. He shows us the servant in the pantry,

or the mistress in her bed-room. The surroundings he pamts are

those of the lower middle class to

which he himself belonged ; the

master of the house never appears ;

to find him we should have to go

out, and follow him to his work

in counting-house, workshop, or

street ; no neighbours even pene-
trate into Chardin's interiors ; the

servant returning from market,

the child preparing for school,

are the only factors that suggest

the outside world. How peaceful

is the life behind these closed

doors ! The mistress of the house

speaks and moves hardly more

than her household utensils ;

persons accustomed to live to-
gether understand even each

other's silences. The life with

FIG. 547.— CHARDIN. GRACE BEFORE
MEAT.

(The Louvre, P.-\ris.)

266

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

which Chardm endows them does not manifest itself in gesticulations
and the play of physiognomy ; it is suggested by natural and habitual
gestures, and their whole train of thought is revealed in the direction
of their gaze. The mother waits quietly until grace has been said
before giving her child the plate of soup, and the child concentrates
all its powers on the effort of remembering its prayer (Fig. 547).
"The industrious mother" and her daughter gaze mutely at a piece
of embroidery, deliberating as to the matching of some shade of
wool (Fig. 546). " The housekeeper" brushes the schoolboy's hat
angrily, and he sullenly waits to take it from her and be off. Thi5
same boy, when he is shut up to
do his lessons, takes a teetotum
from his pocket, and, "the world
forgetting," sits absorbed in con-
templation of his toy. Not one
of these persons is conscious of
being looked at ; they are them-
selves in all simplicity, and have
no more idea of posing than their
furniture. A new language was
required to record these scenes,
so common in daily life, but so
unfamiliar to French art, and
Chardin in fact speaks a language
invented by himself. His paint-
ing has nothing in common with
any of the styles admired in his
day ; his method is that of an
honest craftsman, who despises
tinsel ; his gowns have no brilliantly broken folds, and his furniture
dispenses with rococo ornament ; his colour is sober, and laid on
by a quiet hand which fears to seem too easy ; gliding peacefully
over the surface, the brush has left fat contours on the coarse
canvas ; the creamy impasto softens angles, and gives that look of use
characteristic of objects which have done good service ; it does not
aim at illusion, but it differentiates the substance of each thing
represented, suggesting the dented surface of brass and copper
vessels, the soft bloom of the peach, the rough skin of the pear,
the polished red of the unripe apple, and the cracked glaze of an
earthen pitcher ; it lends pictorial interest to textures sacrificed by
other painters, grey cloth, white linen, old wood ; his well-woven
tissue renders the peaceful continuitv of light in an interior,

267

KIG. 548. — CHAUDIN. VHF. ] loL Si:-U 1 KK.

(The Louvre, Paris.) -— ^

ART IN FRANCE

THE LETTER.

FIG. 54g. — CHARD

(Emptror of Germany's Collection.)
{Photo. Pc'lin Photographic Society.')

gleaming on polished surfaces, dying away on dull ones, enclosed by

the discreet shadows that steal along the walls.

The painters of the simple
life who have shown themselves
capable of redeeming its banality
by their affectionate solicitude,
have been rare in the French
School, and indeed m all schools.
Too often, the professors of real-
ism show an excessive pleasure
in their imitative skill. Teniers
and Brouwer ridiculed their
boors and drunkards. But on
the other hand, Jean Fouquet
in his miniatures, the Le Nains
and Chardin, never seem bent on
amusing or astonishing the spec-
tator. The humble lives they
have described are made all the

more attractive by this sincerity ; there is no resisting an art so

thoroughly -unpretentious. We cannot wonder that such painters

should have been rare. Chardin said that an artist does not paint

with colours, but with sentiment, the thing most difficult to teach.

Painters who have tried to ,

imitate Chardin have rarely

resisted the temptation of

being brilliant, like Jeaurat,

or pathetic, like Greuze.

Aved, the friend of Chardin,

IS the one artist who, in a

portrait here and there, has

caught something of his

honest precision and of his

kindly humour (Fig. 536).

But Chardin's art, like that

of the Le Nains and of

Fouquet, had no far-reaching

influence. All three, in fact,

were submerged in the three

classical inundations which took place in France ; these delicate

plants disappeared under the flood which fertilises French soil

periodically. Chardin was no more able to withstand it than the

268

55°-

-CHARDIN. BOY WITH A TEETOTUM.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

FIG. 551. — (,KKI Zli. THK I:I;i U-CICN

I'lTCHHR.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

rest of his contemporaries, the

brilliant, elegant and voluptuous

spirits of the ancient regime.

The middle classes of the Revo-
lution were too much infatuated

with the classical ideal to take

pleasure in the peaceful images

of the Third Estate under

Louis XV.

An art unfailingly brilliant and

witty IS an incomplete and exciting

diet ; even fashionable society

wearies of superficial distractions

which stimulate sensibility but

never satisfy it. In the midst of

fancies that amuse, it feels the

want of emotions which penetrate

more deeply. About 1 760,

painting of the Louis XV style,

graceful and gallant decoration, no longer satisfied the public. In

literature, sentimentality replaced the somewhat dry metaphysics of

Marivaux ; novelists and dramatists gave to the "sensitive man"

the important part which had hitherto been divided between the

young lover and the discursive
uncle. The public which ap-
plauded La Chaussee's and
Diderot's pathetic and didactic
plays, acclaimed Greuze s lach-
rymose pictures with no less
enthusiasm.

v)n his return from Rome,
Greuze (I 725-1805) accordingly
began to work upon the sensibili-
ties of his contemporaries by the
methods of melodrama. He de-
picted hapless and edifying virtue.
The family whose history he
related did not belong, like that
of Chardin, to the Parisian lower
middle class in which he himself
lived. It was a rustic family —
virtue at this period was the

552. — (;kicu/.i!. MiiKMNc, ii;avi:n
(Miiseuiii of Miiiitiicllier.)

269

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 553. — GREUZE. THE VILLAGE BRIDE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

monopoly of the peasant.
In Chardins nothing ever
happened, and a painter
was therefore its fitting
annalist ; Greuze's, on
the other hand, was a
product of the novel
and the drama, and this
was why it appealed so
strongly to Diderot. No
one could resist the
pathos, the pity, and the
despair which breathe
from The Village Bride
{L'Accordee du Village)
(Fig. 553) or the Father's Curse {La Malediction paternelle).
But Greuze's sermons are wanting in discretion. When he paints
filial affection, he shows us a mother half suffocated by the
exuberant caresses of her children, and his paralytic grandfather,
a helpless victim of the officious attentions of his progeny, must
have succumbed at last to their devotion. Besides, he who speaks
of virtue must do so with a singleness of mind as foreign to this
unctuous preacher as to those moralists, at once complaisant and
indignant, who denounce vice eloquently, while gloating over its
details. Greuze's best artistic quality, in fact, reveals itself in
the demure prettiness of his young girls ; when he shows them
away from their father
— the tedious old man
like Diderot — he lingers
caressingly over their tear-
ful eyes and crumpled
linen ; his colour, generally
cold and flat, takes on some
little animation to make
the blood circulate in their
fair flesh. He painted
them so young and beau-
tiful, that it would be hard
to doubt their innocence
(Figs. 551, 552). And

yet these same infantile ^.^ 554.-fkagonai<d. the bathers.

faces re-appear in the (The Louvre, Paris.)

270

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

KIG. 555.

-l-'KAGONAKD.
TALKING.

TWI) WOW EX

(The l.f>uvre, Paris.)

female fauns of Fragonard and
Clodion ; the favourite model of
these artists had a woman s body
with a child's face. The age
which Watteau had shipped to
Cythera, was still lingering there
on the eve of the Revolution. It
was still gazing appreciatively at
dimpled forms, when David sud-
denly gave it marble statues to
contemplate.

Greuze's sentimentality had in-
fected Fragonard (1732^1806), a
charming painter, even more gifted
than his master Boucher, who
succeeded Boucher, as Mme. Du
Barry succeeded Mme. de Pom-
padour. He lavished his talents
more especially in minor works,
sketches, washed drawings, studies in red chalk, dashed off with
amazing vivacity. His brush played with a patch of light in a
tangle of chiaroscuro, often without any very definite intention.

The French School had never
produced so dexterous a craftsman.
His facility might have tempted
him to become a mere ingenious
illustrator ; but he was also an
excellent painter, a master of subtle
and exquisite colour, touching
plump nudities with a vermilion
glow after the manner of Rubens,
or throwing interlaced forms into a
tumult of grey clouds and pale
loliage, a combination of languid
colour and vague light which
recalls some of Correggio's works.
But Fragonard etherealised Rubens'
vigour, and galvanised Correggio's
languor with his nervous energy.
Finally, he adopted the tone of
the day, and his young lovers,
after frolicking in barns like

fig 536. — i-kagonaui). ik ciiiifki;

d'amdlr.

(Wallace Collection, Hertford House.)

(_Photo. S/<oo/ur.)

11 \

ART IN FRANCE

P'f'- 557-— 'i'OREAU THE YOUNGER.
THE ADIEU. ENGRAVING.

(Hibliotheque Nationale, Print Room.)

Baudouin's couples, settled down
to domestic happiness with a
swarm of children.

This generation of men and
women of sensibility, sympathetic
readers of La Nouvelle Helo'ise,
loved to appear in appealing
attitudes. Drouais, a successful
disciple of Nattier, travestied
little aristocrats as Savoyards.
Madame Vigee-Lebrun had a
prodigious success in the Court-
world (Figs. 564, 566). She
borrowed from Flemish painting
the brilliance of colour by which
she gave freshness of complexion
and liquid softness of eyes and
lips to her sitters. Marie
Antoinette posed as the beloved
mother surrounded by her children, while in Nattier's time no
painter would have ventured to place Marie Leczinska in a family
group among her innumerable daughters. Madame Vigee-Lebrun

did not forget to paint herself and
to show how she adored and was
adored by her daughter. Her
facile brush and tender colour
have preserved images somewhat
lacking in individuality, of those
heroines of the emigration or the
guillotine, who bared "necks
white as the flesh of chickens " on
the revolutionary scaffold.

Literature helped this senti-
mental generation to discover a
fresh source of emotion. Writers
of fiction such as Rousseau and
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre taught
them that meditation rises to sub-
limity in the solitude of Nature,
FIG. sss.-LAVKEiNCE. THE uiLLET ^""^ ^^^^ watcr, trces, stomi and
Doux. ENGRAVING. darkuess seem to become animate,

(Bibiiotheque Nationale, Print Room.) and to participate in our passions

272

i.-; .^.-fJ

, -. * . ■»

1'.' ■'

t
1

.';

^91

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

FIG. 559. — KOSLIN. VOUNC; (,IKI..

(The Louvre, Paris.)

The society of the day accord-
ingly craved for representations of
ruins, waterfalls and shipwrecks.
Landscape-painting became pro-
digiously popular. Certain painters
attempted to fix the spectacles which
inspired so much romantic reverie.
But painting was unable to give
the public the images it demanded ;
the eye of the diverting artists of the
day could not contemplate Nature
devoutly. Joseph Vernet (1714-
1 789) began with conscientious
copies of Roman scenery, which he
coloured from Nature, with some-
what chalky, but sincere, tints. He
reproduced their picturesque aspects
without poetry, without giving the
banks of the Tiber that majesty which ennobles Poussin's composi-
tions (Fig. 561). When he came to Paris, the public demanded
storms, shipwrecks, and night effects from him. He was the* first
purveyor of Romanticism, which
thenceforth proved an eager con-
sumer of tempests and moonlight
scenes. In spite of his sincere respect
for truth, he reduced all these varied
aspects to the conventional effects
which were within the limited com-
pass of the artists of his day, whose
colour, though it was capable of
rendering the vivid variations of rich
stuffs, became languid and monotonous
when it imitated the delicate harmonies
of the open air. The poets were no
more successful in producing a true
impression ; they thought too much of
Virgil's landscapes, and they had only
the insipid vocabulary of mock pastorals
wherewith to express themselves.
The scries of French sea-ports painted
by Joseph Vernet to M. de Marigny's """- ^""m^e'Il/sahkth:"''"'""'
order, are panoramas which are (Museum of Versailles.)

273 T

ART IN FRANCE

l'\C,. 561. — J. VERNET. VIEW OF THE BRIDGE AND
CASTLE OF S. AXGELO, ROME.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

certainly carefully drawn and ingeniously composed. But they
seem very empty to us now, though Vernet did his utmost to make
them attractive. This is because they lack the most essential
element ; they fail to suggest those differences of light and

atmosphere which give
local character. In
Provence, Saintonge
and Brittany, Vernet
saw the same light of
the same dull colour ;
he made no distinc-
tion between the
Mediterranean and
the Ocean, the Azure
and the Emerald
Coasts.

Hubert Robert's colour (1733-1808) is gayer, because it is more
fanciful. " He painted a picture as quickly as he wrote a letter."
He was the virtuoso of ruins. His manner was novel in France,
but in Italy Piranese and Panini delighted in the picturesqueness of
old and crumbling walls, and long before them, Salvator Rosa had
painted jagged rocks which looked as if they had been hewn out by
an explosion. Hubert Robert trifled with the noble ruins of Rome
and Provence ; his pictures
suggest no melancholy
broodings over tombs.
His eye was pleased by
broken columns, shattered
cornices, crumbling, moss-
grown masonry, and the
Italian vagabonds who
swarm in their picturesque
rags among these vener-
able stones. His compo-
sitions, in which the most
famous Roman ruins, tem-
ples, thermae, and aque-
ducts (Figs. 562-563) are
grouped capriciously like
the flowers in a bouquet, are brilliant fantasias, at once absurd and
charming. A cheerful light touches the ancient masonry with rose
and gold, and throws transparent patches on fluted marble and

274

FIG. 562. — HUBERT RonERT.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE I'ARK OF \EK-SAILI.ES

UNDER LOUIS XVI.

(Museum of V'ersailles.)

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

fk;. 563. — HUBERT rouei;t.

THE WAISON CARRIE, xi.MES.
(The Louvre, Paris.)

decrepit walls. Hubert Robert shows the same vivacitj' in de-
picting those Chinese or English gardens, where trees, paths,
streams and rocks are mingled in
artificial profusion to astonish the
visitor. He made models for
landscape gardeners. Just as
Louis XV had introduced gay
little apartments among the vast
saloons of Versailles, so, in the
geometrical park, did Louis XVI
cause Hubert Robert to instal
a few rustic grottoes and groups
of various trees ; poplars rise
boldly into the air, side by side
with weeping willows overhang-
ing some still pool.

Vernet's storms and Robert's
ruins attempted to quench that
thirst for Nature which men
were feeling ; but they had to wait for a long time yet before
painters could draw a sincere and profound poetry from the
spectacle of light and plants ; and for this task, the piety and
careful scrutiny of a humble soul were required, and not the

devices of a brilliant decorator.
Some few painters were already
rambling on the banks of the
Seine or in the forest of bontaine-
bleau, as solicitous for truth as
the Dutchmen. In certain simple
works by Moreau and one or two
unknown contemporaries, there is
something of the soft, mild radiance
that hovered over Rousseau's
chastened and pacified old age,
and his solitary reveries. But
before we find the river or the
forest in the works of their
successors, we must go back for
a time, under David's guidance,
to the museum of antiquities.
FIG. .S64.-.M.ME. vu;KE-i.i.:r,iaN. j^ statuarv of the eiehteenth

(Museum of Versailles.) ccntuiy had no need to escape

275 T 2

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 565. — GUILLAUME
COUSTOU. MARIA LECZINSKA.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

from the bonds of classical tradition
before it could please the fashionable
taste of the day. Sculptors, although
by no means impervious to the brilliant
elegance which had become the charac-
teristic of Parisian art, had never quite
forgotten the majestic Olympus of Le
Brun and Girardon. Sculpture is less
susceptible to the caprices of fashion
than painting, because it tends to
respond less and less to any require-
ment of modern life. In the thirteenth
century, it gave a human aspect to God
and the saints ; a little later, it laid
portrait-statues on the slabs of tombs.
Then the monarchy had peopled its
parks with mythological forms, and set
up the effigies of kings m the public
squares. In the eighteenth century,
not one of these customs was sufficiently

dominant to govern sculpture and determine its style ; but, on the

other hand, none had completely disappeared, and the same

sculptors were employed, as occasion arose, in representing

the Virgin, a bathing girl, and

Louis XV. Moreover, the

sculptor, like the history-painter,

works for the most part without

any definite object. His imme-
diate aim is to exhibit his work

to the public at the next Salon.

The majority of the statues which

are thus produced each year are

not the result of any collective

want ; they appeal to the gener-
osity of collectors and of the

State.

Being thus less susceptible than

painting to the influences of

fashionable life, sculpture has

retained a larger measure of

respect for academic traditions.

There is a more obvious continuity

nc. 566. — MME. vigM;e-leurun. mme.

VlGliE-LEHHUN AND HER DAUGHTER.

(Tlie Louvre, Paris.)

276

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

KIG. 567. — I'IGALLK. KIMl; 111-

MAKSHAL SAXE.

TE.Ml'I.i; SAINT-THOMAS, STKASliUKG.

{Ne7V Photographic Society A. (.!., Berlin.)

of style in its productions, and
among sculptors we do not find
that diversity which at this
period began to make a picture
exhibition a very varied enter-
tainment. The statuaries of
the eighteenth century, in spite
of differences of temperament
or method, had a common
ideal of beauty. Their type is
very similar to that which was
evolved in decorative painting
from Le Brun to La Fosse,
and later from Le Moyne to
Boucher, a type which persisted
even in the lively nymphs
of Fragonard. In sculpture,
as in painting, the race of
heroes had become less robust ;

figures were longer and more flexible, and draperies more suggestive

of rustling silks.

There was even, in the first part of the century, a sculpture of

involved forms and intricate model-
ling, derived from rococo decoration.

The Adams and Michel-Ange

Slodtz got their agitated style from

Italy ; it owed its origin to Correggio,

and had been glorified by Bernini.

It is comprehensible, and even excus-
able, in religious statuary, with its

ecclesiastical costumes and the heavy

draperies a tempest could barely

ruffle. The numerous statues of

these men are, moreover, never

devoid of artistic qualities ; but more

dexterous than sincere, they never

dreamed that an excess of skill might

injure their expressive power, and

that posterity would admire some

measure of intelligent amenity in

works they intended to be eloquent

and inspired. These descendants

277

KIG. 568. — FALCONET.

PYGMALION AND THE ST.XTl'E,

l-KO.M THE skVKES GKOUl'.

ART IN FRANCE

of Correggio and Bernini peopled the
Jesuit chapels with agitated figures, and
arranged a graceful disorder of fluttering
robes over their altars. It was considered
the acme of ecclesiastical luxury to crown
the high altar with one of those explosive
"glories" which project gilded rays on
puffy clouds enlivened by plump cherub-
heads.

Le Moyne resisted the tendency to
some extent, though he occasionally
succumbed to the temptation of showing
his freedom and facility. Bouchardon
(1698-1762), on the other hand, replied
to this brilliant and mannered art by a
somewhat over-emphatic simplicity. It
was he who executed the bronze Louis
XV for Gabriel's "Place" ; the group
bore a strong resemblance to that of
but the king was easier and more

elegant, and the horse a more nervous and highly-bred beast ;

Coustou had abolished the heavy chargers of Le Brun and

FIG. 569.— FALCONET. THE
CLOCK OF THE THREE GRACES.

[(Camondo Collection.)

Louis XIV by Girardon

Van der Meulen.

570. — HOUDON.
WINTER.

(Museum of Montpellier.)

Bouchardon had a superstitious reverence
for the ancients, like his friend and patron,
the Comte de Caylus. His careful studies
of their polished marbles had given him a
horror of the abrupt and intricate manner of
the Adams, and even of Coustou's sharply-
defined modelling. But he was not always
in intellectual sympathy with his age ; and
when he exhibited a Cupid cutting himself a
bow out of the club of Hercules, his contem-
poraries wondered that he had preferred
the slender, elastic grace of adolescence to
the soft plumpness of the Cupid dear to the
painters of the day (Fig. 582). This cold
admirer of the ancients linked the period of
Le Brun to that of David, passing a little
above the heads of his contemporaries.

The younger generation, that of Pigalle
(1714-1785) and Falconet (1716^1791),
was more thorough than the Adams, and
278

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

-HDUDdN. DIANA.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

less cold than Bouchardon. They showed
admirable skill in depicting alert figures in
charming attitudes of arrested movement.
Pigalle's Mercury stops to fasten his sandal
with all the lightness of a body ready to
bound forward and used to flying. Graceful
and brilliant as was his art, Pigalle did not
shrink from such monumental tasks as the
tomb of the Due d Harcourt and that of
the Marechal de Saxe (Fig. 567). Sur-
rounded by the symbols of his victories, and
still striking terror into the hearts of his foes,
the marshal descends with a firm step into
the tomb ; France, in the distracted attitude
of a tragedy queen, tries to keep him back,
and intercedes with Death, who presides
over the open tomb below, where a mourn-
ing Hercules also finds a place, and satisfies
the requirements of symmetry. In the individual figures as in the
general arrangement, there is a great deal of technical skill. But
the pantomime by which we are invited to admire the hero, pity
France, and detest Death, is too vociferous ; the noisy agitation of
the group drowns those accents of contemplative melancholy which
emanate from the silence of Gothic monu-
ments. This grandiloquence would be
perfect if talent and intelligence could
create an epic, and give soul to the
mythology of a Hcnriocle. Pigalle was
too ingenious to confine himself to the
traditional iconography of academic
statuary. His Louis XV at Reims
was not an equestrian figure in the
manner of the Marcus Aurelius ; the
king was on foot ; instead of fettered
slaves at the angles of the pedestal,
there were seated figures, representing,
not Commerce, but a merchant, not
Labour, but a workman. Contemporaries
were delighted with this figure of a fellow-
citizen, who had seated himself for the
first time in the place so long occupied by
a majestic woman in antique draperies.

KIG. 572. — I'AJOU. rsVCHE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

279

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 573. — sfevKES CHINA. THE KISS.

holding in her hand a scale, a sword, or a cornucopia as occasion

required.

Falconet also determined to be sublime, when he went to

St. Petersburg to cast his colossal
statue of Peter the Great. Heroes
were no longer content to bestride
their chargers quietly, like Louis
XIV and Louis XV. 1 he Czar's
horse caracoles on a gigantic rock.
Sculpture became bolder and more
ingenious every day. In spite of
this rhetorical outburst, Falconet
was primarily the delicate modeller
of nymphs and bathers ; he was
faithful to a feminine type of very
graceful refinement, a supple body,
soft and unresisting, with pointed
extremities, and caressing gestures,
m which the charm of the Medici

Venus is softened by the gentle sensuality of Correggio's female

figures. For these tender forms, marble seems a substance too

hard and cold ; china is a perfect material for such fragile groups.

Falconet's art, indeed, provided more than one model for the

Sevres manufactory ; thus sculpture was enabled to play a part

in the decoration of interiors, and

to meet a fashionable requirement

(Figs. 568, 569).

Just as the demi-gods of the
painters had become smaller, whiter,
and pinker when they were en-
throned over the chimneypieces
and doors of boudoirs, so statuary
was adapted to the drawing-room,
and the heroes of academic sculp-
ture became bibelots. Boucher's
pastorals were also transposed into
biscuit china ; licence can only be
brilliant in small dimensions. The
loves of Lubin and Annette were
multiplied by the potter as they had
been by the engraver, until the day
when the Sevres paste materialised

574. — CLODION. BACCH.-^NTE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

280

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

FIG. 575. — CLODION.
Kli.MALE SATVK.

(Climy .Museum. P.Tri^.)

the grave deities of revolutionary civism
(Fig. 573).

jC. In the v\^orks of the next generation
Pajou, Clodion, J. J. Caffieri and
Houdon, sculpture became more and
more nervous, sensitive and brilliant ;
yet it had retained none of the some-
what pretentious mannerism of Slodtz
and the Adams ; it never attempted
to be sublime, but was content to pro-
duce dainty nudities and sparkling faces.
Pajou (1 730-1809) gave his marble the
melting softness of flesh ; and Clodion
(1738-1814), when he modelled his
nymphs and Cupids, handled the clay
as Fragonard handled paint in his
brilliant sketches, and showed the
same joyous mastery of his material
(Figs. 574-576). • Both Pajou and
Clodion often preferred the rapid modelling of terra-cotta to the
slower processes of marble. J.J. Caffieri's busts — generally seven-
teenth and eighteenth century writers — have an easy softness and a
certain mobile vitality. The busts of an earlier age reveal more of
an artist's vision, of his personal style, and do not bring us face to

face with reality as do those of
Caffieri and Houdon. In his por-
traits of the French classic writers,
Cafficn has given them the impetuous
brilliance of their age.

Houdon (1741-1828) essayed not
only to fix beautiful forms in marble
and bronze, but to suggest the palpi-
tations of life in them ; in a work by
him there is not a fraction of surface
which IS inert. His Diana trips
along on tip-toe with a careless light-
ness which does not disturb the proud
grace of her body, and the light,
gleaming on her limbs, sends a quiver
of life over her bronze flesh (Fig.
571). In a bust by Houdon. there
is not a furrow nor a plane which
281

FIG. 576. — I'.XJOU. .M.MK. DLIi.XKUV.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

does not serve to express thought.
Such vivacity and such psycho-
logical insight are only to be found
in La Tour's sketches. The feverish
life of the age animates the clay ;
it is France on the eve of the
Revolution : Diderot listening, and
ready to break out ; Rousseau
frowning, his face that of a self-
indulgent country priest ; Mira-
beau's insolent, unwholesome mask,
and above all, Voltaire's fleshless
head. Houdon modelled this more
than once. He even carved a full-
length figure of the philosopher in
marble ; but he neither dared to
strip the bony form, like Pigalle,
nor to clothe the skeleton in ordinary
dress. He wrapped the seated old
man in a loose robe ; the falling folds suggest the impatient body,
ready to spring from the seat, but conceal it entirely, save for the
two nervous hands which grasp the arms of the i chair ; the face
with its thin lips, toothless mouth and piercing eyes, is thrust

FIG. 577. — HOUDON. VOLTAIKE.

(Com^dii-Fraii^aise, Paris.)

FIG. 578. — HOUDON. liUST OF
LOUISE BRONGNIARD.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FIG. 579. — DEFERNEX. MME. DE
FONDVILLE.

(Museum of Le Mans.)

282

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

KIG. 580. — CAI rilORI.
CLOCK OK CHASliD liKASS.

(Museum of Versailles.)

forward, and under the loose skin, puckered
by an ironical smile, the bones and tendons
are strongly marked. Never had art thus
fixed the image of a restless, mobile, comba-
tive intelligence, in all its terrible lucidity
(Figs. 577, 578).

A very brief survey of Louis XV archi-
tecture will suffice to show that French art
was never more classical, or more anxious
to adapt antique forms to the exigencies of
modern hfe than at this period. Certain
attempts to impose the fancies of the rococo
style on architecture had no durable success,
at least in Pans ; a door or a balcony of
hammered iron may have yielded to caprices
of line ; but architecture never sacrificed
majesty and purity of style. Louis XV art
amused itself freely with minor works, bril-
liant or sensual, because it was confident
of the solidity of its principles. As had
happened before in the case of the Flamboyant Style, it was
abroad — and more especially in Germany — that the Rococo
manner ran not. Even in the middle of the century, Cochin
the younger, the engraver, denounced this style in the name of
good sense, and his strictures recall those which Vitruvius addressed
in classic times to that fantastic decoration which the men of the
Renaissance christened "grotesque." During the second half of
the century, the tranquil
geometry of French archi-
tects overcame the nervous
agitation of cabinet-makers
and metal-workers.

Paris was actively at
work destroying her me-
diaeval city, and multi-
plying classical facades.
Bouchardon erected a
monumental fountain in
the Rue de Crenelle.
His structure, \vith its
learned lines, its sculptures
of impeccable purity, errs

KU;. 5S1. — CAItlNlCT UESICNEO UY THK BROTHEKS-
SI-ODTZ.

(l>il)lioth6(|ue Nationale, Paris.)

283

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 582. — UOUCHARDON.
CUWD.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

only by its excessive importance. Two
thin jets of water are an insufficient pretext
for such an imposing scheme. Under Louis
XV there were innumerable pretexts for
embelhshing Fans with statues, porticoes
and decorative facades. After the peace
of Aix-la-Chapelle, the municipahty wished
to do for Louis XV what had been done
for Louis XIV in the seventeenth century,
after the peace of Nimeguen. Bouchardon
was commissioned to cast an equestrian
statue ; as was the custom, the royal effigy
was surrounded by architecture. The
towns of Bordeaux, Nancy, Reims and
Rennes, followed the example of Pans ;
a statue of the king entailed a framework
of facades designed to harmonise with it,
as those round the site of the Capitol sur-
round Marcus Aurelius. To make an appro-
priate stage for Bouchardon's Louis XV, Gabriel laid out the vast
piece of ground between the Tuilenes Gardens and the Champs
Elysees, now known as the Place de la Concorde. He designed
a graceful balustrade ; at the angles, on sentry-boxes, there were
to have been mythological and monarchical allegories according to
the ritual of Versailles. But these were never set up, and
Bouchardon's statue was destroyed. Louis-Philippe finally com-
pleted the Place ; The Citizen King replaced the symbols of the

ancient regime by the
" Towns of France " ;
they form a circle now
about monuments with
inoffensive symbols, two
fountains and an obelisk.
But the essential features
of the scheme were
Gabriel's two symmetrical
palaces, with colonnades
on lower storeys ; they
show an advance on
the Louvre colonnade.
Gabriel (d. I 782) treated

FIG. 583.— BUREAU OF LOUIS XV. -^uui iv-i v^. ^ /

(The Louvre, Paris.) Urge architectural masses

284

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

FK,. 584. — KOUEN POTTICKY

(Cluny JMiiseuni, Paris.)

With greater ease than Claude Perrault ;
his long faqades, with their flat lines,
harmonise, strange to say, with the
pleasant houses built during the eight-
eenth century in the two adjacent
quarters of Saint Honore and Saint
Germain, some of which, such as the
former Hotel de Salm (now the Palace
of the Legion d'Honneur), are little
masterpieces in their ingenuity of arrange-
j ment and their original beauty. Gabriel
ranks with Mansart as the French
architect who most successfully applied
the classical decoration of the " orders "
to modern palaces and houses. In the
Petit Trianon, as in the Ecole Militaire
(Figs. 590, 591), he achieved suitable
dimensions, purity of outline, and that
just relation of elements which produces
proportioned human body. Compared with
of the Ecole Militaire, Bruant's fac^ades

the effect of a we

the charming pavilions

at the Hotel des Invalides seem somewhat heavy and disma

The eighteenth century witnessed the popularisation in provincial
and domestic architecture, of that style, the syntax of which, so to
speak, had been fixed by Claude Perrault and Mansart. Down to
the time of the Revolution, the
world of the nobilitv and finance
continued to renew its dwellings.
Town houses were arranged more
and more with a view to conve-
nience. Behind the heavy gates
which they presented to the streets
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain
or the Faubourg Saint-Honore,
was a court enframed by cheerful
facjades with wide windows ; on
the garden side, the architect
rarely resisted the temptation of
throwing out a little colonnade ;
in drawing-rooms, on the other
hand, the cabinet-makers continued
to exclude architectural decoration.

I"ll,. 5S5. - CIIANDIil.lKK OF CIIASKl)
HUASS.

(Iiibliothciiui; M.TZ.Trine, l'.^ris.)

285

ART IN FRANCE

-GERMAIN. sour TUREEN OF CHASED
SILVER.

(d'Haussouville Collection.)

The most important and the best of these town houses have been

assigned by modern France to her ministers, her ambassadors, her

deputies, and the President
of the RepubHc. The
reigns of Louis XIV and
Louis XV produced a
large number of such
houses which are models
of good taste ; the nine-
teenth century never
touched them without
compromising their per-
fect elegance. The
graceful habitations of
the old regime saved
the new the trouble of
building.
It was also during the long reign of Louis XV that the French

provincial towns made their greatest advances towards modern

comfort and the classical style. The Renaissance, which built so

much, brought about no such important transformations. The

eighteenth century must have destroyed a good deal ; even styles

are intolerant when they contain a fund of active energy, and find

the ground already occupied around them. The new architecture

did not expand without injuring the

buildings of the Gothic age.

Sometimes it was content with

juxtaposition, as in the case of

the beautiful episcopal palaces in

Gabriel's manner which arose by

the side of many old cathedrals.

The towns which were suffocating

withm their encircling walls de-
molished these and transformed

them into public promenades.

The escarpments were utilised to

form picturesque terraces and open

up distant prospects. The fortified

cities of the Middle Ages came ^'«'•

to breathe the fresh air on their

ancient ramparts, just as the feudal nobles of the

had done when they transformed their castles.

286

587.-

IllE r.WILLON DE HANOVRE,
PARIS.

enaissance

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

KIG. 5S8. — HOTEL SOUBISE.
AKCH1\KS NATIONALES, TARIS.

By the end of the century a great many towns possessed
monuments, squares and gardens hke those of Versailles and
Pans, m the taste of
Mansart and Le Notre.
Their governors —
d'Aiguillon at Nancy and
Tourny at Bordeaux —
built " Places " with
classical fa(;ades ; the
Compagnie des Indes
created Lorient, and the
town houses constructed
by wealthy shipowners
still look seaward above
the ramparts of Saint
Malo. Towns in the ex-
tremities of Brittany, Saint
Malo, Brest, Lorient, Rennes and Nantes, bear the impress of
classical art, the art which unites this refractory peninsula to French
life. The city of Bordeaux, growing continuously in wealth, embel-
lished itself in the Louis XVI style ; the architect Victor Louis
(1731-1807) completed the work begun there by Gabriel the elder.
He built the large theatre, one of the finest examples of the French
classical style. The facjades are very pure in design, and the internal

arrangements so happy both
as regards convenience and
decorative effect that archi-
tects have imitated them
ever since, without improv-
ing on them. Louis also de-
signed houses for the rich
citizens. The prosperity
and the reconstruction of
Bordeaux fortunately co-
incided with the moment
when French architecture,
which could no longer
build fine churches, was
constructing delightful town
houses. All the France of the Atlantic coast, Bordeaux. Nantes,
Lorient, was turning a smiling face to the Ocean at the very hour
when the command of the sea was slipping from her.

287

KKl. 5S9. — COUNCIL CIL\MI11-;|;.
OF FONTAINELSLEAU.

ART IN FRANCE

lie. 590. — I.E I'ETIT TRIANOX, VERSAILLES.

The France of the South
was not behindhand.
Toulouse, as was her habit,
transposed the fashionable
buildings of the day into
brick, and gave her Capitol
a facade imitated from the
colonnade of the Louvre,
though the columns have
become simple pilasters,
and the Toulousain brick
gives a certain heaviness
to Perrault's noble design.
At the "Fontaine" of Nimes, and the Peyrou of Montpellier
(Fig. 595), architects laid out delightful public promenades, with
fountains, flowers, trees and terraces, bounded by flights of steps
or bordered by balustrades, with a slender pavilion dominating the
whole ; throughout, an ingenious regularity guides and amuses the
pedestrian, and a lofty situation was always chosen to afford that
view of a distant landscape which was lacking at Versailles.

Strasburg and Metz were transformed at this period, and French
art, crossing the Rhine as m Gothic times, conquered Germany.
But Nancy boasts the finest example of the Louis XV style ; the
good king Stanislas possessed but one attribute of royalty — the
faculty of building ; side by side with mediaeval Nancy, he created
a nev/ town, of squares and promenades, triumphal arches, galleries,
fountains, iron gates, an attractive architecture of pretty, useless
things, which arrest the traveller that he may stop and admire them
(Figs. 597 and 598). The king's architect, Here, was a worthy
rival of Gabriel, who enframed his wide windows with majestic
pilasters. But the Rococo of Nancy is less serious than the

r- K;. 591. fiCOLE MILITAIKE, I'.XULS.

288

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

Classicism of Pans ; the
Rococo ornament which m
Paris was reserved for
internal decoration breaks
out upon the fa(;ades of
Nancy. Some tempest
seems to have carried off
and dispersed the fleecy
clouds and fluttering
Cupids of Boucher's ceil-
ings. We find these lively
little people perched every-
where, on the balustrades
of terraces, on cornices,
even on the bars of iron

gates. The mythological fountains seem to have come out of the
landscape of some pastoral poem. Lamour completed this archi-
tecture with wrought ironwork, the most delightful of super-
fluities ; he hammered out bars and fixed them with a fancifulness
which, true to the principles of French taste, hides a good deal
of logic under its caprices. This energetic art was a more success-
ful vehicle than sculpture for the intricate subtleties of the Rococo.
No style so well adapted to the material of the blacksmith and the
worker in metals had been known since the days of Gothic grilles
and hinges. At each juncture when suppleness and nervous energy
were desiderata, in the days of the Flamboyant and Rococo Styles,
metal has achieved greater triumphs than wood or stone. Lamour s

2. — IHE HAMI.KT UK JHE I'l-Vni' TRIANON-.

593. — THE TLACF. DE I. A liOUKSS, IDKUEAl'X.

{P/ioto. Nciirdtiit.)

289

ART IN FRANCE

ironwork and Gouthiere's chased
Rococo. A graceful balcony of

FIG. 594. — THE GRAND THEATRE, BORDEAUX.

metals are the masterpieces of

hammered iron was a luxury

permissible even to a

modest house of this

period.

The religious architec-
ture of the eighteenth
century had little indeed
of the vitality and vigour
which characterised that
of the town houses. The
Jesuit style had run its
course. Architects were
no longer inclined to repeat the Church of the Val-de-Grace, of
the Sorbonne, or even of the Invalides. On the fagade of Saint
Sulpice, Servandoni superposed two colonnades, crowned by a
balustrade, and flanked by two towers (Fig. 601). San Giovanni
Laterano and Notre Dame de Pans were combined to modify the
flat, pyramidal fa<;ades of the Jesuit churches. In place of the
old church of Saint Genevieve, Soufflot (1713-1780) erected a
colossal building, in which, like Bramante in S. Peter's at Rome,
he succeeded in raising the dome of the Pantheon on the vaults of
the basilica of Constantine. The peristyle recalls that of Agrippa's
Pantheon (Fig. 602). The colossal order replaced the super-
posed orders of the Renaissance on the facjades of churches, as it
had already replaced them on the facades of palaces. But little
more was required to give
Christian churches the
appearance of pagan
temples. As they had
no new problems to
resolve, architects sought
for novelty only in a
more or less exact imita-
tion of the antique. In
the seventeenth century,
Colbert dreamed of trans-
porting the Maison Carree
of Nimes to Pans, stone
by stone. The last classical
church built, the Madeleine, after some vacillation on the part of
the constructors, ended by becoming an enlarged version of a small

290

FIG. 595. — LE I'EVROU, AT MONTI'ELLIER.

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

(•H;. 596. — I'ALAIS DE LA I.lU.luN Li H"\.\EUi;, I'AKIS.

Roman temple. The work of classical architecture was accom-
plished. In the sixteenth century, small antique columns and
entablatures had been
ingeniously arranged to
mark the storeys of
modern structures ;
gradually, these decora-
tive facings had reverted
to their original forms,
till they finally imposed
pagan architecture on the
modern churches. The
Madeleine, indeed, very
nearly became a " Temple
of Glory " ; it is now a
fashionable church. But
the huge Pantheon is still empty and lifeless. The memory of
Saint Genevieve, which haunted the ancient sanctuaries of the hill,
have evaporated under Soufflot's icy vaults ; the church is vacant,
neither Christian nor pagan. It has been converted into a museum
of paintings glorifying Paris and France, and a Saint Denis for
great Frenchmen. But in spite of the talent of its decorators, and
the famous tombs it shelters, this secularised building is mainly a
place of pilgrimage for tourists, and evokes little sentiment beyond
an indifferent curiosity.

This revival of a worship of the antique among architects and

painters was not the work
of the Academy. Those
amiable decorators, the
official artists of the eight-
eenth century, received
the youthful David and
his exalted manner coolly
enough. They took little
interest in the theory of
their art. The public
was so well disposed to-
wards them, that it would
have been folly to imperil
their success by the pursuit
of a difficult ideal. It was the world of writers and philosophers
which produced aesthetes and archaeologists such as Diderot and

•291 u 2

FIG. 597. — FOUNTAIN OF NF.l'TUNK, AT NANCV.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 598. — ri.ACE STANISLAS. NANXY.

Caylus, who attacked artists for their subservience to fashionable
taste ; these domineering theorists ended by emancipating painters
from the bondage of futile amateurs, and imposing upon them
an ideal of austere beauty. French thought has such a desire to
reduce everything to a lucid system, that the critics of the
Salons took upon themselves to argue about beauty when the
Academicians ceased to do so. Art criticism demonstrates the
continuity of classical taste from Le Brun to David, even when

painters and sculptors seem to
have cast it off.

But it IS indeed a question
whether French art ever ceased
lobe classical. Its fantasies were
never without a method. The
most capricious manifestations of
the Rococo Style had grown upon
the geometrical forms of classical
architecture, just as Flamboyant
decoration had sprung from the
vigorous limbs of Gothic art. The
most licentious episodes of the
" little masters " are often, like
Poussins gravest pages of history,
masterpieces of clarity and intel-
hgence in their composition. The
quality of the idea declined, but
not the faculty for expressing it

FIG. 599. — THE FOUNTAIN DE LA GKOSSE
HORLOGE, AT ROUEN.

{P/wio. Xcurdcin.

292

PARISIAN ART UNDER LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV

■V'm trt^r

I..,

-^-i*Bi^

FIG. 600. — IlOl'CHAKDiiX. FOUMAIX IX THE RUE DE (iREXELLE, PARIS,

justly. Hence this eighteenth century, which respected nothing,
was much more conservative in art than might have been expected
at a time when the spirit of the age was essentially critical and
rebellious ; Voltaire, who destroyed so many beliefs, left Boileau's
Credo untouched. The brilliant erotic compositions of Boucher
and Fragonard prevent us from seeing the great academic pictures ;
these are now skied on the walls of museums ; but in Diderot's
Salons they occupied the places of honour. The most dissipated of
their pupils retained some latent veneration for the severe masters
whom they no longer obeyed.
The teaching of Le Brun was by no
means forgotten when critics began
to demand a return to antique
gravity.

It is not possible to see this worldly
art succumbing belore scientific art
without a feeling of regret. It had
the faculty of giving pleasure more
fully than any other manner ; it
is not necessary to be a connoisseur,
a theorist, or a dreamer, in order
to appreciate it ; the culture of
an educated man suffices. The
society in which it was born trans-
muted the most difficult sciences
mto witty conversation ; graceful
\vomen talked \vithout pedantry

601. — FACAUK OF THE CHURCH OF
SAINT-SULriCE, TAUIS.

293

ART IN FRANCE

of grammar or political economy ; such a world inevitably created
an art that was seductive and delightful to all alike. Other schools

produced more extraordmary
craftsmen and profounder poets ;
but these are as a rule mighty
geniuses, for the comprehension
of whom a strenuous effort is
required. The artists of the
eighteenth century were too
amiable, too well-bred, ever to
lose touch with the world
to whom they appealed. To
charm the society of their day,
they had to retain its grace and
refinement. The Parisian society
of the reigns of Louis XV and
Louis XVI owes it to its artists
that it appears so fascinating to
us ; years and fashions have
passed without dimming its powers of seduction. Whereas literary
language had become too much exhausted for poetry, Gabriel's
Trianon, and the works of Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, Houdon,
Clodion and F"ragonard fixed those brilliant and voluptuous images,
touched at times with emotion, but for which the men of the
eighteenth century would seem to us very dry and prosaic, in spite
of their lachrymose and didactic old age.

FIG. 602. — THE I'ANTHEOX, I'ARIS.

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Architecture franfmse, Paris, 1752-1756; Distribution des maisons de plaisance, Pans,
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Chateau de Versailles sous Louis XV, Paris, 1898. Lady E. Dilke, French architects
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(G. B. A.. 1910, II). Here, Recueil des plans, elevations et coupes (2 atlases), Nancy,
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294

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en France au dibul du XVIII' si'ecle el I'oeuvre de J.-B. Oudry (C. B. A.. 1908. II. 353). -
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P. de Nolhac, Natlier. Paris, 1904. G. Schefer, SiryiSon Chardin, Paris, 1903. E. Pilon,
Chardin. Paris. 1908. M. Tourneux, LExposilion Chardin-Fragonard (G. B. A.. J907, II) ;
M. Q. de la Tour, Paris, 1904 ,■ Jean-Bapthle Perronneau (G. B. A.. 1896, I) : L' Exposition
des cent pastels (G. B. A.. 1908, 11). L. Dumont-Wilden, Le Portrait en France au
XVIII'' si'ecle. Bruxelles, 1909. R. Portalis, Fragonard. Paris, 1899. C. Mauclair, Frago-
nard. Paris, n.d. Lagrange. /. Vernct, Paris, 1855. Joseph Vernet, Correspondance de
Joseph Vernet au sujet des ports de France avec Marigny el Angivilliers {N. A. A. /■., 1893),
-H. Bouchot, A/me. Vigie-Lehrun (R. A. A. M.. 1898, I). C. Gabiliot, Hubert Robert et
son temps, Paris, 1895. Hautecoeur, Le Sentimenlalisme dans la peinture franfaise de
Greuze i David (G. B. A.. 1909, I). S. Rocheblave, Les Cochin, Paris, 1895. Lady Dilke,
French Engravers and Draughtsmen--, London, 1903. - Lazare Duvaux, Licrc-journal de
Lazare Ducaux--, with an introduction on the taste and the trade in works of art in the middle
of the XVlIllh century, by L. Courajod, Paris, 1873, 2 vols. Lady Dilke, frenc/i Furniture and
Decoration--, London, 1902. A. Molinier, La Collection iVallace, meubles el objets dart
frangais, Paris, 1903. J.-G. Wille, Graceur du Roi, Menwires et Journal, Paris, 1857, 2 vols.
— H. Cordier, La Chine en France au XVI IF siecle, Paris, 1910.

295

FIG. 603. — DAVID. CORONATION OF NAPOLEON I.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

PART III
MODERN ART

CHAPTER I

THE NEW CLASSICISM DURING THE REVOLU-
TION AND THE EMPIRE

Aesthetic IdeaJhm. — The Influence of Antique Art. The Revolutionary Spirit. Administra-
tive Transformations. Compromise between the Idealism of Artists and the Exigencies of
Actuality. Architecture : Greek pasticci; Percicr and Fontaine. Empire furniture. -
Painting: David; Reform in Technique; Realism and the Classical Spirit. Guerin,
Lethiere, Gerard.- A Romantic Attempt: Girodet. The Survivors of the Eighteenth
Century. -Prudhon. — Gros. Some "Little Masters."

At the close of the eighteenth century French art submitted for
the third time to the classic discipline, and even more completely
than in the time of Louis XIV and Francis I. This recrudescence
of archaeology and rationalism coincided, as before, with a new
attempt at national centralisation ; for the Convention and the
Empire consolidated and drew more closely together those forces
of the State which the declining monarchy had allowed to relax.

296

THE NEW CLASSICISM

KK;. D04. — MARIE LOUISE S
IHUKL-CAUINET AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

t^I'hoto. Nairdchi.)

Once more a kind of secret
sympathy or pre-established har-
mony between poHtical absolutism
and classic art makes itself felt ;
it seems as if the country, when it
sought to realise its unity, pre-
ferred an abstract, universal art,
or at least an art general enough to
dominate all the local variations of
the French intellect. The classic
spirit had intensified ; in the time
of Francis I, antique or Italian
influences had been ingeniously
reconciled with local traditions ;
under Louis XIV, Colbert ac-
cepted antique art, but on condi-
tion that it became naturalised in
France. And now the aesthetes
of the Revolution and the Empire
put forward an absolute ideal, bearing no relation either to national
history or geography. The ideas developed in the academical
discussions of the seventeenth century and in Charles Perrault's
dialogues re-appeared, but in a more absolute and vigorous form,

because they were now
saturated with meta-
physics and treated by
professional dialecticians.
French rationalism,
always ready to follow
up its deductions, ad-
vanced boldly to the
limits of the absurd ; in
art as in politics, it
triumphed with a sort
of intransigeance. The
theorists who swarmed
in those days of philo-
sophical frenzy and legis-
lative fury, defined ideal
beauty ; they declared it to consist of an absolute harmony of
forms, and taught that it could be attained by calculation, applica-
tion, and knowledge of the antique ; the lax and facile art of the

297

Ku;. 605.-

-XAroLHON I. S liEDKOOM AT Ccl.MIIEl^VE.

{Photo. Ncurdcin.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 606. — EXPIATORY CHAPEL OF LOUIS XVI, PARIS.

eighteenth century was proscribed unreservedly ; it might give a
passing pleasure by its happy carelessness and its brilliant fancy,

but Its beauty was relative
to the taste of a certain
society, and the taste of
this society was not good ;
true beauty is untouched
by changes of fashion,
because it is founded on
reason ; it was realised
once for all by the
ancients ; hence then art
preserves an eternal
youth, in spite of the
centuries ; and we have
nothing to do but to
imitate it ; let us return
to Greek art ; it is not Greek, but universal ; it is not antique, but
eternal ; beauty is of no time and no country.

These were the ideas of aesthetes rather than of artists ; they
were developed by critics rather than by painters ; but David and
the Davidians adopted them, and the most vigorous artists were
influenced by them. The art of the period bears the stamp of this
ideology, with few exceptions ; the spirit of abstraction proclaims
itself in the bloodless forms and the generalised modelling of its
painters. Outline drawing, without shading, was never in such

high favour ; the sinuous
line gives a kind of
theoretical definition of all
things. Deprived of
colour, of relief, of light
and of substance, this
calligraphy indicates only
purity of form and
harmony of proportion.
Architects designed
buildings without any
particular function while
legislators were drawing
up ideal constitutions ;

III II 1 1 ill iii

FIG. 607. — THE BOURSE (sTOCK-EXCHANGE), PARIS.

{Photo. N'en7iiein.)

ideas fly lightly when they are not weighted by reality.

The excavations at Pompei sent a wave of archaeological fever

298

THE NEW CLASSICISM

FIG. 60S. — CHUKCH OF THE MADELEINE, J'.VKIS.

over scientific and artistic Europe. For years poets and artists had
been describing the life of the Greeks and Romans, and now, for
the first time, men found
themselves in contact, not
with ideal statues, or the
ruins of exceptional monu-
ments, but with a whole
city, its houses, its paint-
ings, and even in some
cases with its furniture.
The dream that had been
cherished ever since the
Renaissance was at last
to be realised ; it had
become possible to re-
suscitate this world which
all had supposed lost for
ever, but which had been surprised m its sleep. A quantity of
new evidences enabled students to approach more closely to that
reconstitution of the antique which Mantegna, Raphael, Poussin
and Le Brun had essayed. It was not only the art of the ancients
that was now to renew modern art, but their life which was about
to modify actual life, furniture and costume. The ruins of Pompei
not only rejuvenated history-painting. This open tomb transformed
the world of the living.

The revolutionary spirit
brought Its ardent passions
to the aid of the antique.
The art of the eighteenth
century against which
Vien, David and their
pupils reacted, was an art
of the aristocracy and the
clergy. The neo-classi-
cists had already repu-
diated it in the name of
aesthetics when the Revo-
lution deprived it of all
raison d'etre by destroying
the regime of which it was a luxurious accessory. Thus the
Revolution completed the work of the Renaissance, and swept
away the fe\v Gothic remains which still separated modern from

299

FIG. 6o(). — AKC DK TRIOMPHE DU CAKKOUSEI., I'ARIS.

ART IN FRANCE

antique thought. The Classicists of the eighteenth century were, no
doubt, pagan in imagination, but they were royalist and Christian in
externals. Although they believed in the superiority of Greek
temples, they continued to build Christian churches. Revolutionary
Classicism condemned the whole activity of the Middle Ages, and
suppressed what still remained of it ; for some years, it might have
been supposed that the art of Athens and of Rome was to be
directly introduced into French civilisation. At a time when
furniture was Pompeian and costume Greek, when political speeches
were translations from Livy or Plutarch, it is not surpnsmg that
David and Guerin should have resuscitated Leonidas and Romulus.

This crisis lasted but a few
years, but it sufficed to break
the continuity of modern art ;
to renew its growth, a new
graft had to be made on the
ancient trunk.

The men of the Revolution
did not share Rousseau's
opinions as to the corrupting
influences of the fine arts ;
they often proclaimed that
artists should contribute to
the education of the nation.
David was an important mem-
ber of the Convention because
he was a great painter. He
caused the suppression of the
Royal Academy of Painting
and Sculpture, which disappeared with all the other ancient corpo-
rations. But the unity of art was not affected by this : the authority
of David and his teaching was such that painters were never more
submissive to official doctrine than in the interval between the
disappearance of the ancient Royal Academy, and its reappearance
during the Consulate as Class IV of the Institut. The new
Academy, however, was a closer and a more honorific corporation
than its predecessor ; far from being open to every capable artist,
like the Academie Franqaise, it only received a limited number of
members. Thus it by no means included all the great artists of the
nineteenth century. Its history is not coincident with the history of

French art.

This masterful idealism could not altogether ignore reality ; we

300

FIG. 6lO.

-ARC DE TRIOMI'HE DE l'eTOILE,
PARIS.

THE NEW CLASSICISM

FIG. 6ll. — HOUDON. BUST dF NAIdI.EON.

(Museum of Dijon.)

shall see in what manner it effected its compromise. More than
once, David and his pupils had to abandon their helmeted heroes
for some revolutionary scene or some imperial ceremony. David
was commissioned to paint the Constituents taking the oath of the
Tennis Court (Serment du Jeu de Paume). He began the work
with a certain enthusiasm ; but he had hardly painted ten of these
heroes when he began to send many of them to the scaffold ; after
this it would have been inconsistent to immortalise them m painting,
A little later. Baron Gros, painting the cupola of the Pantheon, was
obliged to change the Caesarian Napoleon of the original design
into a stout Louis XVIII presenting the Charter. Between the
execution of two modern pictures dealing with current events, these
classical painters returned to their studios to polish the rounded limbs
of some Leomdas or Psyche. Thus the Conventionnels. while
passing provisional measures, found time to add an article to their
ideal Constitution. After 1815, all these Davidians had leisure to
cultivate pure beauty. But then their ardour began to flag ; for
events had urged them on and had never obstructed their flights.
Theory seems a feeble thing when it is no longer animated by
passion.

Architecture is generally in abeyance in times of war, civil or
foreign ; neither the Revolution nor the Empire found much time
for building. The Revolution lived in a provisional state ; it held
its assemblies in any convenient hall, and was content with wooden

301

ART IN FRANCE

sheds and plaster statues for its great festivals. Gradually, as it
solidified, the modern government installed itself in the ravaged
palaces of the ancient order. Napoleon used the dwelhngs of the
monarchy, with the exception of Versailles, the sinister associations
of which made it uninhabitable. He had dreams of an immense
palace for the King of Rome, on the hill where the Trocadero was
afterwards built ; but Percier and Fontaine had barely time to draw
out the plans. He saw no more than the foundations of the Arc
de I'Etoile begun by Chalgrin in honour of the Grande Armee ; it
was not finished until thirty years later, and the Emperor's ashes

passed under the triumphal arch, when
they were brought back from St. Helena.
His effigy on the Vendome Column
suffered as much from revolution as the
statue of Louis XIV it had supplanted.
The Empire managed to complete one
church in the form of an antique Temple
of Glory, but the Restoration intervened,
and dedicated this pasticcio of the Maison
Carree at Nimes to Mary Magdalen
(Fig. 608).

The buildings begun, interrupted, con-
tinued, and transformed, from Louis XVI
to the end of the Restoration are all am-
bitious reconstitutions of the antique.
Gravity became an affectation of austerity ;
the Tuscan order was not always con-
sidered severe enough. Artists turned
back from Greek art to that of Egypt, with
its tombs, its massive walls, its lotus flowers
and its sphinxes. When the architect's archaeological zeal was
rather less fervent, he was content to place complete facades behind
a peristyle ; colonnades were erected before churches, private houses
and theatres, and around the Bourse. There were colonnades at
the Odeon, and at the Theatre Fran^aise, where Talma, in Roman
costume, was then giving lessons in history to Guerm and Lethiere ;
The basilica, the most ancient type of Christian architecture, and
that which approaches most nearly to antique buildings, was the type
chosen by the Restoration for the numerous churches it built. It
could not give them peristyles so imposing as those of the Pantheon
or the Madeleine ; but all boast at least a few columns. When
Brongniart undertook the Bourse, he could devise nothing more

302

FIG. 6l2. — CHINAKD.
MME. Ri;CAMIER.

(Museum of Lyons.)

THE NEW CLASSICISM

FIG. 613.

-BOSIO. THE NYMl'H SAI.MACIS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

suitable to shelter stockbrokers
than a peripteral temple (Fig.
607).

The best buildings of the
period are those of the two in-
separables, Percier (1764-1838)
and Fontaine (1762 1853) ; the
triumphal arch of the Carrousel
is a delicate work by refined
designers. In the courtyard of
the Louvre, which they were
connecting with the Tuilenes,
they amused themselves, as Phili-
bert Delorme had occasionally
done, by elaborating some little
piece of architecture, adjusting
columns and entablatures, enframing delicate bas-reliefs between the
strongly marked mouldings of the structure (Fig. 609). Fontaine
built the Chapelle Expiatoire over the graves of Louis XVI and
Marie- Antoinette for Louis XVII 1. "This cloister, formed of a
chain of tombs," is a significant symbol of the Restoration. Both
were monuments of regret, ex-votoes to the past (Fig. 606).

The architects of the Empire were more busily employed in
designing furniture than in build-
ing. It was they who, following
in the wake of the archaeological
painters, applied the austere
rigidity of the Pompeian style
to furniture. Even when the
eighteenth century style was at its
apogee, there had been a good
deal of criticism of Rococo convo-
lutions ; that a line should twist
and turn so much on its way from
one point to another had appeared
unreasonable to the contemporaries
of Louis XV, and unseemly to
those of Louis XVI. The legs
of tables and the backs of chairs
were straightened ; and in the
reign of Louis XV a style was
evolved — the so-called Louis XVI

I-IG. 614.— CH.\UDET. CUl'll).

(The Louvre, Paris.)

303

ART IN FRANCE

HG. 615. — gki;aku. !\IME. kecamien.

(The Prefecture de la Seine, Paris.)

(Photo. Neurdciit.)

style — which combined elegance
and simplicity. After this came
the Neo-Greeks, who attempted
to reconstruct antique furniture ;
their adherents consented to be
heavy in order to be majestic.
Forms became massive and de-
cisive, with pronounced angles.
In a reception room this fur-
niture seems to be protesting
against fashionable futility ; it
reveals the spirit of a new
society, the pedantry of an
archaeologist and the narrow
arrogance of an important func-
tionary. Even the china of the
period masks its fragility ; Sevres
vases, more pretentious than urns,
were overlaid with gold, and
decorated with large historical pictures reduced to small dimensions.
This age of fragile governments had a passion for solid forms ; no
arm-chairs were ever more massive than those in which the
Directors, the Consuls, Napoleon and the last Bourbons sat in
succession ; and, strange to say, it was the same classical logic which
produced such rigidity in
art, and such instability in
the State.

The name of Louis

David (1748-1825)
dominates this period so
completely that artists like
Vien, whowas his master,
and Guerin and Regnault,
who were not his pupils,
seem to us to have been
his disciples. Long be-
fore the Revolution, he
had heralded revolution-
ary art ; there was always
in him the authority of
the leader of a school. An apostle of severity, of a difficult, moral,
and archaeological art, he had all the intolerance of a seeker of the

304

i-ic;. 6r6.

-DAVID. THE DISTKIIiUTION OK THE
EAGLES.

(Museum of Versailles.)

THE NEW CLASSICISM

FJG. 617. — DAVID. M. sfiRIZIAT.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

absolute. At an early age, he showed
a passionate hatred for and even
a kind of Jacobinical fury against the
frivolous aristocratic painting of the
eighteenth century ; in certain pic-
tures, the Horatii, Brutus, and the
Death of Socrates, he reveals the
stoicism which, for some years, vv'as
to ennoble passions and give heroism
to the human drama. His first
works appeared when V'len was
preparing the way for the new style,
by stripping his compositions of
Boucher and Fragonard's elabora-
tion, renouncing fanciful accessories,
purifying his line, informing his work
with gravity, and giving earnest at-
tention to the model. The crisis of
austere idealism had begun. But

David was no mere theorist ; he was a painter whose artistic vision
was keen and vigorous, an honest and scrupulous craftsman, who
scorned to substitute empty dexterity for direct and sincere expression ;
he lopped off the embellishments of the Rococo, and found majesty and
serene nudity beneath the furbelows of fashion. He professed to

paint entirely from nature.
But unfortunately, he
could not look at nature
save in the light of
Graeco- Roman aesthetics.
In the poor model perched
on a plank in his studio,
he sought the generalised
forms of antique statuary ;
at first he showed a pre-
ference for bodies with
tense and swelling
muscles, and strongly de-
fined forms ; later, at the
time of his Sahines and
following his example,
polished the varnished skins
With a model before his
X

FIG. 618. — DAVID. MMK. UI-XAMIEU.
(The I.ouvre, Paris.)

LeoniJas, he modelled rounded limbs
Gerard and Girodet, and the rest,
of their figures with flat colour.

305

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 619. — GU^RIN.
RETL'KN OF MARCUS SEXTUS.

(The Louvre, Paius.)

eyes, and the attitudes of statues in his memory, David eliminated
movement from his art ; his heroes pose, and never act.

He also suppressed the
picturesque mobility of nature
and of light. His figures are
in space, but not in the air,
and have no illumination
save that of the draughtsman,
who suggests a round object by
contrasts of light and shade ;
each figure has received the
same studio light ; in the
" Roman " pictures, which
represent the interior of an
antique house, they are juxta-
posed in uniformly dark sur-
roundings ; in his " Greek
period, the background is a
cold, light gray, which repre-
sents the open air. Thus with David, a system impoverished the
painter's powers ; nothing was left to him but the proportions of
the body, purity of modelling, and beauty of attitude ; his sole
medium of expression was a rhythmic and majestic rhetoric, which
lacked colours and images for the translation of violent sentiments ;
a strange art, in which
men of strong passions
attempted to speak the
language of pure reason.

Thus classical art once
more essayed to abandon
the world of the living.
But, idealist and archaeo-
logist though he be, it is
very difficult for an artist
to ignore his age, especi-
ally at a dramatic period
like that of the Revolu-
tion and the Empire.
Reality becomes so stir-
ring, so full of surprises,
that art cannot ignore it ; the whole of France was so deeply
moved, that idealism had to make some concessions to contemporary

306

FIG. 620. — GIRODET. ATM. A AT THE TOMB.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE NEW CLASSICISM

history. The Conventionnels
commissioned David to im-
mortahse some of the revo-
lutionary scenes ; Napoleon
was not the man to give up
his painters to the conquerors
of the antique world. He
" protected " the fine arts after
the manner of Louis XIV, that
they might add to his glory. In
the competitions he instituted, a
prize was offered for the best
historical painting ; but another
was awarded to 'i"a subject
reflecting credit on the national
character." This, of course,
pointed to the Napoleonic epic.
The im.penal army, with the
Emperor 'at its head, charged

KIG. 621. — DANID. DEATH l>F MANAT.

(Modern Museum, Brussels.)
{Photo. Neurdcin.)

into the Salons of 1808-1810, and Murat's cavalry put Leonidas
and Romulus to flight. Embroidered uniforms and violent attitudes
mingled with the pale nudities. But David, Gerard, Girodet, and

Gros himself, retained their classical
majesty, even in depicting their con-
temporaries. They gave the members
of the Constituent Assembly and the
soldiers of the Grand Army the
gigantic dmiensions hitherto reserved
for the heroes of tradition. They
endeavoured to suggest the robust
modelling and proportions of the
classical canon beneath their modern
costumes. We might discover a
Greek profile under the shako of
more than one old campaigner. The
silk stockings of the high court func-
tionaries are drawn, not over the
slender calves of the Louis XV
period, but over the " rotula; of the
Atndes," and the stout muscles of
Roman statues. In David's Distribu-
tion of the Eagles (Fig. 616), he

307 X 2

FIG. 622. — GltKAHU.

iMAUlE-L^.TITIA BdNAl'ARTE,

MUTHEK OK NAl'OLEOX I.

(Museum of Versailles.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 623. — GROS.
PRINCESS LUCIEN BONAPARTE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

dressed Giovanni da Bologna's Mercury
in a hussar uniform to represent a figure
rushing impetuously forward. And
without doing violence to reality,
Napoleon's painters were able to give
him the clear-cut, beardless face of
Caesar, and the laurelled brow of an
Imperator.

Nor were the emotions which
agitated the contemporary world incom-
prehensible to a student of Plutarch who
had become the official painter of the
Convention and of the Empire. Words
and actions readily assumed a heroic
guise. David was able to pass from
the Oath of the Horatii to the Oath of
the Tennis Court without quitting the
chilly heights of stoicism. When, a
little later, he abandoned Leonidas at
the pass of Thermopylae, to follow Bonaparte in the pass of Mount
St. Bernard, his soul was still exalted by Lacedaemonian virtue.
Moreover, the greater men of the school, Gros and David,
retained the tendency which made French classical art so serious ;
they were no mere anecdotists ; they endowed each of their com-
positions with some vital thought. The battles and incidents of the
Revolution and the Empire
seem to be events of a
totally different order when
they are recorded by
Swebach and Boilly. In
David's art more especially
there is a power of general-
isation, a manner of looking
at things " under the as-
pect of eternity, ' which
amplifies a momentary
action into a historical
symbol. The generous
ardour of the Constituent
Assembly is admirably ex-
pressed in the Oath of the Tennis Court, and all the outstretched
arms which ratify Bailly's vow. No better exposition of Napoleon's

308

FU;. 624. — GROS.
THE PLAGUE-STRICKEN' AT JAFFA.

(The Louvre, Paris.) {Photo. Neurdem.)

THE NEW CLASSICISM

power could be offered than the pictures of the Coronation of

Napoleon (Fig. 603) and the Distribution of the Eagles. Thus

David's reahsm remains

classical ; the spectacles of ^

contemporary history are

subjected to the same laws

as imaginary scenes with

antique personages;

he gives us correct forms

and expressive attitudes,

composition as stable as

architecture, and a great

thought animating actors,

spectators, and scenery.

Guerin (1774-1833)
had learnt the new
aesthetics, idealism and
classicism, in the studio of
done in that of Vincent

fcfc-w..^..

^i^^iif^

'ii'^^'^M

f rvfV'

Kj\

« Jl,~|!_ .

I'lG. 625. — (JKCIS. EMr.Al;KATl()N OF THE
DUCHESSE d'aNGOULEME, AT I'AUII.LAC.

(Museum of I)ordeau\.) (Photo. Morcaii.)

his master Regnault, as Lethiere had
Guerin sought success in the expression
of emotion more intently than David. His most famous works are
scenes of tragedy. His figures strike theatrical attitudes, and seem
always on the point of a tirade. Talma and Mile. Georges had
taught them the art of declamatory poses. Lethiere represented
certain episodes of Roman history with a grandiose setting, archi-
tecture interrupted by heavy shadows ; the importance of the sur-
roundings seems to suggest
a reconstitution of Re-
publican Rome; the
figures have some slight
reality, and the stormy
sky gives a catastrophic
atmosphere to the scene.
Gerard (1770 1 837) was
less docile to the Da-
vidian discipline. The
somewhat trivial facility
of his talent made it easy
for him to desert the
studio for the drawing-
room. It did not prevent

I • r l-Ii;. 626. — I'RUDHON.

him Irom executing some andkomache emdracing astvanax.

rather feeble compositions, (Drawing.) (The Louvre, Paris.)

309

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 627. — PRUDHON. PSYCHE.

(Cond6 Museum, Chantilly.)

but it made him a popular
portraitist. He was the official
painter of the aristocracy under
the Empire and the Restora-
tion, and the embroideries
of the Court costumes which
he conscientiously reproduced
forced him to heighten the
tone of his naturally dull
colour.

Some excellent disciples were
faithless to the creed, sometimes
all unconsciously. Chateaubriand,
when he endued his magnificent
prose with the reverie, the
melancholy, and the storms of
passion, revealed the irresistible
charm of romantic sensation.
The cold statues of the Davidian

school were swathed in Ossianesque mists, and the pale rays of

the moon were shed caressingly upon their marble forms. But

these figures are of classic race ; they were conceived by lucid minds,

fashioned by artists who loved precision of form, and painted in the

prosaic light of the studio. In

Girodet's laborious work ( I 767-

1824), we are conscious of the

constraint of a language obliged

to express sentiments for which

it was not made. To suggest

tenderness or melancholy, he

envelopes his Endymion or his

Atala in strange lights. In his

Deluge and his Battle of Cairo,

he intermingles great bodies in

violent attitudes, to show the

abandonment of passion. But

the rigidity of the design gives a

kind of stony fixity to the tumult,

and the languorous softness of the

atmosphere disappears under the

icy precision of the painting.

The discord between Romantic

FIG. 628. — PRUDHON.
ZEPHYRUS CARRYING OFF PSYCHE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

310

THE NEW CLASSICISM

sentimentality and the Classical tongue may be read in Girodet's
meffectual work.

On the other hand, many mediocre painters attempted to rise to
the nobility of the new Classicism, while retaining the amorous com-
plexion of the art of Louis XVI. David himself painted the loves
of Helen and those of Psyche. Efforts were made to raise lachry-
mose sensibility or elegant libertinage to the level of the new art,
while the belated imitators of Boucher
exerted themselves to sing the glory of the
First Consul and of the Emperor. On
the confines of these two epochs, works
full of contrasts came into being ; some,
like Greuze and Fragonard, too old to
change their instrument, attempted epic
airs upon their little flutes ; others, to
whom David had allotted the heroic
trumpet, applied themselves to the la-
borious elaboration of pastoral motives.
Greek figures were depicted writing love-
letters, or weeping over the empty cages of
lost birds ; lamentable nudities, with
smooth limbs and flat muscles, make us
regret the plump Bacchantes of Clodion
and Frago. Licence seems dismal enough
when rhetoric takes the place of wit !

Prudhon (1758-1823), however, by
the grace of genius, escaped these fatalities
of the schools. Like Andre Chenier in
poetry, he created a very vital and spon-
taneous manner, in which we see a reflec-
tion of all that was dear to the souls of his
age ; the refined sensuality of the art of
Louis XVI was ennobled by romantic
reverie. Prudhon remained a fervid admirer of antique forms ;
but his instinct led him to the exquisite grace of Praxiteles, while
the aesthetes were celebrating the cold and declamatory beauty of
the Belvedere Apollo. The supreme charm of his work lies in the
tender seduction of the colour and light ; among all the coldly con-
templative painters of his day, Prudhon alone had a voluptuous eye.
The graceful forms of his nymphs bathe in an atmosjihere which
they illuminate with their warm whiteness, and their flesh, drinking
in the light, gives back to obscurity the rays they have received.

311

riG. 629. — ISOII.LV.

the akuival ok the
1)1i.h;enck. fkag.ment.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

It was thus that Correggio in his time animated the cold statues of
Florentine design, by putting into them a diffused light which seems
to reveal an inner life. Prudhon was guided to Greek beauty by
his instincts as a painter more infallibly than was David by his
archaeological theories, for Praxiteles too, when he carved the
marble, strove to suggest the tenderness of flesh and the limpidity of
the gaze. In his moon-silvered mists, Prudhon achieved that
voluptuous softness which Girodet attempted to produce by eccen-
tricities of illumination (Figs. 626-628 and 631).

Gros (1771-1835) had also too strong a temperament to submit
altogether to David's impersonal method. Among the many correct

draughtsmen who were
busy modelling impec-
cable nudities, he worked
with spirit, and retained
the fire of improvisation
in an immense picture.
His apprenticeship was
only just over, when he
shared the life of Bona-
parte's soldiers during the
Italian campaign of I 796 ;
he handled arms and
equipments, became a
practised horseman, and
saw actual war. The
other Davidians, who
were military painters by
accident, so to say, knew Napoleon's soldiers only from the reviews
they witnessed in the Place du Carrousel. Gros greatly admired
Rubens, the painter, who before him had most vividly rendered
the fury of battle and the splendour of martial trappings. In his
best moments his rapid brush suggested movement and violent
gesture, his thin and brilliant colour rendered light flesh, the satiny
coats of horses, and a number of visual sensations which classical
idealism tended to eliminate. Without Gros, the military epic of
the Empire would not have had a painter worthy of it.

But he was something more than a mere battle-painter ; like
David, he put thought into his vast panoramas. The classical
battle-pieces show us warriors, but not soldiers ; another genre was
evolved, that of Salvator Rosa and of Bourguignon, who painted
unnamed battles and cavalry skirmishes of considerable spirit and

312

KIG. 630. — BOILLY. HOUDON JIAKING A
BUST OF IMONGE.

(Miisee des Arts decoratifs, Paris.)

THE NEW CLASSICISM

FIG. 631.— I'KUDHOX.
THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

(The Lousre, Paris.)

invention, in which the hind quarters

of horses disappear in clouds of

pistol-smoke. On behalf of the

king. Van der Meulen gave com-
missions for historical battle-scenes,

where we may admire Louis XIV

giving orders on an eminence. The

realities of battle had never entered

into art, till Gros introduced them.

True, this painter sometimes allows

himself to be earned away by the

pleasure of showing movement and

colour, and the fantasia of his

brush very well expresses the furia

of Murat's squadrons cutting down

the flying burnouses ; but in his

Pesti feres de Jaffa (Fig. 624) and

his Field of Eylau the artist gives

us much more than the violent

pantom.ime of combat. War was no longer merely a picturesque

theme : it excited emotions hitherto unimagined by art. Gros was

full o[ ii^ fever ; when the era of battles was past, the soul of his

> with military enthusiasm. He had not the courage of

i-S c.e thought it necessary to return to classical themes.

-■■ David, when he went into exile, left the school to his

direction. He had always
been some\vhat over-awed
by the helmeted heroes of
the Academy, and a little
ashamed of his shakoed
veterans. He accordingly
ceased to paint these,
and his inspiration failed
(Figs. 623-625).

But it was not only the
great days of the Revolu-
tion or the victories of the
Empire which seduced
painters from antiquity.
The example of the
Flemish and Dutch Little Masters encouraged modest painters, like
Demarne, to record incidents of daily life. David's studio produced

313

WO^"*" C 5

his g
Hi. :,-

FIG. 632. — GK.WET. I.NTERIOK OF .^ SCHOOL.

(Museum of Ai.\.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 633. — MOREAU. LANDSCAPE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

Granet, who had a predilection for small dark interiors, and worked
in the gloomy cloisters of the dispossessed Capuchins ; he may

almost be said to have
created a motive which
has not yet lost favour,
and seems to herald the
convent-interiors of Bon-
vin, those little pictures
full of shadows and
silence in which monks
and nuns move quietly
about (Fig. 632). Drol-
ling and Boilly depicted
the Paris of the middle
and lower classes with
spirited fidelity. Drolling's manner also is that of a pupil of the
Dutchmen. It has endured to our own times ; and we shall probably
never lack Little Masters who will delight in following a ray of
light striking on the stone flags of a kitchen, and kindling reflections
on copper and glass (Fig. 634). Boilly's sharp and over-emphatic
precision suggests the reduction of a large design, and his smooth
uniform colour has the brilliance of the mahogany dear to the
cabinet-maker of the Empire (Figs. 629, 630). Finally, there were

witty observers who found
amusement in the pictur-
esque spectacles of Paris
under the Directory and
the Restoration. Be-
tween Robespierre and
Napoleon, between
revolutionary civism and
martial exaltation, there
was an outburst of liber-
tinage, and both in cos-
tume and manners, a
picturesque disorder very
stimulating to the carica-
turist. At the time
when David, liberated
from the Revolution and
not yet enrolled by the Empire, was taking the opportunity of
returning to Romulus, Carle Vernet and Debucourt were sketching

314

FIG. 634. — DROI.LIXC;. INTERIOR OF A KITCHEN.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE NEW CLASSICISM

FIG. 6_i5.-

UEIIUCOUKT. — THE GALI.EUY OF THE
I'ALAIS KOYAL.

(Bibliothcque Natioiiale, Print Room.)

captives of the sublime

the bizarre Muscadins and Merveilieuses of the Palais- Royal
(Fig. 635).

To us, Little Masters such as Boilly and Carle Vernet seem more
interestmg, perhaps, than
the ambitious idealists
of the school of David,
for the reaction against
this school has led us
to misjudge all sincerity
which IS not realistic.
And yet the soul of the
Revolution survives in
David's work, and not
in that of Boilly. Em-
phasis IS not out of place
m speech, when there
is heroism in actions.
Among all these painters
from Guerin to Gerard,
there were some unwilling

sincerity of David and of Gros lies in their very
prosaic realism. Their vision was great, not because
megalomaniacs, but because their perfervid generation
colossal temples and tri-
umphal arches. Cartel-
lier's marbles, and the
heroes of David and of
Gros are superhuman in
their proportions. They
were soaring in idealism
when fierce storms broke
out, and the tempest of
heroism carried all before
It. But they never
abandoned their vigorous
ideology, even in the
full flood of realism.
And when the era of
violent years was at an
end, all this sentimental exaltation, finding its occupation gone,
turned to the delirium of Romanticism.

; but the
disdain of
they were
demanded

FIG. 636. — CAKI.E VKKNET. THE KACE,

(The I.ouvre, Paris.)

315

ART IN FRANCE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

France. Paris. 1791

Quatremere de Quincy, Considerations sur les Arts du dessin en . ,u„^^, . „. .o, ..,..
Renou\\er. L'Hisloi re de I' Art pendant la Reiolution, Paris, 1863.— F. Benoit, L'Art franfais
sous la Revolution el ['Empire, Paris, 1897. L. Bertrand, La fin du classicisme et le retour a
I' antique, Paris, 1897.— L. Courajod, Alexandre Lenoir, son journal et le Musee des Monuments
fran(;ais Paris, 1878-1887, 3 vols. A. Fuetey and J. Guiffrey, Document sur la creation du
Musie du Louvre (1792-1793), Paris, 1909. Spire Blondel, L' Art pendant la Rdvolution,
Paris, n.d. -M. Dreyfous, Les Arts et les Artistes pendant la periode recolutionnaire, Paris, n.d -
M. Foucher. Percier et Fontaine, Paris, 1905. P. Lafond, L'Art decoratif et le Mohilier
sous la Republique el I' Empire, Paris, 1900. A. G. Meyer, Canova, Bielefeld, 1898.—
Emeric David, Sur les progres de la Sculpture franfaise depuis le commencement du regne de
Louis XVI jusqu'a aujourdhui, Paris, 1824. Chesneau, La Peinture franfaise au XLX^ si'ecle ;
les Chefs d'ecole, Paris, 1862. J. David, Le peinlre Louis David, Paris, 1880.-Delecluze, Louis
David, son ecole et son temps, Paris, 1855. Ch. Saunier, Louis David, Paris, n.''. — L. Rosenthal,
Louis David, Paris, n.d. Ch. Ephrussi, Gerard (G. B. A., 1890, 1!).— H. Lemonnier. Cros,
Paris, 1905. Gauthiez, PruJ/ion, Paris, 1886. E. Bricon, Prudhon, Paris, 1907.- -P. Dorbec,
Les premiers Peintres du Paysage parisien (G. B. A., 1908, II). -H. Harrisse, L. Boilly.
Paris, 1898.

316

G. 637. — PORTRAIT OF INGRES.
liY HIMSELF.

(Conde Museum, Chantilly.)
(Photo. Ncurdcin. )

63S. — PORTRAIT OF DELACROIX'.
1!Y HIMSELF.

(The Louvre, Paris.)
{Photo. Ncii7-dein.)

CHAPTER II

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

The End of the School of David. — Gericaull. Romanlicism in Painting ; Individualist and
Lyric Art; Imagination and Passion; Delacroix; his Themes and his Technique. The
Minor Romanticists ; Decamps. The Classical Opposition ; Ingres ; the Serenity of his
Art; Linear Design : Ingres Conception of Decorative Painting ; his Disciples. Mediicval
and Modern Subjects in History Painting ; Horace yernet ; Delaroche. Charlet; Raffel ;
Daumier. Landscape Painting: Dutch Influence. Corol. Rousseau. Diaz, Dupri
Daubigny, Troyon. Sculpture from the Time of the Empire. Statues of Great .Men. —
David d Angers. Rude. Barye. — The Revival of Medicevalism. 7 he Gothic Phase.

The school of David made a melancholy end. The master himself
died in a sort of apotheosis ; but he was in exile at Brussels, where
the glow of his glory still survived, though its source in Fans was
extinguished. In December, 1824, at Girodet s funeral, Gros and
Gerard asked each other sadly, "What mighty hand would be able
to hold back the school on the incline down which it was being
dragged by Romanticism ?" Neither had authority enough to impose
David's austere ideal upon rebellious youth. Gerard was merely a
Court portrait-painter, and Gros, a premature wreck, was bewailing
the sins of his youth. Girodet had already disquieted David by his
Ossianism ; but if he felt differently from his master, he painted

317

ART IN FRANCE

like him ; and artists are lenient to divergences of inspiration.
When, however, technical innovations began to appear, they could
not be regarded as venial audacities ; they menaced art in its
fundamental institution, that of teaching.

It was the museum of the Louvre, rich in the masterpieces of
Flanders and Italy until the year 1815, which revealed the in-
adequacy of the Davidian doctrine to the younger artists. Passing
from the dismal studio in which a rigid model was posed upon a
plank, to the Museum, the pupil of David or Guerin noted the
expressive power of naturalism in the hands of Caravaggio or

Rubens. Gericault's vigorous
painting (1791-1824) ought to
have warned the Davidians that
their serene idealism could not
satisfy a generation which had
grown up in the fever of the
Revolution and the Empire.
True, he died too young not
to leave some doubt as to the
significance of his work and the
value of his innovations. But it
was obvious that he had tried to
give robustness to the thin and
abstract style of French painting,
and tone to its anaemic constitu-
tion. The vigorous executants
of Spain and Bologna taught him
to model fiercely or delicately,
to build up his bodies with solid
matter, and define them with
frank outlines. He owed a good deal to Gros, but he did not
preserve Gros' smooth and brilliant manner. The innovations of
modern naturalism often resolve themselves into borrowings from
the old Flemish or Dutch, Spanish or Neapolitan schools. Gericault
is the leader of those nineteenth century realists, educated in museums,
the first of those superb craftsmen among whom we find Courbet,
Ribot, Manet, and Lucien Simon. Twice in David's time he had
distinguished himself by vast and violent canvases of hussars and
cuirassiers in action ; his daring pencil had seized the momentary
gesture of a cavalryman leading a charge, rising upon his rearing
horse ; and his glowing colour had shown brilliant uniforms and
tragic lights in the sinister atmosphere of battle (Fig. 639). When

318

FIG. 639. — GERICAULT. CHASSEUR
OFFICER.

(The Louvre.) (Pltoto. NcnriL-in.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

FIG. 640.-

-HF.IM. READING A PLAY AT TUB
COM16DIE-FRAN9AISE.

(Museum of Versailles.)

the Restoration disbanded
the troops, it deprived him
of uniforms and swords.
Gericault then turned to
that world of athletes,
unchained of old by
the tumultuous genius of
Michelangelo. His
drawings and sketches set
in motion great muscles
straining in some hercu-
lean effort, and he painted
his masterly work, the
Raft of the Medusa, a
pile of corpses and dying

men (Fig. 642). Finally Gericault visited London, and there
liberated himself altogether from his French education. His
impressions of England, green landscapes under a watery sky,
race-courses, and stables, are rendered by means of nervous painting
and fresh colour ; it was Gericault who introduced the race-horse
into French art, and inaugurated a genre afterwards popularised
by engraving and lithography (Fig. 646). Gericault died before
Romanticism had declared war against Classicism, and his work,
still undecided when it was
interrupted for ever, hardly
allows us to judge which side
he would have taken in the
battle.

In the Salon of 1822, a
young friend of Gericault's,
Eugene Delacroix ( 1 798- 1 863),
exhibited a scene from the
Divine Comedy. But there
was nothing in this livid vision
of Virgil and Dante in Hell
very surprising to a public
familiar with Caravaggio, and
the Raft of the Medusa. It
was not until two years later,
before the Massacre of Scio,
that the critics inveighed against
the " massacre of painting "

319

FIG. 641

(The Louvre, Paris.)

-DEI.ACUOIX.
OF -SCIO.

MASSACKE

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 642. — G^RICAULT. THE KAFT
OF THE MEDUSA.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

(Fig. 641). Delacroix had, in fact, transformed his pictorial
language in the interval ; inspired by the English landscape
painters, he had loaded his palette with brilliant colours and illumined

Gros' robust impasto with
the glint of Oriental
tissues and the marble
tints of putrefaction.
This time, the work was
frankly revolutionary ; the
young Romanticists rallied
round Delacroix, and the
struggle against the clas-
sical tradition began ; no
durable school resulted
from it, but the conse-
quences were such as to
transform the very con-
ception of art.

To these young Romanticists art was not the realisation of an
abstract ideal, but the expression of an individual soul, and the
more original the artist, the greater the value of his works. He
should not fear to manifest his vigorous personality ; on the con-
trary, he should defend it jealously against external influences,
against all the forces that,
by limiting his personality,
tend to obscure his genius.
Romanticism was the
revolt of sensitive faculties,
hitherto disciplined by the
play of definite ideas.
Latent and irresponsible
forces rose from uncon-
scious depths to reject
classical logic. For logic,
with its fixed principles,
is identical among all
men ; it has a sort of
eternal existence, superior
to the minds which suc-
cessively exercise it ; and
the Romanticist affects to despise
individuals similar.

320

FIG. 643. — DELACROIX. VIRGIL AND
I5ANTE IN HELL.

(The l.ouvre, Paris.)

this faculty which makes

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

Now from the sixteenth century onwards, a long artistic tradition
had fixed a body of rules which weighed upon the artist as law
we!ghs upon the citizen. Romanticism, exploding, burst through
this academic compression. Delacroix's work, from beginning to
end, was a passionate protest against this legislation which lays
fetters upon genius. For more than thirty years, he painted as if
he were fighting, with spasms of energy and disgust, sometimes with
the exaltation of triumph, more often with the rage of defeat. He
felt a savage joy in tearing up the code of the Classicists. We learn
this not only from his feverish, convulsive drawing, not only from
the violence and the fury of his " drunken brush, " but from the
irritable confidences he made to his Journal. His sympathies are
with the "incorrect and
careless geniuses," all
those who betray the
pathetic struggle of
passion against form.

Delacroix prized the
independence of emotion
and of personal fancy so
highly, that he never con- •
ceived of painting as a
representation of reality, i,
This, indeed, is the
Romantic paradox. The
painter cannot, of course,
borrow his images from
anything save nature ; but
to Delacroix, these images were only a means ; he took forms and
colours from visible things, but, just as the poet chooses metaphors,
only in order to speak more magnificently of himself. The Roman-
ticists attacked the Classicists in the name of truth, for truth is
the battle-cry of all art-rebellions. And yet Delacroix and his
group had a hearty contempt for objective accuracy ; no school
was ever less docile to the exigencies of representation, or less
capable of portraiture. Delacroix's imagination elaborated a world
too full of colour and poetry for him to have ever dreamt of
sacrificing it to the universe of our actual vision. A perpetual
fount of fictive images hid the real aspect of things from him ; this
short-sighted painter was a visionary. The presence of the model
checked his inspiration ; he only resorted to it occasionally to repair
his lapses of memory, and he had the same contempt for historical

321 Y

l-I<;. 644. — DICI.ACKOIX. AKAIi 1- AN lASlA.

(Miiseum nf Montpellier.)

ART IN FRANCE

accuracy; for the "local colour" of historians is merely retro-
spective realism.

Thus Delacroix's world is marvellously coherent and harmonious,
in spite of its strangeness. In his nature, which is not that in which
we live, sky, plants, rocks and animals, flesh and draperies participate
in a kind of feverish exaltation and ardent melancholy. This world
is the projection of his soul, the translation of his temperament into
images. " The most real things in me are the illusions I create
with my painting." His own emotions, and those of his time, live
in his pictures. The impressions of a student of romantic literature
become a sort of instantaneous illustration in his work ; he gives us

visions of Dante, dramas
of Shakespeare or Goethe,
poems of Byron, novels of
Walter Scott, and then the
events which stirred the
hearts of the first genera-
tions of the century ; the
heroic struggle of the little
Greek nation against the
Turks, the flag of 1830
rising through the smoke
over the barricades of
paving-stones ; mediaeval
visions, vivid as pages of
Michelet, battles, Nancy,
Taillebourg, Constanti-
nople, and a quantity of
mediaeval and modern scenes, Gothic or Revolutionary halls,
tumultuous welters in which the colour yells, and the drawing is
dislocated by furious gestures ; then the East, that Morocco where
he had travelled and seen fantasies of horsemen, where he had
divined the drowsy harems and the innumerable wild beasts, the
lions and tigers which roar at us from his little canvases. The
setting for these convulsive bodies is a tragic landscape, a green
and glassy sea, a lowering sky, the lurid twilight of storm and
massacre. Finally, when he undertook large decorative composi-
tions, Delacroix was able to express modern and living ideas, never
borrowed from the conventional store-house of allegory, but so full
of thought that they might have appeared irreconcilable with the
genius of painting. In the middle of the Galerie d'Apollon in the
Louvre, on that ceiling dedicated by Le Brun to the glorification of

322

FIG. 645. — DELACKOIX. THE TAKING OK
CONSTANTINOrLE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

FIG. 646. — GEK'ICAUI.T.
AT El'SOM.

HONSE-NACE

(The Lousre, Paris.)

the Sun King, he produced a sumptuous decoration, worthy of the
Doges, and at the same time he expanded the victorj^ of the God
of Light over the Python
into a magnificent symbol.
Rubens would, no doubt,
have given greater free-
dom in the movement,
greater splendour in the
colour ; but he would
never have conceived the
tragic forms that writhe
m the primeval slime.

This lyric painter loved
colour for its emotional
power ; it sprang from
his imagination charged
with passion, like a
musical rhythm or a cry.
His picture is no arrangement of correctly posed figures ; in the
first sketch there are patches of colour which represent storm,
calm, melancholy, terror or horror ; skilful drawing is an impersonal
thing, like a well-reasoned argument, but colour is as individual as
the sound of the voice. Delacroix loved it brilliant and sumptuous,

in the manner of Venice or
Antwerp ; but he had an
exasperated sensibility and
an uneasiness of mind which
prevented his songs from
rising in those clear and
joyous accents. He did
not care for frank tones or
simple harmonies, but
essayed broken lints, purple-
reds, greenish-blucs ; there
IS no colour in the prism
with which he did not try
strange combinations and
subtle contrasts ; his femi-
nine carnations, blond and
pale, are drowned in a
kind of milky mist, and in his penumbra he gels the soft translucence
of a fine pearl. Sometimes he strikes a harsh, metallic note ; in

323 Y 2

FIG. 647. — DICI.ACKIIIX. IIAT'II.E
OK TAII.I.EIIOUKG.

(Museum of Versailles.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 648. — VICTOR HUGO. THE FORTRESS. ^

(Victor Hugo's House, P.-iris.) (Washed Drawing.)

Other passages the colours neutrahse each other, dulled by an
intermixture in which cunning dissonances make themselves felt.

His hand trembles at
times, and the brush deals
slashing, staccato strokes,
and does not always find
the right, all-expressive
touch at once. When
the composition is peace-
ful, we are shocked by
the recurrent inaccuracies,
the uncertainty and mono-
tony of the forms, the
vague involved folds of
heavy stuffs which do not
drape the limbs or indicate
their movements, the ex-
aggerated arch of the horses' necks, and their plunging hoofs, faces
seen in profile on shoulders seen from behind, and kindred extrava-
gances. But when Delacroix is fired by his inspiration, his painting
is swift and sure as a flash of lightning. Examine one of his little
Arab fantasies ; the horses bound like griffins among the fluttering
burnouses ; everything crackles, sparkles, caraco'.es and plunges ;

the form agrees with the gesture,
I ' limbs are twisted or stretched out ;

the wild beasts that he painted
with such delight, lions and tigers
rushing upon their prey or battling
with huntsmen and horses, are like
forces let loose.

Delacroix attempted a paradox
when he tried to make painting
lyrical like poetry and music ;
painting and sculpture are dedicated
to the representation of the external
world. Our own visual experience
forces us at every moment to correct
the painter's fancy, and instinctively,
we feel it to be intolerable that
reality, which is common property,
should be treated according to
the caprice of a fevered dreamer.

FlC. 649. — .M^RYON. THE STRYGE.

(Bibliothcque Nationale, Print Room.)

324

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

Delacroix's art, with its partial failure, reveals the mind of a poet of
genius. His explosive sensibility created a new manner of seeing,
but one too individual and special to become general. Hence
Delacroix, who determined so many artistic vocations, never formed
a pupil ; he cou'd substitute nothing for the traditional method of
the Classicists. At the end of his lil^e, his painting excited even
more hostility than at the beginning. In the very thick of the
Romantic fray, contemporaries were unable to distinguish the
provocations of the turbulent, and the skilful adaptations of
the eclectics from the audacities of the real innovators. Delacroix s
personality was not very clearly
defined among the group of
rebels. But the little band was
gradually sifted ; Boulanger,
Deveria, and many others, fail-
mg to produce their promised
masterpieces, were soon for-
gotten. Delaroche, whose
Gothic accessories had caused
him to be taken for a Roman-
ticist, betrayed the prudence of
his temperament and the aca-
demic character of his education
more and more clearly. Ary
Scheffer seemed at first full of
German sentimentality ; but he
spoke in abstract terms, as if he
desired to show souls through
transparent bodies, and he natur-
ally found himself at last in the
camp of the Classicists (Fig. 661). Delacroix finished the race
begun thirty years earlier with a youtliful ardent throng quite alone.
He had preserved his lyrical fire to the end, although the Romantic
fever around him had long subsided.

But about the year 1 830. the pulses of France beat fiercely.
The burning and lurid imagination of Romanticism did not always
achieve important works ; it found exuberant expression in small
illustrations. The novel art of lithography, and the revivified art of
wood-engraving, a few lines, a few shadows, revealed the delirious
visions of certain artists better than painting or sculpture. In some
old romantic books, the drawings of Celestin Nanteuil, Gigoux,
Johannot, Deveria and even Delacroix startled the classical reader.

325

V\l,. 650. — DEVitHlA. SKETCH FOR THE

UIKTH OK HENKV IV.

(Museum ("f Moiitpellier.)

ART IN FRANCE

riG. 651. — DI-XAMl"^. THI'; liELL-KINGEKS.

(The Luusre, Paris.)-

Here also the linear anatomy
of Girodet and Flaxman, the
long figures of Achilles and
Agamemnon, were replaced by
personages m picturesque Gothic
garments, with violent gestures,
mournful poets, fond lovers,
jealous assassins, executioners,
dungeons, masked faces ; then
there was the macabre style, the
dead rising from tombs, grinning
skeletons, witches on broom-
sticks ; hell opened its gates,
and m this little world of the
illustrator, devils were as
numerous as Cupids had been
in the time of Boucher.

While the battle was raging

between Classicists and Romanticists, Decamps (1803-1860) won
universal admiration with his little robustly-painted pictures. Like
the Romanticists, he showed himself a colounst, and a lover of
rare effects ; like them, he was attracted by the vision of the East.
But his temperament had none of the fiery passion of Delacroix.
Sometimes he seems to have been thinking of Rembrandt, and
sometimes of Chardin. But he suppressed emotion, thought,
history, and even nature ; or rather, he took from the material
world only certain small aspects, so fragmentary and so individual
that they seem to be merely
pretexts for his technical
essays. He gets an equal
amount of picturesque
effect from a smoky garret
or a tragic landscape,
from a piece of wall with
a few beggars' rags, and
from jagged, bloodshot
clouds lowering over burn-
ing rocks (Figs. 65 1 , 652).
Marilhat also loved the
torrid East ; he built
up solid landscapes with
shattered rocks and

KIC. 652. — UKCA.MI'S. CHII.DNUN COMlNti OUT
()!•■ A TUUKISH SCHdOl..

(Miis^e des Arts d^coratifs, Paris.)

326

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

FIG. 653. — INGRES.
THE VOW OF I.OUIS XIII.

(Cathedral of Montauban.)
{Photo. Xeurdein.)

majestic ruins. But he died young,
before he had learned to illuminate his
solid colour. At that same Salon of
1 824, where the younger painters flocked
to admire the Massacre of Scio, a pupil
of David's, Jean-Baptiste Dominique
Ingres (1780-1867), who had been for
some time in Italy, also made a brilliant
success with his Vow of Louis XIII.
We are accustomed to look upon Ingres
as the successor of David ; but all he
had derived from David was his position
as the head of the traditional school ; no
doubt there was room within this school
for more than one ideal, for the master
and pupil were far from agreeing. The
Classicists sought for a beauty somewhat
mannered and Alexandrine, the thea-
trical elegance of the Belvedere Apollo,
or the mincing prettiness of the Venus
de' Medici ; Ingres, on the contrary, was very sensible of the
charm of the primitive schools, when art, absorbed in the desire
for truth, had no idea of effacing the characteristic accent. Th
admirable draughtsman made it a
rule to copy the human body and
actual draperies ; in his purest
contours, the line preserves the
nervous force of life. The art of
David depersonalises figures ; that
of Ingres strips them of their
material character, but not of
their individuality. His (Edipus.
a contemporary of the heroes of
Guerin and Girodet, has neither
the Grecian profile nor the
rounded limbs of an antique
marble. Ingres felt himself more
akin to the Italian primitives than
to the Graeco-Roman sculptors,
and many persons were wonder-
ing at his realism, when Delacroix
made his appearance. Then

FIG. 654. — INCiKFS.
MAKTYKno.M OF SAINT SV.MI'HORIEN.

(Cathedral of Autuii.)
{Photo. JVeiiidcin.)

2>21

ART IN FRANCE

Pans, with no
settling in the

FIG. 655.^

-IN'GRES. APOTHEOSIS OF HOMF.R.

(The IjOuvre, Paris.)

Ingres felt himself called upon to be the apostle of the beautiful,
in opposition to him whom he called the apostle of the ugly. Never
were two temperaments more antagonistic, and as each wielded
considerable authority, this antagonism became a doctrinal rivalry.

Delacroix's art is the troubled reflection of all the passions
of his day. Ingres despised his own age ; he came back from

Italy to
idea of

French capital ; a success
kept him there, and a
failure drove him away ;
like Poussin, his dream
was to retire to Rome, the
city of ruins and of history.
There, lost in the contem-
plation of his own ideal, he
would gladly have forgot-
ten the world. Delacroix
showed Greece weeping
over smoking ruins, or
Liberty victorious on the
barricades. While shots were flying in the street below, Ingres sat at
his window, and touched his Venus Anadyomene with a loving brush.
Vibrating to every breath of passion, carried away by the im-
pression of a moment, Delacroix cried : " I begin to paint a woman,
and I make a lion." Late in life Ingres finished a study begun in
his youth, and in this Source we can discover no discord between
inspiration and method. Delacroix was always inventing, and
would not tolerate imitation. Ingres imitated continually either
nature or the old masters, and believed there was no such thing
as invention. He exhibited an Apotheosis of Homer which was
designed to be a kind of Credo for his classical religion ; it
represents great artists and writers doing homage to the poet
of the Iliad and the Odyssey for the works with which he had
inspired them. However, neither Ingres nor Delacroix felt it
essential to make his art conform to the aesthetic doctrine he had
adopted. Ingres talked a great deal about principles, and laid
down axioms acceptable to the Classicists of every age, but, like
any Romanticist, he obeyed the intimate promptings of his
genius. No doubt he lacks profundity, if we compare him with
Delacroix. We may admit that his culture was not of a very
high order, that his intelligence was limited, that he had neither

328

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

FK",. 656. — INGRES. MME. DEVAICAV.

(Condti Museum, Cliantilly.)
{Photo. Ncurdein.)

strong sensibilities, nor a rich
imagination. But if he seems a
little narrow, it is because he
was too exclusively an artist ; he
thought nothing in the world
could compete with the sweep
of a beautiful line. He aspired
to make every work that left his
hands a feast of perfection for
the eye, like a piece of exquisite
chasing, or an antique cameo ; and
whereas Delacroix dashed off his
sketches with an impatient brush.
Ingres, in spite of the prodigious
dexterity of his pencil, repeated a
motive again and again before he
attacked its final form. Ingres
had tasted the secret satisfaction
of sinuous lines drawn by a master
hand in the works of the great Renaissance draughtsmen, and it
is easy to recognise echoes of Leonardo and Raphael in his
Madonnas and his draped figures. He owes less to that antique
sculpture which had petrified David's painting ; for in sculpture the
silhouette is determined by the
modelling of the full form, and
Ingres, on the contrary, attenu-
ates the relief, while defining
the contours with extreme deli-
cacy. His first work, Qidipus,
still emphasised salient forms in
the Davidian manner, and in the
Saint Symphoricn there is a
lictor who is famous for his
sturdy muscular system (Fig.
654) ; but as a rule, Ingres
would not allow modelling
too emphatic to falsify the
supple continuity of his line.
The antique works to which
he owed most \vere the paint-
ings on vases, draughtsman's
paintings, touched with the

ll<;. 657. — INGRES. M.ME. UEI-OKME.

(Dr.awing). (The Louvre, Paris.)

329

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 658. — FI.ANDRIN
NAI'OLEON III.

(Museum of Versailles.)

point of a fine brush. In some
of his most exquisite small pic-
tures, the colour is diaphanous and
fluid that the figure maj' not
lose its linear lightness. Very often
he only drew his portraits, and
colour could only have added
heaviness to their elegant pre-
cision. Ingres combined the tren-
chant exactness of a Holbein with
the grace of the Florentines. We
cannot but admire the manner in
which he fixes reality with a few
strokes of the pencil, and informs
the majesty of a Greek drapery with
truth.

His rhythmical design was more
attuned to the round contours of
feminine nudity than to the salient
muscles of an athletic body. The limbs he draws show no
effort ; his favourite attitudes were those of an arm in repose,
or of a supple body reclining languidly. His preparatory sketches
return again and again to the inclination of a neck, the curve
of a shoulder, the pose of a hand upon a drapery. His best
portraits of women owe much of their elegance to the curve
which undulates from the line of the neck along the arm to

the finger-tips. The

face is less interest-
ing to him, for here
the modelling gave
less opportunity for
the exercise of his
sinuous elegance. He
executed admirable
portraits, but some-
what against the
grain, to make a
livelihood, or to
please his patrons.
He preferred to
imagine inflexions of hips, or breasts thrown forward by an
inclination of the head. The pictures in which he has put

330

I-IG. 659. — I\(;KRS. (IDAI.ISQUU.

(The I.ouvre, P.iris.)

Portrait of AI. Berlin.
Ingres. (The Louvre, Paris.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

IK^ 660. — INGRES.
l.A SOUKCE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

most of himself are simple nudities such
as the Odalisque or La Source ; his more
ambitious compositions are merely inter-
lacements of feminine bodies, like the Bain
Turc or the Age d Or. Ingres has given
us feminine attitudes of the most haunt-
ing grace : the divinely beautiful Virgin
in the Vow of Louis XIII ; the superbly
defiant Iliad at the feet of Homer, and
the dreamy Odyssey ; the fragile Stratonice.
shrinking as from a blow ; the Odalisques
stretching themselves languorously, or
drooping and weary ; the Source, fresh
and ingenuous, like some beautiful plant,
her lips parted like an opening flower ;
his feminine faces all have the astonished
candour of childhood ; the wide eyes look
out at the spectator without speculation or
anxiety.

But the head of a school could not confine himself to the painting
of Odalisques and portraits. Ingres had to set an example, and
to give French painters models of more ambitious compositions.
Although his imagmation did not rise to the conception of a vast
whole, he showed skill in linking
together a number of the figures
he drew with such perfection in
a common action. But the
Martyrdom of St. Symphoricn
lacks movement ; the gestures are
too ingeniously harmonised, and
the equilibrium is too perfect ;
there is an excess of discipline
in this drama. On the other
hand, Ingres had created an
enduring style of decorative
painting some years earlier in
his Apotheosis of Horner
(Fig. 655). This developed
throughout the entire nineteenth
century, and even now api^arently
it has not come to the end
of lis manifestations. Ingres,

in;. 661. — AtJV SCHr.l-l'EK.
S.\1N I Aldl sri\K AM) SAIN r MdNlC.V.

(I'lie Louvre, Paris.)

,331

ART IN FRANCE

I-U;. 662. — ['l.A.NDKIX. THE XATIVITV.
(Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pr6s, Paris.)

who had studied the artists of the fifteenth century for years in
Italy, modified the natural realism of oil-pamtmg to imitate the

somewhat abstract
sobriety of Florentine
frescoes. His composi-
tion is without depth,
without atmosphere, and
even without light. The
symmetrically arranged
figures take attitudes
adapted to the tranquil
lines of architecture, like
the figures in a very flat
bas-relief. The colours
are generalised, the forms
immaterial, the figures
without movement, the
textures without reflec-
tions, the flesh without
life ; a serene elegance and an icy purity mark the work. Although
Ingres thus unfolded all the resources of his marvellous drawing,
although he recognised that realism in colour and effects of relief
were to be avoided, he never worked out his process to its logical
conclusion, by giving the delicate pallor of fresco to his general tone.
His pupils continued to colour without charm elegant or merely
correct silhouettes, until the day when Puvis de Chavannes com-
pleted this beauty
of line by the
poetry of a natural
illumination, and,
like Poussin before
him, set rhythmic
figures in a real
landscape.

Ingres lived to
see his decorative
style continued by
his pupils, Amaury ,
Duval, Mottez,
and above all,
Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864). The numerous religious works
executed under the Monarchy of July and the Second Empire

332

FIG. 663.

-LKTHlEkE. ISKLTUS CONDEMNINti

(The Louvre, Paris.)

HIS SON.

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

l-U,. 0(34. — LdUriKH. I HK KeMANS
OF THK DECADENCE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

repeat the Apotheosis of Homer. The fauhs of this manner
become very apparent in the disciples ; coldness is not the least
of these ; m the work
of these correct and
skilful draughtsmen we
note the dawn of an
affectation of simplicity,
which gradually led
them to imitate the
primitives. The best
of these disciples, how-
ever, Flandrin, put an
ardent faith into his
somewhat melancholy
eloquence. His com-
positions in Saint-
Germain-des-Pres are
set side by side with the barbarous sculptures of the Romanesque
capitals, the colour of which was restored at this period. Thus
the two chronological extremes of Christian art were juxtaposed.
When we glance from the elegant correctness of the modern to the
awkward and heavy application of the primitive, we see that the
expressive power of art is far from increasing in proportion to skill.
Flandrin lacked nothing that is essential to the religious painter,

not even the faith of
Fra Angelico ; but his
art seems a very fragile
calligraphy upon this
o 1 d Romanesque
masonry (Fig. 662).

The pupils of David,
and later those of
Ingres, had at first
sought only the phan-
toms that wander
among the ruins during
their sojourn in Italy.
It required an unpre-
tentious painter like
Hubert Robert to
take pleasure in the picturesqucncss of actual men and things, or
a poet of light like Claude Lorrain to forget the mementos of the

333

Kl<;. 665. — IlllU'ACE VERNET.

THE TAKlNi; OE TFlli SMAI.A (fKACMENi),

(Museum of \'ersailles.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 666. — LEdl'OLD KOUEKI'. AkKlVAL
OF HAHVESTEKS IN THE I'ONTINE MARSHES.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

antique. Nevertheless,
more than one of the
students of the French
Academy m Rome, and
sometimes even the
Director himself, felt the
fascmation of their Italian
models so strongly that
they forgot to transform
them mto Madonnas and
heroes. Schnetz, Leopold
Robert (Fig. 666), and
Hebert have given us
images of the Roman
herdsman and the fisherman of the Adriatic. The most absolute
idealists w^ere able to compromise with realities more easily in Italy
than elsewhere. In this nature, which is everywhere permeated
with history, in the midst of a people whose finest types have sat as
models to the masters for centuries, even naturalistic painting seems
to be touched with classical poetry ; a mythological soul hovers
over the Campagna, and the dancing Neapolitan soon appears
a faun.

Painting reflected the curiosity with which the minds of men
turned to the Middle Ages in the reign of Louis Philippe. The
mediaeval subject was not the exclusive property of the Romantic
School ; the last of the Davidians, Ingres and his pupils, depicted

the Middle Ages no less
freely than antiquity. The
July Monarchy had turned
the palace of Versailles into
a museum of French history.
All the contemporary paint-
ers were called upon to
produce in haste vast com-
positions celebrating the
glorious events of that
history from the baptism
of Clovis to the conquest
of Algeria. This series
naturally included a number
of Napoleonic paintings and
works of the School of

FIG. 667. — DELAKOCHE.
THE I'KINCES IN THE TOWER.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

334

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

Le Brun, for Louis XIV and Napoleon had not left the glorification
of their exploits to their successors. Nearly all the French painters
took part in the undertaking, and its pictures are by no means all
masterpieces. Yet it is to this enterprise that we owe two of
Delacroix's great works, the Battle of Taillebourg and the
Crusaders at Constantinople, the one seething with fury, the other
full of a kind of grandiose melancholy (Figs. 645, 647).

Horace Vernet (1789-1863), a facile painter and skilful illus-
trator, was among the most gifted of these artistic chroniclers. His
innumerable military pictures are like the spirited tale of a trooper,
relating heroic actions and camp
adventures with the same simpli-
city and good humour (Fig. 665).
But Paul Delaroche ( I 797- 1 856)
IS the most representative of these
artists who devoted themselves
to the illustration of history. He
satisfied the curiosity of the
readers and auditors of Augustin
Thierry, Guizot or Barante,
giving a body, a physiognomy
and a plausible costume to various
illustrious personages : Elizabeth
of England, Charles I, Cromwell,
Henry III, Richelieu. He had
a talent for theatrical representa-
tion, and real skill in awakening
curiosity or anxiety by showing,
not the catastrophe itself, but the
episodes leadmg up to it, or its
epilogue. This dexterous stage-manager greatly interested the
bourgeoisie of the time of Louis Philippe, and he never shocked
it by any Romantic truculence ; his correct technique delighted
the lovers of the golden mean, and they admired in him a
chastened Delacroix, just as in Delavigne they hailed a more
tranquil Victor Hugo. Tony Robert Fleury also painted the
Middle Ages or the Renaissance, expressing the sentiment of its
personages with some dramatic force and with stronger colour than
Delaroche. Isabey, a less ambitious artist, was content to make the
light flicker on the velvet and satin of his pretty puppets, and to
concentrate the sumptuous colour of the great Venetian and Mcmish
decorators in little figures.

335

l-Ki. 65i. — DKL.VKUCHK.
ISONAl'.XKIE ON MOUNT SAINT-BEKNARIJ.

(Windsor Castle.)

ART IN FRANCE

It was the educated middle classes who read the eloquent pages
of history written by Delaroche ; but there was a much larger
public for the drawings of Raffet and Daumier. Below the more
pompous works flourished a popular imagery, direct, violent and
rapid as life itself. Fixed by lithography, it preserves the emotions
and the passions of a feverish time. Without Charlet and Raffet,
we should not have realised how Orleanist France was haunted
by memories of the Revolution and the Empire, how popular the
volunteers in wooden shoes of 1 793, the grenadiers of the Grande
Armee, the conscripts of 1814, and the Emperor on his white
horse, in his little cocked hat and his riding coat, continued to be.

The theme of the grumb-
hng veteran occurs fre-
quently m the works of
the official painter, Horace
Vernet ; but his lucid and
brilliant pictures have less
poetry than those murky
engravings where
Raffet shows us squares
of infantry against which
the cavalry dash like
waves against rocks, or
massive, swarming bat-
talions advancing at the
double (Fig. 669).

Lithography played an
active polemical part
throughout this period ; actual as the newspaper article, it was
freely employed in the political battles that were waged under the
Monarchy of July. A few years of relative liberty, from 1830 to
1835, sufficed to make Louis Philippe one of the most caricatured
figures in history. Decamps and Daumier expressed the general
hatred of the fallen king, Charles X, and of Louis Philippe,
the improvised king who had emerged from a popular Revolution.
Henri Monnier created Joseph Prudhomme, the commercial
bourgeois, puffed up with his own importance, and stupefied by
philosophical pretensions, the expansive imbecile who dies without
any inkling that he is nothing but a pompous fool. Gavarni s
nervous hand recorded fashionable life, the festivities of carnival
time, the Bohemia of the student, and the conjugal misfortunes of
the National Guard. Daumier in particular has left us powerful

336

FIG. 669. — RAFFET. THE R^VEILL^.
(l.ITHOGRAI'H.)

(liililiotheiiue Nationale, Print Room.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

I'lC: 670. — CHARLET. im-: Aimv
IN AFRICA. (LITHOGKArH.)

(I'.iMiotheqiie Nationale, Print Room.)

and atrocious images of society, of

the king and his rateable bourgeoisie

busily directing a revolution by

which they hoped to live, but

which was to destroy them.

Daumier treated the human figure

with astonishing audacity ; his

irritable extravagance reveals a

temperament still essentially ro-
mantic ; he deformed, twisted,

elongated or inflated bodies and

faces, to show character or empha-
sise a type. These great carica-
turists were the precursors of the

realists. Orleanist society lives

again with Monnier's Joseph

Prudhomme, Gavarni's Lorette,

Daumier 's Ventre Legislatif and

Robert Macaire, the precursors of his later type, the famous

Rataplan, imperialist agent. The grotesque Romanticist prepared

the way for the dull ugliness of realism.

Classicists and Romanticists, in spite of their divergences, had

this in common, that they were one and all painters of the studio,

the museum, or the reception-
room. Boucher had shown how
to decorate a panel for a boudoir,
David how to colour an antique
hero, Ingres how to draw a living
model, Delacroix how to ma-
terialise brilliant fictions ; no one
had, so far, recommended paint-
ers to go and set up their easels
in the open air, not even Joseph
Vernet. Classical idealism had
omitted landscape. And yet
writers had been describing Nature
for years ; a novel sentimentality
was manifesting itself in connec-
tion with rural aspects. It is a
production of extreme civilisation.
We never feel the full value of
liberty till we are deprived of it.
337 z

FIC;. 671. — (i.WAK.M. (1,1 ] H()(.K.\1'H.)
"mR. 6.\I1LK JOI.IHlllS?"

"vEs, ns I."
(liibliolhoque Nationals, Prim Room.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 672. — DAUMIER.
THE DIVORCERS. (LITHOGRAl'H.)

(Bibliotheque Nationale, Print Room.)

The Parisians, above all, were in
love with the trees and fields they
had lost. Among these citizens
who loved to escape to the out-
skirts of the capital, there were
some painters.

The first of the men who
attempted to paint the country,
obscure artists, unnoticed by their
contemporaries, did not venture
far from the city ; they stopped
at the first halting-place of the
stage-coach, and brought back
some view of Meudon or Vin-
cennes ; in these Pans is always
on the next incline of the horizon ;
solitary and silent Nature is not
suggested as yet. But romantic
poetry taught men to see a reflection of their own passions in
landscape ; many of those who first painted it, seem concerned
to render spiritual states when they represented clouds or trees.
At first the difficulties were of a technical order. Foliage, clouds
and distant horizons were novel
objects for these painters of history
or portraits. When at the end of
the reign of Louis XVI, perfectly
sincere artists had attempted to copy
grass and water from Nature, they
nad found only dull, non-translucent
colour on their palettes. The audac-
ity of Delacroix and the fantasies of
the Romanticists had at least shown
that colour could be freely treated.
Instead of spreading it like plaster,
neatly glazed, Delacroix, when he
painted the Massacre of Scio, juxta-
posed brilliant tints and frank touches,
leaving the eye to harmonise these
vivid tones. Delacroix had already
been inspired by the English land-
scape painters ; the French landscape
painters profited by his example.

338

fig. 673. — deveria.

woman in bali, dress.

(lithograph.)

(Rouart Collection.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

FIG. 674. — GAVAKNI. GUISETTES.
(LITHOGRArH.)

(liibKothcque Nationale, Print Room.)

But Delacroix was essentially a

history-painter ; and his style, like

that of the Classicists, was better

fitted for the treatment of figures

and draperies than for that of

serrated foliage, vaporous clouds

or aspects of the soil.

That which we call "Nature"

is a thing of extraordinary com-
plexity, and the French painters

of this " Nature " would, no doubt,

have been more tentative in their

researches if the Dutchmen of the

seventeenth century had not com-
posed admirable landscapes before

their time. The first generation

of French landscape painters was

of the Dutch family ; they were

sincere and clear-sighted ; but distant memories dominate their

individual work. Until the time of the Impressionists, we shall

recognise the vision of the masters of Amsterdam and Harlem in

the manner of choosing and arranging a scene.

The first efforts of landscape were hesitating. A forgotten artist,

Georges Michel, shows a powerful sincerity in spite of a somewhat

rugged technique. Slate-
grey clouds over a russet
landscape give the environs
of Montmartre the melan-
choly majesty of a Ruysdael
(Fig. 678). A vague senti-
mentality or romantic dreams
troubled the sight of many a
painter. They could not yet
look frankly at clouds and
trees. Paul Huet's nature
IS as emotional as that of
Delacroix. The landscape
IS observed more conscien-
tiously ; but the painter has
done his utmost to give it
a sentimental tone and a
meditative cast. Sometimes
339 z 2

I'IG. 675. — DAUMIKK. THE KOHIiEKS
AND THE ASS.

(Tl'.e I.ouvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. f 76. — MAlilLllAT. RUIN'S Ol-" TllIC .M<IS(Jl].:
OF CALIl'H HAKE.M, AT CAIUO.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

he shows it tender and spring-like ; but he preferred its more tragic
aspects, an inundation in a winter landscape, or the fury of waves

in a storm (Fig. 679).
Others, like Cabat, suf-
fered from their Poussm-
esque aspirations. He
sought to give an eternal
aspect to changing images,
and his trees and clouds
make the impression of
mythological scenes. A
De la Berge, on the other
hand, painted a tree as
it would appear through
a magnifying glass,
laboriously reproducing its
foliage and the accidents
of its bark, looking too attentively at the object to see it, and painting
too conscientiously to paint well.

By the year 1830, however, a young man, Corot (1796-1875),
had made great progress in the discovery of Nature and its pictur-
esque qualities, because he was not embarrassed by the thousand
difficulties which arrested more than one painter. He did not
belong to the group of painters known as the School of Fontaine-
bleau ; he outstripped them all, after starting from historical land-
scape, in the manner of Aligny, and of his master, Bertm. In his
long and prolific life, Corot
certainly varied his effects,
but he always reduced the
most complex landscape to
the delicate gradations of
luminous values. Local
colours were subdued or
effaced, that they might
not disturb his subtle
modulations. Even in
the full light, a diaphan-
ous mist veils the verdure
of Nature, and though his
light IS limpid, it caresses
objects and never defines them sharply. It is nearly always the
light of twilight or dawn, when oblique rays cast large vague

340

FK;. 677. — ISAISEY. VIEW OF DIEPrK.

(Museum, Nancy.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

FIG. 678. — G. MICHF.L. ENVIRONS

OK MONTMARTRE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

shadows, shadows which are never opaque, just as the hght is
never bnlhant. In his latest works, the shadows become even

hghter and more subtle ;
the vaporous haze is shot
with silver sparks and
satiny gleams, a wet leaf
or the smooth white bark
of some tree shines through
it. Thus the same scale
of values — independent of
material colours — serves
to represent the dry land-
scape of Umbria, and the
rainy district of Picardy,
and thus Corot was able,
in all sincerity, to confound
in his memory the Lake
of Albano and the pond
of Ville d'Avray, the
Tuscan chalk and the fogs of the He de France. The very nymphs
and fauns, which his more majestic landscapes seem to conjure up
spontaneously, appear as phantoms, luminous and flickering as
shreds of mist torn by the breeze and dancing among moonbeams.
The manner of Corot, which was that of Claude Lorrain. and was
to be that of Cazin and Pointelin, appeals more strongly to the soul
than any other. While
some attempt to repro-
duce Nature faithfully, or
seek to give it a senti-
mental aspect, Corot looks
at it frankly, but retains
only its immaterial ele-
ments, its light and atmo-
sphere. This reality, sim-
plified, spiritualised, fixed
in the memory, and blurred
by our faculties of forget-
fulness, IS already a dream
(Figs. 680 683).

Corot, confronted \\ith
the most complex scene, at once found a pure and supple melody
which expressed its very spirit. Rousseau (1812-1867), on the

341

l-'l(. 679. — lIUKr. INUNDAIIDN AT SAINT-CM (LI).
(Tile I.iunro, P.nis.)

ART IN FRANCE

contrary, dispersed himself, so to speak, in the infinity of Nature ;
he desired to seize a complete image of it, and applied himself with
all his energies to the rendering of its varied aspects, the plains of
the Landes, the rocks of Auvergne, and above all, the ancient oaks
of the forest of Fontainebleau. His manner is difficult to define,
partly because the painter put little of his personality into his work,
and partly because it follows reality with its variations. The only
characteristic common to all his works is a grave and fervent, almost
a religious, application. He allows himself to be enticed by the
forest, and he loses his way in it, like Hop o' my Thumb ; the
perpetual indecision which does honour to his artistic conscience
spoilt a great part of his work. His vision seizes too many small

details ; he hesitates
before bushes, moss and
foliage. He established
himself in the forest of
Fontainebleau to paint
the old oaks. His pic-
tures do not always tell
us the hour, nor even the
season, for light sheds
a changeful lustre over
things, and Rousseau was
intent on getting likeness,
that IS to say, a permanent
character. When he
paints a tree, he shows
us the whole of it, its
age, the grain of the wood, the rugged trunk, which has suffered
so much on the rocky soil, the gnarled branches struggling upwards
to the light, and the dense, mysterious foliage no sunbeam can
penetrate. He notes how some over-heavy branch was torn off
in a storm, how some forest giant was shattered, and now lifts
only a yellowing stump to the sky. Rousseau was, of course,
inspired by the trees of Ruysdael and Hobbema ; but did these
Dutchmen bring such fidelity, such a passion of exactitude to bear
upon their reproductions of Nature ? They have left no such
varied gallery, no such powerful portraits of forest personalities
(Figs. 684, 685).

Not far from Rousseau, Diaz was also at work in the forest. In
the half light that filters through foliage, a ray piercing the dark
thicket sometimes kindles a spark on the damp grass, the velvet

342

— COK()T. SOUVE.NrU Ob' ITALY.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

mosses, the gold of dead leaves or the silver bark of birches ; to
Diaz this spectacle was full of such mystery and wonder that he
was led astray from the path of artistic probity by a kind of
chromatic intoxication. The most austere aspects of Nature are
rich enough to kindle the imagination of the colourist. Her copyists
of this type are apt to forget her in the delight they get from the
variations she inspires ; more than once, we shall see the robust
trunk of naturalistic art bearing stray branches which put forth
delicious but barren flowers.

Jules Dupre's art, on the other hand, was vigorous. He was
not content merely to record an episodic, curious, or amusing
effect ; he composes strongly, and sacrifices a host of details to a
robust general effect ; his
large masses are well
placed, the most brilliant
lights in the centre, the
whole solid and compact.
In his fat impasto, we
divine, as in the works of
Decamps, a complicated
chemistry, learned com-
binations by means of
which the utmost is won
from colour. Deep greens
merge into russet tones,
with a strong yet gentle
effect, as in the autumn
woods. The sketch from Nature was transformed in the studio ;
a tree, a house, a Hock of sheep, the simple realistic motive, was
amplified and isolated, till it took on an august majesty ; an exact
study of landscape soon became a romantic scene (Figs. 688, 690).

Younger artists, such as Chintreuil and Daubigny, no longer had
to play the part of pioneers ; the road was less rugged for them, for
others had passed along it. Their work has the smiling charm of
painless achievement. Chintreuil is pure, spring-like, and luminous ;
like the Impressionists who came long after hmi, his palette con-
sisted solely of high tones (Fig. 689). Daubigny's work is im-
pregnated with the freshness of the fields ; a strong sap seems to
stir in his opulent technique, which is facile and serene as fertile
soil ; the general effect is always gentle, though the brush some-
times affected a certain roughness ; the handling is free to the
verge of extravagance, though the painter approached more and

343

I-IG. 6Sl. — COKIIT. THH I'DNDS

.\T ville-d'.wkay.
(Museum, Rouen.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 682. — COROT. THE ARRAS ROAD.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

more closely to strict exactitude. Some of these landscapes sug-
gest an instantaneous impression by their elliptical execution.

Daubigny is more espe-
cially the painter of quiet
valleys, rich, flower-
spangled pastures, and
softly-flowing rivers,
which reflect the wide
sky above them, and the
poplars on their banks,
the landscape, which a
dreamy oarsman contem-
plates as he drifts along
the current of the stream.
His Nature promises de-
light, and gives a sense of
well-being. In Corot's
landscapes, we sometimes
see a fluting shepherd ; in Daubigny's, we always divine the fisher-
man and his rod (Figs. 686, 691).

Among these landscape painters there were animal painters, as
in Holland. They were not content to place their flocks in
meadow-lands ; their sheep and cattle became the principal motive
of the composition. Brascassat painted red and white bulls, sleek
and lustrous as chestnuts bursting from their shells. Charles
Jacques' sheep, on the other hand,
are dull and woolly ; they are
by a master who was thoroughly
familiar with the flock, who un-
derstood its manner of huddling
together and scattering, who knew
the true place of shepherd and
dog, etc. (Fig. 692). Troyon's
animals are more ambitious, and
aim at a stronger effect ; the bulk
of his grazing cattle is set majestic-
ally against the horizon, and the
landscape, without being alto-
gether insignificant, is skilfully
subordinated to them (Fig. 693).
At this point, about the middle
of the nineteenth century, we
may close this first chapter of

344

1"IG. 683. — COROT. THE BELFRY AT
DOUAI.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

i-u;. 6s4. — kousseau. the chakchal-

buknek's hut.

(Gould Collection.)

the history of French landscape ; it was what we may call the
Dutch period ; in execution, in choice of subject, and in dimensions,
these so-called masters
of the School of Fon-
tainebleau are closely
akin to the masters of
Harlem and the Hague.
But the French School
was not to remain con-
stant to this first form.
Landscape is dear to
artists who would rather
observe than invent, and
too great an aptitude for
copying paralyses painting
and shortens the life of a
school. When they had
completed the portrait of
their country, the Dutchmen laid aside their brushes. French land-
scape, on the contrary, continued its evolution ; it did not remain
a limited genre. Inanimate objects had only existed in relation to
man ; but landscape was to encroach even upon the prerogative
of man ; his personality was to be dissipated in the mirage of light
and the reflection of things ; landscape was to transform all
painting, and to renovate our visual habits.

Sculpture is less impressionable than painting ; technical and
material necessities impose a slow continuity on this art, even in

periods of violent revolu-

I ^ tion. At the close of

the eighteenth century,
sculptors had not felt the
influences of idealism and
of archaeology to the
same degree as painters.
Roman heroes had
already long taken the
place of Boucher's shep-
herds, when Pajou and
Houdon were still model-
ling their sparkling and
voluptuous figures. But
sculpture could not con-
tinue to express sentiments

'^^^:;'y"-^^^^^^

FIG.. 685

-ROUSSEAU. THE SUNLIT OAK.

(Mesdag Collection.)

345

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 686. — DAUBIGNV. THE BANKS OF THE OISE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

which no longer existed. Houdon, Pajou and Clodion felt their
ardour gradually dying down m the icy atmosphere of Davidian

art. When they chiselled
the exploits of the Grande
Armee in bas-reliefs for
the Arc du Carrousel, or
raised a statue to the
modern Caesar, they
adopted the generalised
form and commonplace
rotundity which painting
had lately accepted as
akin to the antique. The
architecture of the Empire
had brought back into
favour the decorative panel in very low, but clearly defined relief,
which had been popular with the decorators of the Renaissance.
More than one Victory erected in honour of Napoleon is obviously
akin to the allegories of Jean Goujon. But sculpture had no David
then to animate the uniform majesty of this style with vigorous
sentiments. Chaudet, Bosio, and the Italian Canova, who worked
for Napoleon, have left no such image of the heroism of the period
as The Distribution of the Eagles, or the Battle Field of Eylau.
Here, again, sculptors were baffled by the difficulties of representing
modern costume. They were so much under the spell of antiquity,

so confident in their
principles, that they
accepted the worst con-
sequences of these, and
were not shocked by
Chaudet's Napoleon in
a toga, Canova's Napo-
leon naked as the
Borghese Mars, and
generals of the Republic
or of the Empire as
scantily draped as
Apollos. Realistic epochs
prefer the ugliness of
modern costume to this
absurd nudity. There is in sculpture a kind of antinomy which
seems difficult to resolve ; an inert costume is offered to this art,

346

FIG. 687. — DIAZ. LA MAKE AUX F^ES.
(the fairies' I'OOL.)

(Ciould Collection.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

the function of which is the reproduction of living forms. Sculptors

have accordingly carved breast bones and not frock coats, shins and

not boots. It is only to

be regretted that they did

not more perfectly fix the

profound palpitation of the

life whose external forms

they modelled so carefully.

Sculpture, the language

of definite forms, lends

itself ill to the translation

of lyrical reverie. The

generation of sculptors

educated in the studios of

the Empire lived through

the Romantic agitation,

without any very marked

resulting transformation in their classical manner. They could not,

like the painters, change their dramatis persona, and abandon

Olympus for the misty divinities of Ossian ; the antique nudities

offered too many plastic resources to be sacrificed to Gothic knights

or ladies. Sculptors accordingly often demanded from Greek

muscles the expression of Romantic emotion.

Louis XVIII's Government merely commissioned Bosio and Lemot
to replace the figures of Henry IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV,

FIG. 6i8. — JULES UUl'KE. LclW TIDE.

{Photo. Giraudon.)

FIG. 689.— CHINTKEUIL. srACK.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

347

ART IN FRANCE

which had been shattered
simply restoration. The

during the Revolution ; this work was
Monarchy of July had very different
ambitions. The reign
of Louis Philippe pro-
duced more statues
than that of Louis
XiV, but the Citizen
King glorified the
nation, not the
monarchy ; works
which date from this
period are the Cities
of France seated round
the obelisk in the Place
de la Concorde, some
of the Heroes in the
fore-courts at Ver-
sailles, and the Women of France in the Luxembourg, a series of
mediocre statues which the charming framework of the garden
makes more attractive than many masterpieces.

Until this period sculpture, when not decorative, had been
religious, mythological, and monarchical ; now its function was to
be indefinitely extended. This art, reserved at first for the gods,
and then for kings, was now to consecrate the immortality of " great
men." No worship can subsist without images ; hero-worshin gave

FIG. 690. — J. DUl'KE. THK OLD OAK

(The Louvre, Paris.)

FIG. 6gl. — DAUBIGNV. SPRING.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

348

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

renewed vitality to sculpture. National subscriptions provided for
the erection of statues in every town which had given birth to a

victorious general, a ^ ^

scholar, an inventor or
an artist ; the history of
France was exploited by
sculptors as it had been
by painters in the gal-
leries of Versailles. The
Revolution, the Empire,
the age of Louis XIV,
the Renaissance, and
even the Middle Ages,
inspired innumerable
figures.

The artist who played

m^0iW^

FIG. 692. — CHAKI.ES JACi.iLES.

FLOCK OF SHEEI'.

(French Enibass}' at Derlin.)

the most important part in this national work was David d'Angers
(1788-1856). A Jacobin and a Classicist, like his namesake,
the painter of the Sabine women and Marat, he was passionately
devoted to the antique, and violently agitated by the political fury
of his day. His work is informed by an energy unparalleled before
him, in themes imitated from the Laocoon and the Belvedere Apollo.
In his pediment of the Pantheon (Fig. 697), France, supported by
Liberty and History, distributes crowns of immortality, and on either
side, scholars, artists, jurists, generals, Bonaparte and his grenadiers,
hold out their hands to

receive them. In this
triangle David summar-
ised the glorification in
which all France was
interested. He carved
a long series of statues
of " great men," and
with a few exceptions —
Racine at La Ferte
Milon, for instance —
he clothed them boldly
in modern costume.
His monumental figures
have enormous heads,
with agitated features, and the whole silhouette is full of movement.
David's numerous busts and medallions reveal a disciple of Gall,

349

Fi<;. 693.-

TKovoN. ()xi;n (;i>in(; out

TO l'I-OU<;H.

I(Tli.- I...iivre. Pari-;.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 694. — TROVOX. FEEDING 1'OUl.TKV.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

intent on showing the
marks of genius m the
features of the face and
the bumps of the skull ;
but these exercises in
phrenology astonish with-
out convincing ; such dis-
tortions of the face are
more appropriate to the
art of caricaturists like
Dantan or Daumier.

The famous group
carved by Rude for the
Arc de Triomphe de
I'Etoile was finished in
1837, the same year as the Pantheon pediment. Rude (1784-
1855) had an extraordinary power of forcing the human body to

suggest the frenzy of passion. There is an epic afflatus in his

otherwise classical work, and in his patriotic fervour he mingles

reminiscences of Leonidas and Napoleon, of Brutus and Mirabeau.
Rude continued to use the traditional language ; his volunteers

are Greek or Roman soldiers ; they are

not the moustached vagabonds of Raffet.

They march with a confidence one recog-
nises as irresistible ; and the artist has

given us an audacious revelation of their

spirit in the furious Marseillaise who yells

above their heads. This colossal group is

one of the few modern works in which a

collective soul is manifest ; before such an

image many a Frenchman must have felt a

heroic exaltation evoked as by the trumpets

of a war march. The humanity which in-
spired such works was full of the memories

of 1 793. Louis Philippe's government,

which repressed so many insurrections,

and demolished so many barricades, could

not stifle the explosion of revolutionary

art. After the lapse of nearly half a

century art immortalised the solemn

moment when the Revolution flew to arms,

the year of Valmy (Fig. 702).

FIG. 695. — JOUFFKoy.

A VOl'NG CTRL TEI-I.ING HEK

FIRST SECRET TO VENUS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

350

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

Louis Philippe contributed to the imperial apotheosis ; the
Emperor played his part in this glorification of the past. When
the ashes of Napoleon were brought back from St. Helena,
Visconti built a monumental tomb at the Invalides to receive
them. A kind of fatality seemed to combine the names of
Napoleon and Louis XIV at every turn ; in the Louvre which
the Emperor had proposed to finish, at Versailles where his
battles were recorded, in the Place Vendome, where the column
of the Grande Armee replaced the statue of the Grand Monarque,
and finally, under Mansart's cupola. We feel here how much
artistic monuments gam in
majesty and beauty from
memories and history ;
Visconti's heavy sarcophagus
seems by no means too
ponderous for the glory it
supports, and the graceful
Victories which guard it have
a solemnity unusual in the
works of Pradier (Fig. 708).
This accomplished pupil of
Bosio pleased both Classicists
and Romanticists by his purity
of form and refinement of
sentiment. His style or his
hand is apparent in innu-
merable monuments and
decorative works of this
period, fountains, clocks, etc.
(Fig. 706).

There were, however, sculptors who followed more closely
the Romantic impulse which inspired the painters of the day ;
some of them, like Jehan du Seigneur, let loose a sort of muscular
tempest to express violent passion (Fig. 707). Preault believed,
with Delacroix, that the fire of improvisation and energy of execu-
tion are essential to sincere expression. He sometimes succeeded
in wringing a cry of passion, as it were, from wood or marble ;
but the material seems to have suffered from the brutal touch of
his agitated genius (Fig. 705).

Barye (1796-1875) alone achieved absolute success m an art
untrammelled by classical tradition. He studied animals, their
characteristic outlines and their attitudes, at the museum, and

351

Uli. 696. — CORTOT. •line SDI.DIKR
OF MAKATlKiN.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

Kir.. 697. — DAVID d'aNGERS. PEDIMENT OF THE rANTHl-:OX I'AKIS.

afterwards reconstituted their wild life in the desert. This was
a whole empire added to the somewhat narrow domain of statuary ;
for the Egyptian , _ , lions are decorative

figures, and the
their animal studies

EIG. 698. — DAVID
d'aNGERS. MEDALLION-
OP VICTOR HUGO.

Greeks
to the

confined
horse.

KIG. 700. — DAVID

D'aNGERS. MEDALLION

OF MME. K^CAMIER.

Barye's animals are ■"^•^^-':'r'N^N^:""- Portraits ; whether
monumental or {Piwto. Nenrdein.) decorative, gigantic

groups or letter- weights, they are

full of a vigorous vitality. The dark, lustrous bronze suggests the
play of muscles under the thick fur ; his wild beasts are shown in
their constant struggle for food, crawling, bounding, crouching
over their prey ; we seem to hear the crunching of bones, and
the growls of pleasure in this grim battle between the hungry
pursuer and the weak fugitive. Barye's work is one of the finest
discoveries of modern sculpture ; it is marked by the rare artistic
quality of a perfect balance between technique and conception.
After Barye, Cain, Dalou and Gardet set their haughty lions to
guard the doors of palaces, and Fremiet was not unmindful of

352

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

FIG. 701. — FiiYATIEK.
■Sl'AKTACLS.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

the sharp, abrupt silhouettes of his horsemen.
Since Barye's appearance, the curly, benevo-
lent hons which used to smile at children in
the public gardens, with one paw on a ball,
have made way for the strange bulk of great
wild beasts, and the fury of their mortal
encounters.

The Revolution shattered the continuity of
French traditional art, monarchical and reli-
gious. It destroyed many effigies of saints
and kings, and violated many tombs ; trans-
formations so vital as the adoption of Chris-
tianity, the Reformation, and the Revolution
cannot be brought about without some injury
to the furniture of the ancient society by the
new order. Works of art are not mere inert
forms ; they are haunted idols. In spite of
the decrees of the Convention, the repression
of the ancient regime was savagely exercised
upon everything it had left behind it. When this wave of fury had
spent Itself, attempts were made to reconcile the modern world with
the remains of the past. There was an artistic, as well as a
religious and monarchical restoration. Mutilated statues, violated
tombs and empty shrines became mere inoffensive relics, documents

for the historian, and treasures -.

for the amateur ; museums re-
ceived this wreckage of the
churches ; archaeological enthu-
siasm took the place of religious
fervour. It is not surprising
that the aesthetic sentiment
should resemble a kind of lay
piety, since works of art are
so often the disused accessories
of worship.

Two men contributed very
prominently to this reconciliation
in the name of beauty, between
modern and mediaeval France ;
Chateaubriand, who revealed
the sentimental power of the

' . . ' , fk;. 702.— rude, the mak.seii.lai.se.

Gothic monuments to trie arc ue triomi'he de l'6toii.e.

353 A A

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 703.

RUDE. NAPOLEON AWAKING
TO IMMORTALITY.

Romanticists, and Lenoir, who

during the revolutionary turmoil

received into his Museum of

French Monuments the ancient

stones, tombs and statues which

had been torn from their places

and thrown into the gutter. The

Genie du Chrislianisme and the

relics accumulated in the Musee

des Petits-Augustins kindled

French imagination. The Middle

Age revealed itself, richly

coloured, moving and mysterious,

as in the dim light of the

cathedral ; the purest Classicists,

even Ingres himself, dreamt of

the Middle Ages. Chateaubriand and Lenoir gave the first

impetus to that extensive and varied work which was to occupy

the nineteenth century, the age par excellence of careful research

among archives, catalogues of works of art, restoration of ruins and

foundation of museums.

Architecture was transformed by this interest in the Middle Ages.
In the first place, the Gothic ruins made men forget Hubert Robert's
Roman ruins ; painters preferred the old houses of Rouen to the
remains of the Forum. Poets described the Burgs of German
legend in sombre colours, and lithographers popularised reproductions
of moss-grown towers and fretted gables. They never ceased to
ridicule the cupolas and columns, and the geometrical regularity of
the classical monuments, and. 'this architecture has been persistently
decried ever since. Yet it was not enough to criticise it ; its

(The Louvre, Paris.)

704. — KUUE. TOMIi OF GENERAL CAVAIGNAC.

(Montmartre Cemetery, Paris.)

354

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

705. — I'KKAL 1.1 .
CKUCII-IX.

(Church of Saint-flervais, Paris.)

assailants should have offered a substitute ;
but architecture is not so easily trans-
formed as painting or poetry. The
literary fame of the Gothic forms natur-
ally affected decoration. Romantic art
admired the intricate style of German
Gothic ; Chateaubriand had declared
that the vault of a cathedral imitates the
branches of ancient forests. Small objects,
and the frontispieces of books were adorned
with complicated ribs. Even some Gothic
tombs were constructed. The " English
garden, " always fashionable, became more
and more melancholy ; sometimes it shel-
tered the fragments of an abbey or some
anonymous recumbent figure, rigid in his
armour, with folded hands, one of Charle-
magne's knights, or a Merovingian Frank
at the least.

Then the archaeologists, historians or architects, Menmee, Lassus,
and Viollet-le-Duc, began to study the Gothic buildings in France.
Many of these were in ruins, and thus there came about a vast
enterprise of restoration, an endless work, to which a great part of
the activity of French architects has been devoted. The France
of the nineteenth century, which
created so many museums, was
also to preserve historical and
artistic monuments. First Lenoir
set to work at Cluny, Baltard at
Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Lassus
at Saint- Germain -I'Auxerrois,
the Sainte-Chapelle, Notre -
Dame of Paris, and Chartres ;
then Ruprich-Robert at Mont
Saint-Michel, Abadie at Peri-
gueux, Boeswilwald at Laon,
Viollet-le-Duc at Notre-Dame
of Paris, at Carcassonne and at
Pierrefond.

These architects were not
content to restore. When they
were thoroughly acquainted

355

I'IG. 706. — I'KADIEK. SAl'I'HO.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

A A 2

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 707. — JEHAN DU SEIGNEUR.
ORLANDO FURIOSO.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

with the Gothic organism, they thought themselves capable of resus-
citating it. The building of basilicas ceased. Sometimes it was

considered enough to give
a Gothic facade to some
old church, as at Saint
Ouen at Rouen. Else-
where, at Sainte-Clotilde,
Paris, and Saint Epvre,
Nancy, etc., architects
built an entire new church
in the style of the thir-
teenth or fourteenth
century. But it is not
sufficient to love a form
of architecture, nor even
to understand it well, in
order to revive it. The
most successful Gothic
pasticci are extremely
cold ; the modern con-
structor brings his classical habits to his task, regularity of plan,
symmetry and clarity of design, that rigorous regularity which
determines the form of the building in all its details, and that

division of labour which
makes the architect exclu-
sively a draughtsman and
the workman a mere
stone-cutter. In the old
cathedrals, the stone is
full of life in every part ;
the work is varied, rich,
and unexpected ; the
modern copies are stunted
in their growth ; the dry
geometry of contempo-
rary architects has been
unable to capture the
soul of the Gothic
cathedral.

Although the Romantic
movement has not been permanent in all respects, it may neverthe-
less be said to have transformed the conditions of French art ; ever

356

FIG. 708. — VISCONTI. TOMB OF NAl'OI.EON I
AT THE INVALIDES, PARIS.

{Photo. Ncurdein.)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

since this explosion of indi- ^
vidualism, the idea that a man j
of genius imposes his onginahty
on his contemporaries, and
forces them to think and feel
with him, has held its ground.
Art is no longer a result of
society ; rather does it mould
society, and indeed, our painters
undoubtedly modify our manners
of seeing and feeling ; Natural-
ists and Impressionists discovered
unknown aspects for the public. !
They were daring, because the '
Romanticists had taught that the
work of genius is a stroke of

FIG. 710. — IIANYK. TIGEK AND CROConiLE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

birth of the antagonism
between the "artist ' and
the " bourgeois." A sort
of battle raged. Artists
no longer enjoyed the
peaceful security of the
masters of the old
regime.

Finally, Romanticism
taught us that to under-
stand a work we must
enter into communion
with the individual or
collective soul which it

357

FK;. 709. — BARVE. THE CENTAUR.

(The Loinre, Paris.)

audacity which succeeds.
Our greatest artists
waged war against the
taste of their times.
Conflict between them,
to whom invention is a
necessity, and the public,
which they have to
educate, is inevitable.
The strife began m the
time of Louis Philippe ;
this period witnessed the

FIG. 711. — BARYE. ELETH.-VNI

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

embodies. Since we have looked
for a hidden message in it, and
not for the more or less successful
realisation of ideal beauty, we have
learnt to love even the obsolete
forms of art ; the Classicist, always
ready to despise all that offended his
taste, condemned himself to ignore
the ages which were ignorant of
his canons. By speaking frankly
of themselves, the Romanticists have
accustomed us to think that artists
throughout the ages did the same,
even unconsciously. And since we
have ceased to judge in the name
of taste when we would appreciate
the depth and delicacy of inspira-
tion, many works which seemed
dead have come to life. The

Classicist, metaphysical and dogmatic, was very disdainful ;

Romanticism has enlarged our aesthetic sympathy by revealing

the secret sentiment that underlies beauty.

FIG. 712. — FAfADE OF THE CHURCH
OF SAINT DUEN, AT ROUEN.

(Photo. Neurdcin.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

L. Benedite. Rapport suT I'Exposilion dc 1900.
Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1904. In the Mmee J' Art
(XlXth century), Paris. 1907 : Ch.Saun\er. L Archi-
tecture, P. Vitry, La Sculpture ; Ch. Saunier, M.
Hamel, M. Tourneaux.G. Riat, G. GeSroy, La Pein-
ture ; H. Focillon, La Gracure ; V. Champier. L'Art
decoratif. E. Schmidt, Franzosische Plastik, unj
Architehlur, Leipzig, 1904, E. Guillaume. La
Sculpture au XI X" siicle (G. B. ,^., 1900, II) -
H. Jouin, Dacid d' Angers, 2 \oh.. Paris, 1878. A.
Bcrtrand, Fr. Rude. Paris, 1888. L. de Fourcaud,
Rude, Paris, 1903. P. Mantz, Barye (G. B. A.,
1867, I). A. Alexandre, Barye. Paris, 1889. -
Richard Muther, Geschichte der Malcrei in> XIX
Jahrhunderl, Munich, 1 893, 3 vols. Richard Muther.
Ein jahrhunderl franzdsischer Malerei. Berlin, 1901.
- A. Michel. Notes sur I' Art moderne {Feiniurc),
Paris 1896. A. Michel, L' Exposition centennale
de Peinture franfoise (G. B. A.. 1900, II). -J.
Meier-Graefe, Entwickelung der Modernen Kunst,
3 vols., Stuttgart, 1904, English ed. 1906. R. Marx,
Eludes sur I'Ecole francaise, Paris, 1902. K.
Schmidt, Franzosische Malerei, 1800-1900, Leipzig.
1903. M. Hamel, La Peinture fran(aise au XIX'~
Steele {Revue de Paris, 1900). H. Marcel, La
Peinture franfaisc au XIX^ siecle, Paris, 1905. -
E. Chesneau, Les Chefs d'ecole. Paris, 1862. Ch.
Blanc, Les Artistes de mon temps, Paris, 1876.—
Th. Sylvestre, Les Artistes franfais, Paris, 1877. -

358

FIG. 713. — NAVE OF SAINT-El'VRE,
AT NANCV.

{Photo. Neiirdein,)

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

A. Robaut, LGLucre complcl d'E. Delacroix. Paris, 1885. L. Rosenthal, La Peinturc
romanlique. 1815-1830. Dijon, 1900. E. Delacroix. Journal. Paris, 1893-1895, 3 vols. --
M.Touineux, Delacroix. Paris, 1903. -P. Mantz, Decamps (G. B. .-i.. 1862, I).-Th. Gautier,
Les Beaux-Arts en Europe, 1855. -Ch, Blanc, Les trois Vcrnet, Paris, 1898.- G. Planche,
Porlrails d'artistes. Paris, 1898. Amaury-Duval. L'Alclier d' Ingres. Palis. — Ch. Blanc, /ngrcs
(G. B. A., 1867, I). H. Delaborde, Ingres. Paris, 1870. H. Lapauze, Porlrails dessines
d' Ingres. Paris. 1903. J. Mommeja, /ni; res, Paris, 1903. L. Mabilleau. Les Dessins d' Ingres a
MonlauhaniG.B.A., 1894,11). L. Flandrin, H. Flandrin. Paris, 1903. -P. Mantz, Raffel
(G. B. A.. 1860. II). F. Lhomme, Raffel. Paris, n.d. H. Beraldi, Raffel (G. B. A.. 1892, 1.
p. 353) ; Charlel {Ibid.. 1893, 11, p. 46). H. Marcel. H. Daumier. Paris, n.d. J.-L. Vaudoyer
and P. Alfassa, Les Salles de la Monarchie de Juitlel au Musee de Versailles {R. A. A. A/.,
1910, II). -Th. Thore, Salons. Pans. 1870, 2 vols. E. Michel, Les Mailres du Paysage.
Paris, 1906. — E. Michel, La Forel de Fontainebleau. Paris, 1909. Moreau-Nelaton, Carol.
Paris, 1905. -Walther Gensel. _Coro( und Troyon Bielefeld, 1905.— Fr. Henriet, Charles
Daubigny el son ccui're. Paris, 1878.

ii<^. 714. — .M'.sK OF Tin; cnuKci! ur

SAINTE-Cl-OTILDE, I'AKIS.

359

FIG. 715.

-rUVIS DE CHAVANNES. LETTERS AND THE SCIENCES. (FRAGMENT.)

(Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne.) {Photo. Fiorillo.)

CHAPTER III

NATURALISM

Architeclure in Towns : the Transformation of Paris. ^The Classical Style modified by Eclectic
Taste -Iron Structures. Essays in the Modern Style. Naturalistic Painting. Lourbel.-
Jean Franfois .Vlillet. History Painting. Orientalism. Portraiture. Decorative Painting
from Ingres to Puvis de Chaoannes. From Naturalism to Impressionism. Impressionism
in Landscape. Decoration and Design. -The Reaction against Impressionism.-Contemporary
Art.- Classical Sculpture: Florentine Influence. Naturalism in Sculpture: Larpeaux.
Dalou. Rodin. Bartholome.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, scholars gradually
supplanted poets in the general governance of minds. The Roman-
ticist, Victor Hugo or Delacroix, like Narcissus bendmg over his
fountain, only looked at Nature to see the reflection of himself. To
him, the universe was but a storehouse of images on which he drew
to give colour to his poetry. When these exuberant personalities
had sobered down, reality appeared to them, and interested them.
The landscape painters had set the example ; following m their
wake, painters and sculptors, as well as writers, began to think that
absolute exactitude was the true ambition of art ; this submission to
the object is a scientist's virtue, and indeed. Naturalism is the artistic
form of the positive spirit.

During this period, the continuity of French life was interrupted
by sudden revolutions. Artists were not, of course, unmoved by
the agitations which keep us poised, as it were, between revolution
and compression ; but the convulsions of social fury did not disturb

360

NATURALISM

FIG. 716.-

-DUBAN. COURT OF THE ECOLE DES
IlEAUX-AKTS, I'ARIS.

the radiant summits of art. Architecture, which always expresses

the general character of communities clearly, was at once very

prolific, and somewhat

lacking in originality ; ^

this seems to show that

the general existence was

not so unstable as it

seemed to be, and that

society had not yet

evolved a new form of

collective life. The con-
flicting movements which

agitated superficial France

must not be allowed to

hide that deep current,

the slow pressure of which

nothing can resist. Every

day, a rather larger number of men achieve a little ease, or in

other words, a relative prosperity and an average intellectual

culture. This was the great social event of the nineteenth century,

and modern art was to manifest this indefinite enfranchisement of

the middle classes after its fashion.

We should be less contemptuous of nineteenth century architecture

if we studied it in its collective conceptions and not in its individual

buildings. It is true that the past century invented no type of

church, chateau, or palace, nor even of town house or theatre.

But it realised a new conception of the Town. Under Louis XIV,

and more especially under
Louis XV, architects had
already designed decora-
tive schemes which had
embraced much more
than the fa(;ade of a
single building. Certain
squares of classic regularity
had been introduced into
the confused Paris of the
Middle Ages. But it
was more especially in
the nineteenth century

that ancient towns were transformed, and innumerable houses

were given that unity of style and that symmetry which had

361

fk;. 717. — nuc. talais de justice, paris.

FACADE ON THE I'I..\CE DAUl'HINE.

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 71a. — VAUDRE.MER. CHURCH OF
SAINT-PIERRE AT MOXTKOUGE.

hitherto been reserved for a palace,
a church, or a public square.

Napoleon had not had time to
execute the grandiose transforma-
tions he proposed m his capital ;
nevertheless, his Arc de Triomphe
was undertaken, and prepared the
way for the wide avenues bearing
the names of generals and of battles,
which now radiate from the Etoile.
At the Tuileries, Percier and Fon-
taine began the second arm which
the palace was to stretch towards
the Louvre, and the remains of the
ancient structure were gradually
banished from the quadrilateral as
the junction neared completion.
Pierre Lescot's little pavilions, and
Phihbert Delorme's Tuileries were finally united after many
tentative essays. Since then, the destruction of the Tuileries
has opened out the Court of the Carrousel, and the two wings
of the Louvre now extend towards the immense avenue which
leads to the Arc de Triomphe. Historical vicissitudes have
caused this palace no longer to suggest the arrangement of a

French town house. But with
faqades on every side, and
traversed by as many passages
as an urban quarter, it never-
theless preserves its majestic
unity ; its architects bore in mind
the decoration of the primitive
parts, and above all, they devised
a dexterous arrangement to mask
the original asymmetry of a build-
ing composed of two bodies,
the Louvre and the Tuileries,
which were not simultaneously
conceived.

The Restoration and the July

Monarchy abstained from vast

municipal enterprises. Louis

Philippe's principal commissions

362

FIG 719. — LEPERE AND HITTORF.
CHURCH QF SAINT VINCENT-DE-PAUL, PARIS.

NATURALISM

KU;. 720. — r.ALLU. CHURCH OF
LA TRINITE, I'AKIS.

were for fountains in the public
squares and at cross roads.
Guillon designed those of the
Place de la Concorde, Visconti
that of the Place Louvois, of
Moliere and of Saint Sulpice ;
imitating Paris, the cities of
Bordeaux and Nimes set up
nymphs in the style of Pradier
on their fountains. But it was
more especially under the Second
Empire that Paris was methodi-
cally transformed. Political causes
hastened this metamorphosis ; the
old city of the Cabochiens, of the
League, of the Fronde, of 1 792,
1830 and 1848, the Paris of
revolutions, was difficult to hold ; Louis XVI, Charles X and
Louis Philippe had felt the irksomeness of being shut up in the
Tuileries, the prisoners of their subjects. Under Louis Philippe,
at the slightest alarm, the network of narrow streets bristled with
barricades ; an overturned omnibus and a few paving-stones sufficed
to hold up the king's emissaries, while chairs and tables rained from
every window. Napoleon III could not think of abandoning Paris;
but, under the administration of
Haussmann, engineers and archi-
tects created a new city. After
the fashion of Le Notre, when
he was laying out a French park,
they drove wide avenues and
regular streets boldly through the
tangle of old buildings ; even the
most ordinary houses, with no
pretensions to artistic merit, were
brought into the system of decora-
tion, and made to contribute to the
general effect.

The principle of classic regularity
went beyond the limits of a facjade
or a square, and extended to the
whole town. The audacity of these
architects lay in their application of

363

riG. 721. — nALTAKU.- INTERIOK
K THE CHUKCH OF SAINT-AUGUSTIN

ART IN FRANCE

this conception to a city so ancient and so vital as Pans. They
rebuilt the Cite and the two banks which face it ; they pierced
Pans with wide rectilinear avenues, extending from one monument

to another, just as the
alleys at Versailles unite
two fountains or two
groups of sculpture.
These large arteries,
sweeping through the
crowded quarters of old
Paris, brought to light
many an ancient building.
Around those which the
modern town left intact,
the houses of the neigh-
FiG. 722.— LABRousTE BiBLioTHEQUE bourhood Seem to stand

SAINTE-GENEVIEVE, PARIS. r

away, ror we can no
longer tolerate any crowding round an important structure. The
transformation is not yet complete ; a new Paris continues to
replace that of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, just as
this classical Pans had superseded mediaeval Paris.

The majority of the buildings carried out in the nineteenth
century were designed to decorate the city ; both plan and site
of palace and church were chosen with a view to a general urban
effect. Churches like Saint -Pierre at Montrouge and Saint
Augustin, palaces like the Trocadero, the Grand Palais and the
Petit Palais of the Champs
Elysees (Figs. 725, 726),
buildings hke the Opera
House (Fig. 723), are
primarily admirable for
their suitability to the
plan of the avenues and
the configuration of the
soil. The palace of
Longchamp (Fig. 728)
and Notre Dame-de-la-
Grande at Marseilles,
Notre Dame de Four-
vieres at Lyons (Fig. 730), and the Sacre Coeur at Montmartre
(Fig. 731), show less originality in their architecture than in their
intelligent choice of situation.

364

FIG. 723.— GAHMEl;. (ll'EKA HOUSE, PARIS.

NATURALISM

BBn

'TW *

Bi^^ - -^

■K^ ^

tifki^^'' M^^mgM

724. — GARMEK. (;KAND MAIKCASE
IN THE Ol'EKA HOUSE, I'AKIS.

The most typical work of the
nineteenth century was the or-
ganisation of a great town,
with wide open spaces, straight
avenues, and a simple plan
which affords large perspectives
and facilitates circulation.
Though it did not invent a
religious style, or create new
palaces and chateaux, this cen-
tury transformed the private
house, adapting it to the general
decoration of the street, and
arranging it more conveniently.
The semi-uniformity of facades
manifests that social discipline
which limits individualism. The
problem for the architect of our houses is to reconcile general
convenience and personal comfort elegantly.

Such transformations as those we have indicated are not always
well received ; they offended the reverence with which the nine-
teenth century regarded old stones. The quarters which are
disappearing amused the imagination, and the houses which are
rising in their places make no such appeal. In the eighteenth
century Cochin the Younger said that Rouen was the ugliest
town in France, for the very reason which makes us now
consider it the most picturesque. Cochin spoke as a modern, and

we are all antiquarians.
The beauty of the build-
ings owes a good deal
to association ; we regret
the remains of history too
much to be able to admire
the cold and commodious
structures which replace
them. Hence many vain
recriminations ! A living
city cannol be a museum
of relics.

Modern French archi-
tecture, though it aims at comfort, remains faithful to classical
decoration. If but a few important monuments survived from

365

FIG. 725.

-DEGLANE. I.E GRAND I'AI.AIS IN THE
CHAMI'S-^LYSliES, TANIS.

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 726. — GIRAULT. LE PETIT PALAIS IN THE
CHAMPS-ELYS^ES, PARIS.

which to reconstruct the
artistic history of the last
three centuries — the
Louvre, Versailles, the
Place de la Concorde,
the Bourse, and the
Palais des Chatnps-
Elysees — we might pass
from summit to summit,
from Louis XIV to
1 900, without overstep-
ping the boundaries of
classical art, or encounter-
ing other forms than those
accepted since the time of the Greeks by Mediterranean and
Western civilisation. French society had undergone many
cataclysms, but at the end of the nineteenth century architects
were still erecting colonnades, just as Perrault, Mansart and
Gabriel had done. Classical taste has been made more flexible,
enriched by the eclecticism natural to a century of historians and
travellers. Decorative elements are borrowed from all countries
and all ages ; we are no longer astonished by a Hindoo, an Arab,
or an Egyptian motive. In religious architecture more especially,
Gothic, Romanesque and Byzantine imitations have persisted.
Religion, which no longer suffices for the guidance of human
thought and activity, cannot now create a style ; life no longer
fashions art, and art has to find its forms independently ; it has
sought them in the store-
house of the past. At
Saint-Augustin (Fig.
721), Baltard bent his
iron into Byzantine forms ;
in the Church of La
Trinite (Fig. 720), Ballu
preferred the style of the
Italian Renaissance ; both
adapted their buildings to
the luxury of the fashion-
able quarters in which
they stand ; at La Trinite,
as at the Opera House,
an open corridor enables

PIG. 727. — SALLE DES ILLUSTRES, IN THE CAPITOLE
AT TOULOUSE

366

NATURALISM

fair worshippers to step from their carriages without wetting
their costumes.

Garnier's Opera House (Figs. 723, 724), one of the most
important works of the nineteenth century, shows how decorative
eclecticism can adapt itself to modern needs. Gamier repeated
the internal arrangement of the great theatre built by Louis at
Bordeaux ; the faqade, with its galleries and colonnades, recalls
the architecture of the Venetian Renaissance, that of Sansovino
and Palladio ; but a great number of details are borrowed from
Greece, Asia, and Egypt. The exterior duly suggests the character
of the building and its internal design, with the galleries for the
Foyer, the cupola over the auditorium, and the huge pediment.

l-U;. 728. — ESl'ftNA.NDlKU. I'AI.AIS Dr. l.dM ,CII A M I'. MARSEILLES.

which not only completes the silhouette, but indicates the division
between stage and auditorium. The architect aimed at a richness
of effect that should surpass the Versailles of Mansart and Le Brun.
He used polychrome marbles, and resuscitated Byzantine mosaic.
But modern dress has none of the splendour of Louis XIV costume,
and the austere simplicity of black coats forms a strange contrast to
this more than royal setting.

Nenot's Sorbonne must be cited as an example of the skill with
which intricate problems have been solved ; the architect had to
build a lemple of Science, vast and complicated as the travail of
modern thought, upon a difficult site in a restricted space, and at
the same time, to respect certain aspects of Richelieu's ancient
monument. While utilitarian exigencies become more imperious
every day in libraries, museums, universities, and countless
other public buildings, our architects cannot bring themselves to

367

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 729. — VAUUHYKK. CATHEDKAL OF MAKSEILLES.

{Photo. Ni'urdein.)

sacrifice noble classical
facades.

Nevertheless, a grow-
ing audacity in the appli-
cation of iron has created
a new type of building.
A metallic architecture
has grown up side by
side with the traditional
stone architecture.
Periodical exhibitions
have done much to bring
this about. The Central
Markets (Halles), built
by Baltard, showed that

iron is an indispensable material for constructing an immense shelter

without encumbering the ground with supporting walls and pillars.

Pointed architecture was surpassed in its own domain ; builders in

stone could never have thrown ribs of such a span upon such

slender abutments ; the engineer can easily build a metal cage

which would contain a Gothic nave. Iron, a very elastic yet

resistant material, capable of free extension, has replaced stone

wherever stone formerly replaced wood in vault and framework.

Baltard, in the Church of Saint-

Augustin, Labrouste, in the Biblio-

theque Sainte - Genevieve and the

Bibliotheque Nationale, Due in a hall

of the Palais de Justice, accordingly

utilised iron girders, which play the

same part as the ribs in the Gothic

vault. Metallic naves are essential in

railway stations, which have to be

enlarged periodically, and in exhibition

buildings, which are always temporary.
But iron has not superseded stone

in its decorative function. The majority

of these metallic skeletons are faced by

walls, which bear the traditional orna-
ment. The latest French railway

stations and the most recent exhibition

buildings, those of 1 900, in the Champs-

Elysees are market -halls, masked

368

FIG. 730. — APSE OF NOTKE-DAME-
DE-FOURVlfeRES, LYONS.

{Photo. Neurdein.)

NATURALISM

kk;. 731.— sacke-cceur,
.mont.martke, i'akis.

(Photo. Netirdein.)

by classic facades. The intervention
of iron has therefore caused no breach
of continuity in the style of Mansart
and Gabriel. It is used for conve-
nience ; but the beauty of stone cannot
be sacrificed. Various attempts have,
indeed, been made to reject it. The
huge Galerie des Machines built by
Dutert for the Exhibition of 1889,
was acclaimed as the masterpiece of
metallic construction. It has recently
been demolished to show Gabriel s
pavilions again. Iron, in spite of the
extraordinary flexibility of its powers,
cannot oust the traditional materials of
the mason. Iron architecture, calcu-
lated scientifically on paper, and after-
wards realised mechanically, is not
susceptible to chance, accident or success.
Between conception and achievement, there is no place in it for
initiative, effort, or application. True, these metallic halls bear
the impress of human intelligence, but they show no trace of human

labour. Astonished though we
may be at the length of bars of
metal, cast and welded, and
hoisted mechanically into posi-
tion, we turn from them to look
with far greater interest at a
wrought iron panel artistically
hammered. The hand of man
alone can draw a work of art
from inert matter. Machinery
stamps everything it produces
with its own indifference.

The difficulty of findmg a
new ornamental style for furni-
ture, jewels, and all the acces-
sories of modern life and luxury,
is often ascribed to the stagnation

FIG. 732.-E. .NAVAUKE AM. K. K..L ssK.o 1 . of archilccture. From the pseudo-
AKCHiTECTs. HOUSE AT NEuii.Lv, Gothic cvolved by thc Romantic

14, lUlLLEVAKI) D INKEUMANX. IA<^ADE UN . . . 1 T • I

THE BouLEVAuo. {riwto. " V A rchitcctc") imagination, to the iimpire style,

369 B B

- i

^ges^^*^^"^""

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 733. — DUl'ONT, ARCHITECT.
MODERN IRON GRILLE OF A
HOUSE IN THE RUE SAINT-
FERDINAND.

perpetuated and popularised by the July
Monarchy, there is no style which has
not been revived, and is not still current.
That artistic heritage which enriches our
museums has weighed very heavily upon
-ri ' ^ H 1 I WT> essays in a " new art," ever since the

passion for ancient things passed from
the world of collectors into well-to-do
society as a whole.

In the closing years of the nineteenth
century, Frenchmen began to recognise
that in their admiration for the furniture
of Louis XV and Louis XVI, they had
forgotten to make any of their own. They
began to look about for an original method
of decoration suitable to modern life. It
was an impossible enterprise, for a decora-
tive system is not a spontaneous creation ;
one style generates another. The " modern

style" itself chose ancestors; its initiators were also imitators; but

they sought inspiration outside of classical and national styles.

Grasset owed a good deal to the Middle Ages ; others admired

the Japanese, their light colours, their capricious lines, and the

asymmetrical forms of their art,

which unlike our own, had never

been dominated by stone archi-
tecture. Others again were

attracted by English, Belgian,

and Austrian models, by the

furniture of all the countries

which have a decorative style

independent of the French.
Finally — and this was the

beginning of real and fecund

innovation — artists like Galle of

Nancy drew from the plant

world delicate fancies which

they applied to pottery, jewels,

and furniture. But the chasm

between a flower and a vase or

a chair is so great that vegetable

ornaments must either remain

IIG. 734. — A. SAUVAGE AND C. SARAZIN,
ARCHITECTS. VILLA AT COMPlfecNE.

i^Photo. " I'Architecie")

370

NATURALISM

FI""- 735-— A- I'.I.L'YSEX, ARCHITECT. VIM. A AT

THE SEASIDE. {Photo. " i Architcc'e.")

a purely extrinsic adornment or the object must undergo a

decorative contortion. In spite of this, the style of Nancy

frequently shows a happy
boldness in its adven-
turous caprices. Major-
elle's furniture sometimes
sacrifices logic to fancy,
but it always retains real
beauty of line, and the
richness of a regal style.
The city of Stanislas,
Here, and Lamour has
not degenerated. Since
the close of the era of
fantastic exaggeration, it
IS easy to recognise an
original and well-defined
type in certain modern

furniture. 1 he innovators have rejected the plaque-decoration of

the ancient styles, their applications of metal and marquetry ; the

beauty of their works lies in the grain of the wood, and;the manner

in which it is carved. Eugene Gaillard designs elegant curves

which expand into carved motives at

the angles ; Dufrene, Selmersheim T

and Plumet manifest a sane and

reasonable classic purity. Although

original, their furniture retains the

general proportions of Louis XV and

Louis XVI works. They do not

adopt the square jomery of the

English, the cubic forms of the

Viennese, the abrupt asymmetrical

curves of the Belgians ; they are

modern m their somewhat bare sim-
plicity, but we feel them to be the

products of a race refined by centuries

of social culture.

On the other hand, there are objects

the forms of which are not so clearly '

designated by their uses. Jewels and i'i<;- 736.— carries, hv himself.

pottery impose no such limitations on terra-cotta.

: .• r •. r\ i A (Pal.iis dcs Beaux-Arts de l.-i Ville

invention as turniture. One or the de Paris.)

371 B B 2

ART IN FRANCE

KIi;. 737. — DKl.AHEUCHE.
VASE.

iPJiotci. '^Art ct Decoration.'")

aspects in which nineteenth century art had
shown the greatest poverty was in its appli-
cation of the same decorative forms to
wooden panels, iron gates and china vases.
One of the originalities of the modern style
is that it has more respect for the quality of
its material and turns it to better account.
Carries, Chaplet, Delaherche and many
others have produced robust vases of enam-
elled pottery, and have overlaid them with
rich colour. Lalique has made jewels
which rival flowers and insects in grace and
splendour. Robert and Brandt have resus-
citated iron-work, the one by hammering
gate-panels, the other by forging delicate
pieces of ornament.
In spite of all the talent lavished on it, this new style is far from
finding universal acceptance. How, indeed, can we expect to see
in decorative taste that unity which exists nowhere, either in litera-
ture, politics or morals ? Moreover, the love of antiquities, far
from dying out, has become more general ; fashion renews itself
without abandoning retrospective styles.

The advocates of a modern art have somewhat abused their
argument that a new society requires a new decorative style. Is it
so certain that steam-engines and telegraph wires have entirely
transformed our ideals of existence ? Our civilisation has two

aspects, one of which is certainly
modified continuously, that which
shows workrooms, offices and
shops. But man will never look
for pleasure in the places where
he works ; he reserves it for the
interior in which he spends his
leisure. And although methods
of making money have changed
a good deal, those of enjoying it
have varied much less. A culti-
vated and prosperous society
which becomes more numerous
every day, continues the life
led m the eighteenth century
by the restricted class of the

FIG. 738.— I.Al.IQUE. I;R(>0CH,

(Photo. "Artet Decoration.")

372

NATURALISM

aristocracy and rich citizens. It is
very well content with the furniture
in which the ancient regime found a
perfect combination of elegance and
comfort. The use of this furniture
is, in fact, no whit more irksome to
it than the expression of ideas in
the language of the Encyclopaedists.
Decorative " neologisms " have only
been essential in the disposition of
railway carriages, steamers and
automobiles. Will the essays of
modern art make any change in the
general style of architecture and fur-
niture ? or will they leave nothing
but a few charming trifles behind ?
The issue seems uncertain at present ;
the artistic past of France is so
admirable and so varied that it is difficult to do justice to the present
in this country.

The fine shades of contemporary sensibility are revealed more
especially in painting. It is here that the naturalistic tendencies
which dominated the second half of the nineteenth century are
most apparent. About the year 1850 the third artistic revolution
achieved in the name of truth within less than a hundred years took
place. David had dethroned Boucher, and was dethroned by

FIG. 739. — GAII.LAKD. ^ CUMI!.

{Photo. ^^ Art et Decoration. ")

■1-K;. 740. — COLKBKT. THU l-LNIvKAI, AT OKNANS.

(The Louvre, Paris.) {Photo. Vignais.)

373

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 741. — COURBET.
'bONJOUR, monsieur COURBET.'

(Museum, Montpellier.)

Ingres. Now Courbet (1819-1877) rose in revolt against Ingres
and Delacroix. His naturalism was a new thing in France. Among

French painters, the work
of the brain had always
intervened between visual
observation and manual re-
production. Gericault had
made some attempt to render
the aspects of Nature in their
integrity by means of colour ;
but his work was prematurely
ended. It was not till the
middle of the century that
integral Naturalism imposed
itself on French painting.
Courbet was its initiator.

He attempted to treat the
human figure as the Fon-
tainebleau landscape painters

had treated nature. He showed us the peasants of Ornans with

their odd costumes and their grotesque heads, just as Rousseau had

painted his gnarled old oaks. His figures were quite unlike those of

Millet, for by their dimensions — and dimension is an important

element in painting — Millet's little personages belonged to so-called

genre-painting, and a great

many pictures had already

represented peasants of

20 centimetres ; but figures

of 1 metre 80 had always

belonged to mythology or

history. Further, the moral

style of Millet corrected

trivial vulgarity. Courbet,

on the contrary, painted a

man or a woman in the

grass or on the soil with

no more preparation or em-
barrassment than if they had

been trees or oxen. His

breadth of execution was

very different from the careful, tentative technique of the Fontaine-

bleau landscape painters. He was a robust workman, whose

374

K.. 7i|2. — COUKUET. THE STOiNE-bKEAKEUS.

(r)resden Gallery.) (Photc. Kuh/i.)

NATURALISM

FIG. 743. — RIIiOT. .SAl.NT^SEliASTIAN.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

guiding principle was never to invent or to correct. In the midst
of the somewhat msipid art of the Neo-Pompeians of the Second
Empire, he appeared hke
a mason before a wall,
brandishmg his palette-
knife and singing at the
top of his voice. He
needed all his self-confi-
dence to meet the ridicule
which assailed him. It
is a constant danger for
modern art that it is
subject to the taste of a
highly cultivated civilisa-
tion ; an insidious polite-
ness lays its discipline
upon all well-bred people.
Courbet was not well-bred ; he talked loudly, in spite of laughter,
and his example loosened many tongues. Young painters learned
from his pictures that a faithful rendering of Nature need not entail
loss of energy in care for accuracy, but that such a rendering may
rather awaken energy, and lead to a number of expressive discoveries
which remain hidden from the idealist,

Courbet, however, lacked much of the equipment he required for

a perfectly novel present-
ment of Nature. He
did not compose a new
palette ; he borrowed
that of the old Bolognese,
of Guercino, Caravaggio,
and the Spaniards, all
those artists he had
studied in the Louvre,
and who had taught him
to envelope his vigorous
figures in opaque shadows
and leaden colours ;
Gericault and Delacroix
had forestalled him in
this lavish use of bitumen.
For the realist Courbet, this material had very serious drawbacks ;
even in the open air, his personages moved in darkness. In the

375

ri<;. 744. — lioNViN. ■iHK ui-;i-i;cT()UY.
(The Luxembourg, I'aris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 745. — ALPHONSE LEGROS.
THE EX-VOTO.

(Museum, Dijon.)

Funeral at Ornans (Fig. 740) the sky Is veiled in crape. When
Courbet went south to Montpellier to see his patron, M. Bruyas,

the light still remained poor and
yellow (Fig. 741). The realists
of all schools have loved the
strong shadows which throw
bodies into relief and make the
lights more brilliant. Ribot,
a robust painter in the manner
of Ribera, gives us nocturnal
figures, shrouded in the smoky
atmosphere proper to the caves
of the Bolognese school.

Courbet did not carry his
principle to its logical conclu-
sion ; he wished to paint
Nature, but he contemplated
it from his studio. In the
famous work he called Allegoric reelle — a sort of profession of
faith in paint — he assembled his favourite models, critics, admirers,
loretles, workmen, a nude woman, etc., and in the midst of this
studio thronged with Parisians, the artist himself is seen painting a
Franche-Comte landscape ! His figures, in fact, were painted in
his studio and placed in landscapes painted from memory. Courbet
realised at last that his " integral naturalism " could not be achieved
without open-air effects. But essays in this direction show that he was
embarrassed by difficulties which could only be solved by new methods.
How indeed was this
"Guercino of Franche-
Comte " to paint light ?
When he attempted it, he
could only make his colours
paler, and they took on a
flat, grayish tone. Corot
alone could have taught
him that to see light, we
must look less at objects
themselves than at their
encompassing atmosphere.
The naturalistic revolution

was to be accomplished by p,^^. 746.-.M.LLET. the shepherdess.

Courbet 's successors. {p/w/o. Kuim.)

376

NATURALISM

Millet (1814-1875) was not a realist in Courbet's sense. He
did not copy his peasants from models. His images are exact, but
they bear the impress of deep thought ; his memory furnished the
types and gestures he organised. He invented no pictorial novel-
ties, and sought no new effects ; like the Classicists, he only saw in
painting a language for the translation of ideas and emotions.

Millet and Rousseau were neighbours at Barbizon, near Fon-
tainebleau, on the edge of the forest, and while Rousseau penetrated
into the depths of the woodland. Millet sought the plain. While
Rousseau showed the struggle of the tree for life, Millet recorded
man's conflict with the earth from which he demands his bread.
His peasants do not sing
and dance like Corot's
shepherds, to whom
radiant Nature communi-
cates her joy; they are
not the personages of
eclogues, but the austere
labourers of rude
Georgics. The soil he
paints is the hard earth
which the hoe breaks
with difficulty, cutting
through brambles and
striking upon stones.
Even in the absence of
man, the earth recalls the
peasant who cultivates it.
The plough or harrow lies upon it, ready for the work of the
morrow. The dwelling is never far off, a poor shelter of stones
and thatch, where the woman, when she is not in the fields, passes
the slow days spinning wool, washing linen, feeding the little ones,
absorbed in some simple task, like Chardin's housewives.

A draughtsrnan of gestures. Millet saw in them a definite utility,
a means to an end ; he shows us the whole body tense with effort.
And this painter of rugged contours, who saw in the husbandman
the machine of necessary labour, admired Michelangelo, the supple
creator of athletic gestures. His peasant in coarse wooden shoes
presses heavily upon the earth ; his body is bent with long stooping
over the soil, and he stands erect stiffly, as if this attitude had
ceased to be a natural one to him ; his silhouette, isolated against
the bare sky, takes on a severe majesty. Millet follows this drama

377

VIC. 747. — MlI.l.KT. THE ANliltLU'^.
(The ],ini\TC, J'nris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 748. — MILLET. THE IIAN WITH THE HUE.
{Photo. Kuhll.)

between man and the land
with a virile emotion ; he
does not attempt to relieve
it by any picturesque effect ;
he invokes inanimate nature
only to suggest the cycle of
the seasons.

He did not paint directly
from nature, and yet he
seized effects of light. The
one he loved best often
appears behind his figures ;
the diffused light seems to
be biting into their silhouettes.
The hatchings of his pastels
suggest gleams of light upon objects very admirably. He painted
his httle figures with a loaded brush and fat colours ; his forms are
at once clumsy and gentle ; the tint envelopes, subdues and extin-
guishes shimmer and reflections. No one, save perhaps Chardin,
had painted little pictures thus before, on coarse canvas, with a
dull, dry, porous impasto. We
think of Millet himself, of his
robust and caressing touch, be-
fore the peasant he has shown
us grafting a tree, carefully
manipulating the tender shoot
with his hard, rough fingers.

His little figures are, in their
way, as idealistic as those of
Poussin, and sometimes they
would seem to have been exe-
cuted with the same technical
nonchalance. But, if Millet
reminds us so much of the great
classical master, it is more espe-
cially because there is always a
profound thought in his com-
positions ; he insisted on a kind
of logic m his pictures, an
element of inevitability, " the
presence of persons and things for a definite purpose." Seasons
succeed each other, the earth germinates, blossoms and lies bare,

378

FIG. 749.

—.MILLET. MOTHER FEEDING HER

CHILD
(Museum, Marseilles.)

NATURALISM

FIG. 750. — CAZIX. TOBIAS AND THE
ANGEL.

(Museum, Lille.)

and since man first began to culti-
vate it, the toiler bending over it
has used the same gestures, the
same processes. Millet has ren-
dered his attitude so truthfully, the
man is so at one with his occupa-
tion and surroundings, that he
typifies the husbandman of all
ages and countries ; the poor
toiler suddenly fills the universe
and eternity, and his pitiful silhou-
ette is projected in all its immensity
upon these two infinities.

Millet's sensibility was his bond
of union with Romanticism.
Poussin and the Classicists dwelt
in imaginary regions. The ideas
which engrossed them were a kind

of superior pastime to them ; the world they painted had been

fashioned by history ; an ingenious civilisation reveals itself in every

detail of their learned art. But with Millet, as with Rembrandt,

art loses its serenity and is nourished by human sentiment, emotional

meditation, melancholy, pity, a kind of communion with the obscure

souls of animals, and the

silent life of things. No

art in France had ever

shown fewer traces of

studio and museum.

This successor of the

Classicists was saturated

with romantic melan-
choly ; he combined the

clear intelligence of

Poussin with a virile

pathos (Figs. 746-749).
The results of Millet's

poetry are by no means

exhausted. There is a

certain affinity between

his thought and that of

Cazin, who also loved to associate man ^v•lth nature, and who

harmonised the attitudes of his figures with the desolation of

379

FI<;. 751. — LfiON BELLY. POOL IN THE FOKEST
OF FONTAINEBI.EAU.

(Mme. L. nelly's Collection.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 752. — I'OINTELIN. EVENING IN,.1THE JURA.

(The Luxembourg, Pari??.)

twilight among the dunes most admirably. The biblical memories
he evokes at times are by no means incongruous ; his peasants are

humble and simple enough
to seem as ancient as
humanity itself. The
silent landscape which
enfolds them is full of a
gentle, caressing quality.
The pallid colour imi-
tates the transparence of
a clear night, or the pale
light of the moon on
sleeping villages (Figs.
750, 753). Jules Breton's
peasant girls are, as Millet
remarked, too pretty to
stay in their villages. Lhermitte's labourers have a kind of majesty.
His sunburnt reapers and robust washerwomen are real rustic
workers. Harpignies, an accomplished draughtsman of branch and
foliage, suppressed human figures in his landscape, and painted
simplified oak-trees with a confidence unknown to Rousseau

(Fig. 760).

The realistic spirit, making itself felt in every branch of art, has
transformed "history-
painting." Historical
colour, which is realism
applied to the past, has
become more sharply
characteristic and better
auth enticated. In
Poussin's works, the
archaeological data were
scanty ; here a pyramid,
there a temple ; a some-
what abstract generalisa-
tion of landscape and
costume made careful
exactitude unnecessary.
Now, the Academic des
Inscriptions instructs the Academic des Beaux Arts ; the resulting
picture is sometimes a piece of marquetry ; " documents " are
adjusted, completed, and fitted into the pattern. Between the

380

753. — CAZIX. IN riCARDY.

{Photo. Crcc'/nt.r.)

NATURALISM

KIG. 754. — MEISSfiXIER. 1S14.

(The Louvre, Paris.) (Photo I.ecadrc.')

conception of history
among modern French
pamters and that of
the Davidians, there
is as great a difference
as between Flaubert's
S a I a m m b o and
Chateau briand's
Martyrs.

Durmg the Second
Empire, after Ingres
had painted his little
S Ira to n ice , and
Couture his immense
Roman Orgy, there
was a revival of archaeological painting. These ingenious recon-
structions aroused a great deal of public interest. G. Boulanger
and Gerome painted delicate figures in Pompeian surroundings.
Gerome was admirable both in his artistic thoroughness and his
amusing intelligence ; a draughtsman no less impeccable than Ingres,
an illustrator no less ingenious than Delaroche, he treated even
tragic themes wittily. Cabanel was an excellent disciple of
Ingres, whose languorous, caressing line he sometimes recaptures.

Bouguereau has carried
the refined elegance of
this manner to a point
when even the most
learned melodies take the
form of ntournelles.
Jules Lefebvre and
L. O. Merson must also
be reckoned among these
pure artists whose works
lack passion, but whose
conscientious technique
becomes more and more
salutary an example, as the
rebels against syntax and
orthography increase in
numbers (hig. 770).
Historical accuracy becomes excessive in the work of Tissot and
Meissonier. " Documentation " is carried to its extreme limit by

381

KIC;. 755. — MEISSOMEK. LA RIXE. (tHE HKAUI,.)

(Collection of the King of England.)
(Photo. Lecadre.)

ART IN FRANCE

James Tissot in the
laborious illustrations by
which, with the help of
actual studies in Palestine,
he has attempted to re-
construct the landscape
and costumes of the
Gospels (Fig. 756). His
realistic efforts have re-
vived religious imagery,
the demand for which
had been ill satisfied by
Flandnn's abstract paint-
ing. Meissomer (1814-
1891) is one of the most important of those artists who have set
great store on accuracy in their inventions. He has this para-
doxical quality, that while he shows a prodigious minuteness of
realism, he never treats any but imaginary episodes. His photo-
graphic vision IS fixed upon the past ; the Dutch manner is
often cited in connection with his art, and no doubt he was
influenced by the Little Masters of the Hague and Amsterdam ;
but there is this difference between them, that, whereas they
depicted the life of their own times, Meissonier lived altogether
outside of his. He loved the eighteenth century and the
Napoleonic period for the picturesque elegance of their costume

FIG. 756. — TISSOT. THE MAGI.

(Collection of M. de liruiihoff.

FIG. 757. — AIm6 MOROT, REZONVILLE.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

382

NATURALISM

FIG. 758. — DETAILLE. ENTRY OF THE GRANDE AR.MEE INTO I'ARIS, 1S06 (fRAC;.MENt).

(HCtel de Ville, Paris.)

and the beauty of their equipments. He has shown us the
Emperor and his army; the army of 1807, rushing upon the
enemy under the chieftain's eye; the army of 1814, dragging
itself after the Emperor, as yet unconquered, but enveloped in
an atmosphere of impending disaster (Fig. 754). He accomplished
such a tour-de-force as that of preserving every detail in the figure
of a horseman no bigger than his finger. His pictures make admir-
able illustrations for histories. The little figures are very effective
in a page. The good illustrator is revealed in the verve and spirit
with which he draws clothes and gestures. Meissonier remains
the master of this particular genre. No one had ever rendered the
action of a horse or the elaborate details of a uniform so precisely.
Not only did he create the little picture of the Musketeer ; we owe
him a new style of military painting, afterwards brilliantly developed
by Edouard Detaille. Protais and Yvon depicted war with an
intermixture of heroism or sentiment ; but it was the battle they
were concerned to show us. Meissonier's first preoccupation was
picturesque costume, and Edouard Detaille's soldier is often a mere
figurant in a pageant of costume. Memories of 1 870, 1 806 and
I 793 sometimes transformed these correct troopers into real com-
batants. But there is more of the fury of battle in Alphonse de
Neuville's pictures (Fig. 759).

History-painting acquired a new significance in the work of
Gustave Moreau, an ideologue and mythologist. He combined
Ingres and Delacroix somewhat in the manner of Chasseriau ; like

383

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 759. — DE NEUVILLE. CHA.MI'KiXY.

(Museum, Versailles.)

tne " Parnassiens " ^ he strove to enshrine the imaginative ardour of
Romanticism in the chiselled forms of pure Classicism. He set his

ivory figures studded with
gems in strange landscapes ;
learned and artificial,
chimerical and fascinating,
his painting lays the debris
of ancient civilisations before
our eyes ; goldsmith's work,
mosaic, the rarest materials
of human industry, there is
everything in this philoso-
phical jewellery save the
direct aspects of life (Figs.
767, 768).

Archaeological excavation,
which was so fruitful at the
close of the nineteenth
century, has revolutionised
our historical imagination, and increased its retrospective grasp
prodigiously. At Pompei the pickaxe of the excavator is daily
turning out accessories for the painter. Schliemann's discoveries at
Mycenae and Tiryns have modified the traditional conception of
the Homeric warrior. Rochegrosse shows us a strange, primitive,
terrific Asia and Greece,
with fantastic armour and
tattooed barbarians. Pre-
historic themes have also
entered into the domain
of art ; Cormon has re-
constructed the life of
cave-dwellers, lacustrians,
and bear hunters armed
with weapons of flint

(Fig. 763).

But realistic vision and
methods have been more
especially applied to re-
constructions of the past,
and sometimes even to allegorical figures. The Davidians were
abstract even when they were painting Napoleon and his soldiers ;

^ A School of French poeis, whose tendency is indicated in the above comparison.

384

FIG. 760. — HARl'IG.NIES. MOONRISE.

(The Lu.fembourg, Paris.)

NATURALISM

— 1

i ' J^L

m '

III

Fll',. 7D1. — 2IEM. VENICE.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

their humanity lacked physical life and the light of the real sun.
Now, the personages of history are of flesh and blood. And even
the variegated palettes of
Orientalists and Impres-
sionists sometimes present
the heroes of antiquity in
a new aspect. Leonidas
and Romulus could no
longer show themselves
in the Forum or at Ther-
mopylae without exposing
their marble nudity to
the fantasies of "pleinair-
isme" (open-air effects).

Tattegrain chooses ex-
pressive landscapes as a
setting for his gaily
coloured scenes from the Middle Ages, and no painter has been
more successful in vivifying history than Jean Paul Laurens ; in his
case, documentation has not stifled imagination, and realism has
never become accurate and erudite platitude ; he is one of those
rare painters whose personages are neither actors on a stage nor
amateurs in fancy dress. His imagination has been nourished on
Michelet's sombre Middle Ages, and his vigorous brush reconstructs

mediaeval savagery,

Merovingian crimes, the
cold cruelty of the Inqui-
sition, ecclesiastical
vendettas, the devastating
fury of revolution and
battle. A virile poetry
breathes from his works,
and informs even his
pictures of modern life
(Fig. 762).

Nevertheless, history-

pamting, \vhich was once

to art what epic poetry

and tragedy were to

The best pupils of the Ecole

lofty style, and return to it

Aime Morot is content to

C C

l-KJ. 762. — J.-l'. LAIKHNS. liXCO.M.MUNICAl IciN
OK k<JliKKT I.K riKUX.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

poetry, has lost much of its prestige.
des Beaux Arts have abandoned this
only for large decorative compositions.

385

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 763. — COR.MON. CAIN.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

be an excellent portrait-painter ; Machard, Ferrier and Flameng
have followed his example. The majority of prix de Rome^ very

soon renounce history
m order to paint nch
worthies m frock coats
and fashionable ladies
in ball dresses. The
excellent portraits
which appear in such
numbers at the annual
Salons, show that the
most promising pupils
of the Ecole are not the
less proficient because
they abstain from
imaginative efforts.
Oriental landscapes and motives were among the themes dear to

French painters of the nineteenth century. Decamps, Delacroix,

Dehodencq and Marilhat painted multicoloured turbans, robes and

textiles, architecture with minarets, majestic ruins and burning sands ;

many, like Ziem, stopped short at Venice, and the dazzling vision

of her marble palaces suspended between sky and water has blotted

out the rest of the world for them (Fig. 761).

Naturalism did not injure Orientalism ; the taste for strange

impressions became keener ;

reality ceases to be vulgar

when it is exotic. Before his

early death, Henri Regnault

had revived Delacroixs

Mauresque Romanticism, and

had found in Spain a spirited

and richly coloured style.

Fromentin painted Arabs hunt-
ing, and touched the satin coats

of their horses with a delicate

brush (Fig. 765). Benjamin

Constant affected more

theatrical Orientals, and sought

to terrify us by depicting the

secret butcheries of the Seraglio,

' Students who gain a travelling scholar-

ship, which entitles them to a sojourn at the
French School of Art in Rome.

386

704. — REGNAULT. GENEKAI, TKIM.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

NATURALISM

FIlj. 765. — I- Rii.MKN rix. HAWKING.

(Coiidc Museum, Chantilly.)

while dazzling us by the splendour of the scene. But there
IS a more famihar and more quietly picturesque East, that of
Guillaumet in the last generation, and now of Dinet, and of
many other painters, who
bring back brilliant im-
pressions of their travels
in Asia, Indo-China, and
Japan (Fig. 766). Orien-
talism reconciles tradition
and the innovators. It
has enabled the Roman-
ticists to become unavowed
naturalists ; it incites good
pupils to seek new impres-
sions, and offers a kind of
chartered licence to the
prudent artist.

Foreign art is greatly
on the increase in France. Artists flock to Paris now to study or
to acquaint themselves with the latest European tendencies, just as
they flocked to Rome in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Museums have, further, become schools in which painters are
formed long after they have finished their apprenticeship. This
instruction by the Old Masters is more especially evident in
portraiture. Where invention is less essential, artists are more
inclined to imitate style. We have seen landscape painters
deriving from the Dutch,
and Courbet inspired by
the Bolognese. Manet
owes some of his boldness
to the Spaniards and to
Hals ; admirable masters
of technique, such as
Bonvin, Vollon, Roybet
and Bail, are pupils of
Holland. Roybet diffuses
light on textures and acces-
sories ; Bail concentrates
the peaceful sunshine that
filters into kitchens and
linen closets. Ricard discovered some of the secrets of Titian's
deep and vital colour, and applied them with the more fragile grace

387 c c 2

lU;. 766. — (iL'ILI.AUMKT. I,A SICr.LIA.

(Tlie l.uxembourc;, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 767. — G. MOREAU.
THE Al'PARITION.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

proper to less robust models (Figs.
779, 780). Henner has reduced his
art to the caressing pallor which illu-
minated the nudities of Prud hon,
and sometimes those of Correggio.
His white nymphs are merged in
warm shadows, or their auburn hair
gleams like a sombre flame against
the turquoise of the background
(Figs. 785, 786).

But the Spaniards of the seven-
teenth century have been the favourite
masters, as was only to be expected
at a period of frank naturalism.
Manet, and a little later Carolus-
Duran learned in the School of
Velasquez the art of bold antitheses
and soft tonalities, in which the deep
black of a dress, the brilliant carna-
tions of a face, and in that face, the vivid red of the lips and the
lustre of the eye, are relieved against a silvery grey background
(Fig. 783). Bonnat is another French-Spaniard ; we recognise a
disciple of Ribera in this robust modeller, who throws his figures
into strong relief by means of violent shadows. His austere solidity
is appropriate to his favourite models. Modern custom, which has
suppressed decorative costume, and reduced individuals to uniformity
under identical garments,
has tended to emphasise
facial character. The
wrinkled brow, the fur-
rowed cheek, all that
reveals continuity of mental
effort, is the more striking
for the absence of distract-
ing accessories. Man no
longer appears in the trap-
pings of the courtier or
the dandy ; his face is
deeply scored by the tra-
vail of the brain. Bonnat
hammers out these virile masks with the utmost mastery ; he builds
up opaque shadows round them, and forces us to concentrate our

388

768.— C. .MtJKKAU. VENICE (wATER-COLOUK).

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

NATURALISM

FIG. 769. — CHASSERIAU. — .NUDE WUMAN.

(Museum, Avignon.)

attention on the white
head. The Hyacinthe
Rigaud of the third
Repubhc paints distin-
guished sexagenarians
without wigs or ruffles
(Figs. 781, 782).

The aristocratic ele-
gance of eighteenth-
century England has won
disciples in France simul-
taneously with Spanish
naturalism. The portrait-
painters who have adopted this manner, Benjamin Constant and
more especially Humbert, have reverted to these park-like back-
grounds which give a discreet splendour
to the setting of elegant female figures.
Humbert has a knack of adapting his
models to slight landscape sketches, and
although the portrait is none the less faithful,
the sitter profits by the harmonious charm ;
in addition, this admirable painter has proved
himself an excellent decorator, preserving
unity in vast
compositions,
arranging fine
attitudes in well-
balanced land-
scapes, coloured
with distinction
and sobriety.
Jacques Blanche
is also a disciple
of the English ;
he has their
alert art, their
curious touch,
and their tech-
nical subtleties ; the contrast between his
Parisian celebrities and Bonnat's import-
ant personages is no less marked than '"=■ 77'— i'alukv.

If]., , ., . , TItK TOILET OK VE.NUS.

that 01 his restless, mobile manner with (Museum, Bordeau.\ )

389

FIG. 770. — LEFKIAKE.
TRUTH.

(The Luxembourg, P.^ris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 772

— CAllANEL. THE BIRTH OF VENU^

(Tile Luxembourg, Paris.)

the confident technique of
the painter of officialdom.
Two original portrait-
painters, Fantin - Latour
and Carriere, sacrificed
many pictorial qualities to
achieve moral expression,
in the intensity of which
they greatly surpassed the
normal limits of the genre.
Their figures were not
those of indifferent models,

chance clients, but those of friends and familiars. Fantin's delicate,

subtle painting is no less

discreet than his sitters ;

these have no graces of

costume or attitude, and

the painter sometimes

grouped them as artlessly

as if they had placed them-
selves before a photo-
grapher's camera ; the

colour seems overlaid by

the venerable dust which

covers things that have

been shut up too long

untouched ; the painter

and his sitters lived outside the mutations of fashion and its

refinements (Fig. 784).

To make his language
more expressive, and to
emphasise the moral life,
Carriere effaced material
phenomena. His colour
is subdued, and only light
shadows remain to model
his sorrowful or laughing
faces. Spreading a deli-
cate grisaille over the
canvas, his caressing
brush follows, expands,
and amplifies, enveloping

773

-CHAS.SERIAU. THE TEf'IDARIUM.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

ITC. 774. — G. BOULANGER.
I'RINCE NAI'OLEOX'S POMPEIAX HOUSE.

(Museum of Versailles.)

390

NATURALISM

FJC. 775. — DEI.AUN'AY. THE PLAGUE AT ROME.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

gestures, and forms which
seek and clasp each other.
This veiled reality, which
leaves the eye almost un-
occupied, induces reverie ;
no painter has ever suc-
ceeded thus in showing
the atmosphere of tender-
ness which envelopes
beings who love one
another, and the collective
soul which unites the
countless bodies of a
crowd in a common
movement. This desire
to penetrate to the obscure depths of psychological life causes our
modern artists to overstep the limits of their art perpetually, to
produce music without rhythm, poetry without thought, sculpture
without form, and painting without colour. Art dies away to rejoin
the intangible (Figs. 787, 788).

In contrast to the naturalism which is always in search of greater
truth, we must now place the painting which seeks for beauty.

The painters of the Restoration and
of the July Monarchy did not lack
decorative enterprises ; the successors
of David, Ingres and his pupils, were
able to embark on vast compositions
for the churches, the Louvre, and
Versailles. But these painters were
hardly decorators. The reforms of
David had been made in the name
of severe beauty ; painters, returning
to a somewhat heavy rigidity of
composition, correctness of dra^\•lng,
and austerity of style, had lost the
amenity of Boucher's manner. Their
initial difficulty was to adapt these
chilly paintings to mural decoration,
and to apply figures with rounded
contours and polished limbs to panels
and ceilings. They found further
that their pictorial themes required

391

FIG. 776. — GAII.I.ARn.

DOM PROSPER GUlfRANC.ER

(engraved POUrRAI T.)

(" Gazette des Beaux- Arts.")

ART IN FRANCE

VIC. 777. — CHAPLIX. PORTRAIT
OK A YOUNG GIRL.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

renovation. Christian iconography
was confined to the churches ; as
to the mythological repertory, it
seemed very old fashioned in an
age that could no longer treat it
brilliantly. Since the Gospels and
Olympus had alike failed them,
where were the decorators of the
nineteenth century to find motives
and a style, ideas and forms ?

Delacroix's decorations returned
to Venetian and Flemish traditions,
Veronese and Rubens. He en-
framed his tumultuous compositions
and his brilliant colours in gold ;
but such splendour requires the
royal galleries of the Louvre or
the Luxembourg, and this opulent
style could not become general.
Although Chasseriau owes a good deal to him, it was rather the
style of Ingres which finally prevailed. Ingres equalised the reliefs
on the surface of the wall,
attenuated the colours, and
fixed the figures in tranquil
attitudes ; the equilibrium of
the forms was in harmony
with the lines of the archi-
tecture.

Following his example,
Delaroche, in his painting of
the so-called Hemicycle in the
Ecole des Beaux Arts, made
a strenuous attempt to give
decorative breadth to his some-
what tame style. His com-
position was based on the
Apotheosis of Homer; but
Delaroche's great men are
listless and inattentive ; they
seem to be chatting together
before the beginning of a
sitting. There is no soul in

392

FIG. 778. — BASTIEN-LEPAGE.
.SAR.-\H BERNHARDT.

(Collection of M, VV, Blumenthal.)

NATURALISM

FIG. 77g. — RICARD.
PORTRAIT OF HEII-BUTH.

FIG. 7S0. — RICARD.
PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN.

the assembly ; it lacks the religious atmosphere of some sacred
grove. Chenavard understood that a huge pamtmg cannot satisfy
the modern spirit unless it offers a noble theme for meditation.
We are no longer unsophisticated enough to be content with a
purely fanciful spectacle, like those of Veronese. Chenavard
accordingly proposed to make philosophy play the part in his
painting which religious emotion had played in that of Flandnn.
Every man who claimed to be a serious thinker under Louis
Philippe, was fond of excursions into the past, to determine the
causes of the French Revolution. Every history of the period
might have been called : The Origin of the Revolution. Chena-
vard very nearly translated this book into paint in the secularised
Pantheon of 1848. His symbolical decoration was never earned
out. He philosophised too much to paint well. His ideas could
not always find plastic expression. A few of his works have
survived, in which dark, muscular forms move uneasily ; they are
Michelangelo's creations, deprived of their superhuman power.
Chenavard's art, austere and abstract as that of Ary Scheffer,
makes us realise that ideology will not suffice to produce energy.

Chasseriau had not time to fulfil his destiny (1819-1856). As
far as we can judge by some few paintings saved from the ruins of
the Tuilenes, he would have become a magnificent decorator. Like
Flandnn, he had learnt the secret of noble attitudes and outlines,
the full curves and ample gestures of fair odalisques ; but Delacroix's

393

ART IN FRANCE

KIG. 78l.-^BONNAT. PORTRAIT
OF CARDINAL LAVIGERIE.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

colour, and memories of Morocco
gave a certain Romantic fever to
the bodies which Flandrin endowed
only with a peaceful sentimentality.
We even recognise the restless, un-
healthy colour of Delacroix, and the
nervous, staccato touch of his tentative
brush (Figs. 769, 773),

Paul Baudry, in his work at the
Opera House, endeavoured to be
as sumptuous as the framework he
had to fill. Thought would have
been out of place in this domain.
His allegories of Music and Dancing
are merely pretexts for splendid forms
and happy grouping. He was an
eclectic of great distinction and cul-
ture, who lacked nothing but the
power of invention (Fig. 771).

Delaunay may be classed with him as an excellent painter, capable

of setting elegant and robust figures on a ceiling ; the alert flexibility

of Florence is combined with the rich colour of Venice in his

animated compositions (Fig. 775).

The Third Republic has demanded a great deal of decoration

from its history-painters. It became

apparent that they were losing in

decorative value what they were

gaining in realistic precision. The

panels in the Pantheon, the Hotel

de Ville of Paris, and the Capitole

of Toulouse are for the most part

immense historical pictures. In

very richly decorated galleries, they

make a good effect, but when the

architecture is simple, they look

extremely heavy. On the gray

stone of the Pantheon, many of

the paintings are like pictures

waiting for their frames. Else-
where a pendentive cuts a motive

designed for a square into a tri-
angle, or a window, a door, or a

394

FIG. 782. — BONNAT. VICTOR HUC;0.

(Victor Hugo's House, Paris.)

NATURALISM

KIG. 783. — CAROLUS-DURAN.
•I'HE LADY WITH THE GLOVE.

(The Lu.\eml)Ourg, Paris.)

pilaster encroaches disastrously upon
a figure. The architect hampers
the painter at every turn, because
the painter has left him too much
out of account.

Painters as realistic as Courbet,
Gervex and Roll have sometimes
enlarged their pictures and made
them into decorative panels. Why
not, we may ask. The greatest of
decorators. Veronese and Rubens,
were fervent naturalists ; but in
these cases, truth was compatible
with imagination ; when they painted
living flesh and elaborate costumes,
they did not cease to invent radiant
visions. Our realists lack the resource
of such fictions ; material truth is a
heavy burden for a decorator. In
Roll's vast compositions, and those which were painted in French
hotels de ville between 1 880 and 1 900, the crowds are the actual
crowds of the streets, but the painter's skill has not always enabled
him to correct the commonplace nature of the spectacle. Roll has,
nevertheless, executed some charming panels with landscape effects,
brilliant summer or spring sunshine, women, and flowers, in which
his robust technique has been modified ; but if the impression is
agreeable, the thought
seems trivial ; the over-
realistic decorator errs by
heaviness when he is
serious, by insignificance
when he is superficial
(Fig. 797).

And yet this very
Naturalism has done
decorative art a service,
in that it has enabled it
to declare itself frankly.
Ingres, Delaroche, Dela-
croix and Chassenau had
only one style for painting
a picture and a wall.

FIG. 784. — FANTIN-LATOLR. MANET's STUDIO

AT les hai'kjnoles.

395

(The Luxembourg, Paris,)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 785. — HEN'NER. IDYL.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

Their style, which was neither
purely realistic nor purely ideal-
istic, was the same on a vast
ceiling and in a little frame.
When the vocabulary of painters
became overloaded with material
sensations, the necessity for a
decorative style made itself felt,
and the rupture between the art
which lives by resemblance and
the art which seeks delight was
complete. Courbet and Puvis
de Chavannes turned away at
the same time, but in opposite
directions, from the normal style
of painting. One seemed pos-
sessed by violent, the other by
benevolent mania ; for the one,
painting was purely the language
of sensation ; for the other, it realised poetic visions and evoked
serene meditations.

Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) created a decorative style;
he was more successful than Flandnn and Chenavard, Lyonnais
like himself, in translating noble thoughts into the language of form,
and in emancipating himself from the prosaic exactitude of the
Naturalists. His painting is as tranquil as the architecture it
clothes ; his figures are fixed in truthful and majestic attitudes,
attitudes of repose, or at
least, of bodies in perfect
equilibrium ; with their
simplified silhouettes and
a certain stiffness of the
joints, they have that per-
fect solidity, that candid
air which marked Giotto's
figures, and is lacking in
Ingres and Flandrin's
calligraphic elegance.
His favourite colours
repeat the pale tones and
the soft charm of Floren-
tine fresco, as if the chalk

396

FIG. 786. — HENNER. READING GIRL.

(Collection of Mme. Porges.)

NATURALISM

■II,. 787. — CARRlfeRE. children's
KISSES.

(Moreau-Nelaton Collection.)
(Musee des Arts Decoratifs.)

of tKe wall had melted into the
blues and reds. They require no
gold frame to enhance their effect ;
surrounded by the cold, bare stone,
they retain their luminous delicacy.
Puvis de Chavannes did not achieve
this colour at once ; it was only by
degrees that his men and things
began to veil themselves in a trans-
parent whiteness, by means of which
they lose their materiality to become
harmonious patches upon the wall,
very soft to the eye, in spite of their
solid construction.

But the creation of a vocabulary
is no great thing ; Puvis abandoned
the traditional motives, Christian
and pagan, and imagined a new
world, a world at once real and
ideal, which is not that of Olympus
or the Gospels, of history or of reality. The idea is always so
simple that it seems commonplace when it is expressed in words :
Peace, War, Work, Play, Art. Puvis adapted this large symbol-
ism, rich in noble attitudes, to a variety of sites, for his decoration,
always subordinated to the exigencies of architecture, is also brought
into moral harmony with its surroundings. It is true that the initial

works. Peace and War,
were not destined for the
city of Amiens, where
circumstances have placed
them, but the paintings
which completed the de-
coration of the Museum
of Picardy illustrate
Picard landscape, and the
life of the province. In
the Museum of Rouen,
we have Nature inspiring
the Arts ; m that of Lyons,
the serenity of the pagan
dream in the radiant sun-

788. — C.-\KK1EKIC. M.-VTERNITV.

(The Luxembourg, I'aris.)

397

light, and the mystic ardour

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 789. — ruvis

DE CHAVANNES.

SAINT GENEVIEVE

WATCHING OVER PARIS.

(Paiithion, Paris.)

lose their scholastic coldness, and
Elysian serenity (Fig. 715). Other
landscapes exhale the poetry of
past ages. At Lyons, the radiant
paganism of Greece, and the
Franciscan soul of Umbria. In
the Pantheon, Puvis illumines
Sainte Genevieve's childhood with
the white radiance of dawn, and
shows us her old age in twilight
and gathering night. The artless
sweetness of the tone resuscitates
the idyllic soul of the legend.

Puvis de Chavannes, by no
means, an impeccable artist, has
created a universe, like the great
poets of painting. Very often, he
recalls Poussin by the power of
his thought, the predominance
of the conception, the tranquil

398

of the painter-monk in his Tuscan monastery.
In the Marseilles Museum, two compositions
indicate the functions of this "Greek Colony "
which has remained " the Gate of the East. "
Puvis de Chavannes may be said to have
created a genre, the decoration of the peri-
styles of museums. The great decorator
emphasises the local features of their dis-
tricts, and offers us a noble theme for
meditation on the threshold. His com-
positions, which are neither pure allegory
nor history, owe their vital charm to the
landscape. By the truth of the illumination
and of the character of the ground, Puvis
has given plausibility to his visions, without
giving them exactitude ; the poetic physi-
ognomy of the seasons and regions, Summer
and Winter, Rouen and Marseilles, is
realised.

At the Sorbonne, such poetry breathes
from the Sacred Grove in which Letters
and Science converse that these allegories
participate in divine life and

FIG. 790. — I'UVIS DE CHAV'ANNES.
CHILDHOOD OF SAINTE GENEVlftVE.

(Panthtori, Paris.)

NATURALISM

79r. — PUVIS DE CH.WANNES.
IHE SACKED GROVE.

(Museum of Lyons.)

assurance of the technique, and the plastic rhythm of the composi-
tion. In the greatest geniuses of French art, Poussin, Chardin,
Millet, and Puvis, manual
dexterity has counted for
little ; they spiritualise
their material, obtain the
adhesion of thought, and
evoke the faculty of
reverie without astonish-
ing the eye.

While Puvis was
dreaming his dream,
Courbet's painting was
working out its conclu-
sions. We must now
follow the history of
naturalistic painting in its
technical discoveries. In
his first works, Manet (1832-1883) had been guilty of the same
absurdity as Courbet. He placed studio figures in his landscapes.
His picture of an al fresco meal (Dejeuner sur I'Herbe) represents
a naked woman on a background of dark green, side by side with
men in dark clothes. The sun filters through the foliage, but with very
little enthusiasm or gaiety.
The true illumination for
this young woman would have
been the fitful reflections of
light under trees. Manet,
however, inserted in his
landscape a figure the colour
of old ivory, a product of
Rembrandt's studio, the sil-
houette of which IS sharply
defined against the aggres-
sive green of the meadow
(Fig. 794). Obviously,
Manet intended to illuminate
his pictures by this method
of surrounding large planes
of light with opaque shadows.
But such a method, unfortunately, fixes the contours heavily ; the
object has more solidity, more body thus treated, than those of

399

FIG. 792. — BASTIEN-l.El-A(iE. H.AY.MAKING.

(The I.uxembouig, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FlU. 793. — MANET.
THE I5AR OF THE FOLIES-RERGERE.

the abstract academic paintings ; but it is far from bathing m the
radiant illumination of broad daylight. At this period Manet was

an admirer and pupil of
the Spaniards with their
dark shadows, and of
Hals with his staccato
touch. He had extra-
ordinary visual delicacy,
which was as yet but
imperfectly seconded by
his technical skill ; his
colour was dirty, and
could not render the
freshness of his impres-
sion. Certain notes of
his brush sum up subtle
and vivid sensations ; they
are charming inventions
among a great number of .Jess happily inspired expressions. His
vivacity of touch redeems the heaviness of his material ; Manet
excels less in his scale of colour than in his nervous, elliptical
handling ; the Impressionists who succeeded him rendered the
luminous transparence of the open air more perfectly, but their
brushing is quiet and monotonous (Figs. 793, 794).

Other painters, such
as Bastien-Lepage, tried
to suggest the open air
by an equal diffusion of
light on the landscape
and the figures set in it.
The painter tried to atone
by precision of drawing
for the loss of solidity
entailed by this mono-
tonous equality. But
Bastien-Lepage's delicate
gradations fade away in
the distance like a well
modulated voice which is
too weak to make itself
heard save at close quarters. Frank oppositions of light and colour
are necessary to illuminate a large picture. This refined painter

400

FIG. 794. — MANET. BREAKFAST ON THE GRASS.

(Moreau-Niilaton Collection.)

NATURALISM

KIG. 795. — STEINLEN.
MASONS WATCHING A PASSING
FUNERAL.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

applied the delicate execution hitherto
reserved for aristocratic portraits or
mythological divinities to the rendering
of a peasant picking up potatoes (Fig.
792). Dagnan-Bouveret has gone even
further, bringing the physiognomical
research of a Leonardo to bear upon
his rustic models (Fig. 800). Bastien-
Lepage's plein-airisme is to be recog-
nised in a large number of painters,
Gervex, Duez, Albert Maignan, and
Roll, who have illuminated large com-
positions by relieving Ribot's and Manet's
sombre tonality with silvery tones.

About the year 1875, while Manet
was still living, certain painters invented
a new process. Claude Monet and his
disciples, Sisley, Pissarro, Renoir, and
even Manet himself, form a well defined
group, because they had a common aim,
and attained it by similar means ; a
polemical incident gave them the name of " Impressionists."
Courbet and Manet had failed to render the brilliance and

delicacy of light,

because their

only method had

been the opposi-
tion of light and

dark, black and

white. B u t

although the

painter has no

real light on his

palette, he has

colours as vivid

as those of reality.

Now certain

masters, Rubens,

Turner and

Delacroix, had

already shown

that the play of

401

riG. 796. — MANET.
THE WOMAN WITH CHERRIES.

(Durand-Ruel Colleclioii.)

KIG. 797. — ROLL.
THE NURSE.

(Museum of Amiens.)
D D

ART IN FRANCE

FH;. 798. — ROLL. THE CENTENAKV OF 1789.

(Museum of Versailles.)

light and shade may be adequately translated by a play of colours.

Physicists have taught us that a ray of sunshine, passing through a

prism, is decomposed mto
three pure colours, yellow,
red, and blue, which
mingle at their confines
and form three composite
colours, violet, green and
orange. The more or
less conscious method of
the Impressionists consists
in replacing that light,
the splendour of which
the painter cannot directly
reproduce, by its con-
stituent colours, the
equivalents of which he
has on his palette. He

uses pure colour as far as possible, that he may lose nothing of his

means ; for colours become dirty and neutral by intermixture.

But these colours cannot reproduce light, unless they are combined,

like the colours of the prism. The Impressionist painter leaves this

process to the spectator ; the eye reverses the process of the prism ;

it recomposes what the

painter has decomposed.

The painters of light

rekindle the reflections

which the painters of pure

form had extinguished ;

but in the effort to fix the

intangible specks which

float in the atmosphere,

they are often obliged to

sacrifice the material

colour of things, the local

tint. The Impressionists

gave severe shocks to our

prejudices as to local

colour; they frankly

coloured a face with blue

or orange reflections, and experimented on the human figure with

those luminous fantasies which had hitherto been reserved for clouds

402

;. 799. — riSSARRO. LA PLACE
DU THFIATRE FRAN^AIS.

(Durand-Ruel Collection.)

NATURALISM

800. — DAGXAN-BOUVERET.
THE CONSCRIPTS.

(Palais Bourbon.)

and water, because these bodies have only borrowed colours.
Finally, as the painter does not represent objects in their materiality,
but only m their luminous ap-
pearance, the Impressionist brush
does not define forms ; the reflec-
tions m which the light is dispersed
must not appear to imitate the
actual colour of things ; it must
float, as It were in the atmosphere,
and vibrate like luminous atoms.
Design, in the ordinary sense of
the term, is volatilised. A good
Impressionist landscape extin-
guishes everything near it ; its
light IS so subtle and so brilliant
that It has been accounted a
sufficient motive for the picture.
The Impressionist does not repre-
sent a tree, a lake, or a house, but
the shade of the tree, pierced
by a few rays of light, or the
appearance of a wall at different times of the day. A stack of corn,
a mist, the carved fa<^ade of a church, a pool with water-lilies,
sufficed Claude Monet for the thread on which he strung his

glittering gems (Figs. 802-

804).

The reflections of Im-
pressionism are to be
found in the greater part
of contemporary painting ;
its sparks kindled a blaze
of fireworks in decorative
art. Landscape painters
have so far profited by it
that they have learnt to
differentiate the light of
special hours and regions.
Theodore Rousseau made
but a slight distinction
between southern sunshine
that of the Ile-de-France ; Corot confounded that of Italy
that of Picardy. A new world has been discovered and

KAI FAELI.I. — C.IESTS .\\VAiriN(, A
WKDDINc; PARTY.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

and
with

403

D D 2

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 802. — CLAUDE MONET.
PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN.

(Museum, Berlin.)

explored which no painter can now
Ignore.

The Impressionists have formed a
decorative style ; the brilliant poly-
chromy of their palettes incites these
subtle observers continually to new
fantasies of colour. Claude Monet
fell into the hallucination of dazzhng
visions even when he was merely
endeavouring to get a true effect, and
Lebourg sometimes recalls Turner.
But the Impressionist method is
solvent for design, and soon betrays
its insufficiency outside the realm of
landscape. Certain painters, such as
Renoir and Besnard, have bathed
their large figures in fitful light ; they
note its iridescence on a pearly skin,
and mingle the reflections of sun and
water in the liquid suppleness of their bathing women. Besnard's
decorations have a lyric lightness and movement ; they amuse the
eye by their unexpected arrangement, their audacious perspective,
their spiritual freedom. They suggest Fragonard's lively ardour,
Tiepolo's boldness, his balanced masses, his sudden rays of light. But
the inspiration is purely modern ; the atmosphere is that of the
laboratory ; the colours are as crude as those of pharmaceutical
jars, the light dazzling
and explosive, the figures V
restless and electrical as
flames. Besnard preserves
form admirably amidst his
reflections ; the jets of light
follow the modelling ; the
supple hatchings of the
brush continue to design
even when the fantasies of
the colour die out. He
has painted some excel-
lent portraits, in which the
personality of the model
is not too much dispersed in the capricious play of reflections amongst
flowers and stuffs (Figs. 809, 810). Gaston La Touche, Louis

404

FIG. 80^

— CLAUDE MONET. LOiNDON BRIDGE.

(Durand-Ruel Collection.)

NATURALISM

»o4.

-C1.AUUI-; Mo.NET. LA GAKE ,SAI.\T-I.AZAKE.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

Picard, Mile. Dufan, and Cheret also practise this explosive deco-
ration. Invented by fervid Naturalists, the Impressionist language
now serves for the ex-
pression of pictorial
fantasy. Poetic fiction
has emerged from sensa-
tion ; a flame has burst
from matter.

Henri Martin has
attempted and succeeded
in a decorative style m
which he combines the
realism of Roll, the flicker-
ing sunlight of the Impres-
sionists, the breadth and
calm rhythm of Puvis de
Chavannes. He paints
the men of our own times, peasants or citizens, in somewhat the-
atrical attitudes, but the vulgarity of the figures is redeemed by the
extraordinary beauty of the landscape, and the touching poetry of
the illumination. Henri Martin has not adopted Puvis de Chavannes'
flat colour ; he paints with independent touches which make the
atmosphere vibrate, without destroying the solid structure of his
vast compositions ; this mosaic he doubtless learnt in his native Tou-
louse, that " Pointillist " .

city, built of little bricks,
and paved with little
stones (Figs. 816, 817).
This " Pointillisme " ' is
modified and attenuated
till it dies away altogether
in Le Sidaner's quiet
landscapes and Ernest
Laurent's tender and
mysterious portraits.

Drawing as practised
by French artists since the
Renaissance has been an
abstract modelling, a kind
of design for sculpture. There is an Impressionism of line,
analogous to that of light and colour. Like the technique of colour

J The method of painting by juxtaposing small particles of pure colour,

405

FIG. 805. — SISI.EV. SNOW El-l-ECT.

(Duraml-Ruel Collection.)

ART IN FRANCE

806. — SISLEV. BANKS OF A RIVER.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

division, this drawing is implicit in the art of Delacroix ; it suggests
not only form but movement ; it does not seek solid reality behind

changeful appearance ; it
accepts disorder and in-
exactitude, and sacrifices
literal accuracy to charac-
terisation. Japanese
albums taught it the dis-
location of line, undulating
perspective, dissymetrical
composition, and all the
curiosities of arrangement
which figures passing in
our field of vision can
assume. Degas is one
of the masters of this art.
He chose all the most un-
expected aspects of reality,
and all the most artificial elements of our society, the world of theatres
and races, jockeys perched on slender thoroughbreds, or the pirouettes
of ballet dancers (Fig. 808). Forain is of the same school ; he
describes the world of the Stock
Exchange, of politics and of the
theatre, and loves to show these
modern powers, the financier, the
deputy, and the dancer, m juxta-
position. He will be accounted
the Daumier of our age ; but
Daumier was always a Roman-
ticist, burning with generous rage ;
Foram's drawing, abrupt and de-
cisive, carries a cold, insulting irony
in Its brutal lines. Raffaelli, the
draughtsman of bare suburbs and
swarming streets, of wretched
tatterdemalions and small trades-
people, should also perhaps be
classed with these students of
characteristic traits (Fig. 801).
Steinlen is not a draughtsman of
this group. He is rather a descendant of Millet, who could
express a lifetime of misery in a heavy silhouette (Fig. 795).

406

I"lc,. S07. — RENOIR. THE UliJEUNER.

(Duraiid-Ruel Colleclion.)

NATURALISM

FIG. 80S. — DEG.-VS. THE DANCER.

(The Lu.xembouig, Paris.)

Impressionism was the inven-
tion of a new language rather than
of a new mode of thought. It is
the result of a visual analysis ;
painters took notes and registered
curious effects ; and now a great
many of them, returning to their
studios, are projecting works more
significant in content. Amongst
these pioneer groups, two ten-
dencies are clearly apparent.
Certain artists are faithful to the
light colours, but are less ex-
clusively preoccupied with the
truth of luminous effects than
their prototypes ; painters like
Cezanne, Gauguin and Maurice
Denis seem to aim more at
decorative or expressive effects.
They have a horror of the Naturalism from which they have
emerged. They accept the brilliant palette of their predecessors,
but merely for decorative purposes ; some of them, Maurice Denis,
for instance, have recognised that these pure colours recall the azure,
the flame-like red and the lily-white of Fra Angehco, and they lay
on their rainbow tints in broad unbroken tones like those of a
tapestry or of a fresco by Giotto. Objects no longer melt into
the atmosphere ; em-
phatic lines encir-^le
forms, and these lines
are delirious. Monet
saw his forms bathed
in light, but he allowed
us to discern correct
modelling amidst his
flickering reflections.
The heavy profiles
which enclose the
forms of the Cezanne-
Gauguin School do
not help us to a mental
reconstruction of their tottering houses and crippled figures. It is
scarcely probable that these artists will persuade us to renounce the

407

I'U,. 8og. — HESNAKI). THE EVENING Ol' LIl-E.

(Maiiie <Ju I'-"'' Arrondissemeiit, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 8lO. — BESNARD. THE FORTUNATE ISLAND.

(Mus^e des Arts decor.itifs, Paris.)

grammar of design which
has been accepted since
the Renaissance. Design
bears a relation to the
laws of vision analogous
to that of syntax to the
laws of thought. Such
a discipline can only
disappear as a result of
complete intellectual dis-
integration, such as that
which marked the down-
fall of the antique world.
This affected barbarism
might prove fertile in
countries where culture
. is still elementary ; in

France it can only be noted as the passing diversion of decadents.

We must look in another direction for indications of future de-
velopments. At the heyday of Impressionist sun-studies, a group

of young painters began to be distinguished by the dark tonality of

their pictures. Cottet, Simon, Menard, Dauchez and others after

them, deserted the open air for the studio, and returned to what

may be called museum-painting, with

strong shadows and subtleties of

execution which do not aim exclu-
sively at truth. Their technique

sometimes recalls Courbet ; but it is

the spirit of Millet which informs

their art. They have extinguished

the Impressionist fireworks, because

their magic iridescence prevents one

from seeing the solidity of things ;

very vivid polychromy dazzles the eye

and holds it captive ; dark colour is

less distracting to meditation, and we

can recognise a thought more easily

in its tranquility. These painters

seek the perennial physiognomy that

underlies the variations of hours and
seasons. They strip the soil of its
vesture of light and verdure; they

408

FIG. 8ll.— PAUL GAUGUIN.
SAVAGE LEGENDS

NATURALISM

fig. bi2. — maurice denis. our lady
ami>m; the school-children.

love to show the skeleton
of the earth. They have
a strong predilection for
Brittany, a district in
which the variations of
time and season transform
the aspects of Nature but
slightly. Among the in-
numerable portraits of the
French provinces which
appear annually at the
Salon, none leave a
deeper impression upon
the memory than Me-
nard s Mediterranean
scenes, and the Brittany of Simon, Dauchez and Cottet. In
Menard and Dauchez we note a desire to generalise the character
of the landscape ; they grasp the aspect of gulf, lake, forest and
ruin as a whole. The image they give us has not the episodic
character of a motive painted from Nature ; they have seized it in
Its essence by an effort of the mind rather than of the eye. To
produce such landscapes, it is not enough to see well and copy
well ; it is necessary to feel the inherent logic which has given objects
their form. Claude Lorrain and Joseph Vernet were guilty of geo-
logical absurdities in their landscapes. Their modern heirs commit
no such blunders ; their drawing defines the personality of rock or cloud
unerringly, and reveals
the sou! of the landscape

(Figs. 818-821).

Impressionism confined
itself to the mobile surface
of things, to phenomena
which make little appeal
to emotion or intelligence.
It was, in painting, that
phase of pure observation
through which all forms
of intellectual labour have
passed. But even in
painting, the French mind
cannot long resign itself to
the function of a recording

409

3l^ — rAUI, CrtZANNE. STILL LIFE

(M. Bernheim, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 814. — JACQUES BLANCHE.
THE PAINTER THAUI-OW AND HIS FAMILY.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

apparatus. There are many
signs that it Is turning once
more to the classical attitude.
Does not the nobility of art lie
in the fact that human thought
is everywhere present in it ?
But this new Classicism has
not rejected its romantic and
naturalistic heritage.
Whereas the Classicists
confined their observation to
the face and the attitude of the
body, modern research ex-
tends to the inanimate regions,
and painters now look for
the relations of thought and
matter in the physiognomy of
land and sky. In this chastened naturalism we may recognise an ancient
French tradition, transmitted by Millet and by Puvis de Chavannes ;
the classical intellect of the Frenchman will only absorb so much of
fact as it can assimilate without loss of lucidity. A system, even if
limited, is more satisfactory to it than a mass of ill-organised truths.

Of the pictorial manners we have now passed in review, none
can be said to have become absolutely out-of-date ; the representa-
tives of these various styles appear side by side in the annual Salons.
Thus the difficulty of defining the contemporary school is not only

due to the fact that we,
who are living among the
individuals, cannot readily
discern groups. The word
School has no longer its
old significance. It meant
formerly families of
painters, related by a
common ideal and similar
methods, just as the State
implied uniformity of reli-
gious and political senti-
ments. Individualism,
which has shattered this
uniformity, has destroyed
both State and School in

FIG. 815. — CARO-DELVAILLE.
MY WIFE AND HER SISTERS.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

410

NATURALISM

FK;. 8i6. — HENRI MARTIN. THE MOWERS.
(Capitole of Tovilouse.) {P/ioto. Cra'itu.v.)

the early sense. The sohdanty which now unites the men of a
group and the artists of a school is of a different kind. None of
the successive kinds of beauty have disappeared from the city of the
arts, and all the parties which in turn held sway are still repre-
sented. The complexity of society corresponds to that of styles ;
there are admirers for all. The unity of the French School, if it
exists, IS not to be found in community of character ; the eclecticism
of taste, and the violent competition which emphasises originality,
disperse talents and oppose them, instead of making them converge
to a common ideal.

But among all these different forms of art, there is a kind of
solidarity born of contrast and a division of artistic labour. The
realism of a Thierry Bouts and the idealism of a Memling, the
realism of a Filippo Lippi, and the idealism of a Fra Angelico,
were distinguished only by very subtle gradations. But what a
gulf lies between the brutal naturalism of a Courbet and the world
of Puvis de Chavannes' dreams ! The art of a period responds to
a constant demand ; extreme characteristics cannot develope without
exciting antitheses. If there were only one style, it could not be
that of Degas, nor even that of Millet, of Puvis or of Rodin.
Monet's fairyland made Carriere's colourless nocturnes acceptable ;
the extraordinary dexterity of some artists makes us turn with
pleasure to the ingenuous awkwardness of others ; the sculpture
that suggests moulded forms prepares us to acclaim Rodin's
expressive violence. The energies of art no longer develope in
compact fasces ; they ramify in a thousand divergent branches ;
but the organism would not be properly balanced if they did not

411

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 817. — HENRI MARTIN. THE OLD SHEPHEKD,

(Sorbonne.) {Photo. Crevaiix.)

spread about the parent trunk with a certain symmetry. This is
no longer the regularity of the French park, but the denser growth
of the forest, where each shoot struggles towards the light.

In this confused struggle, two forces are opposed, and the balance
is obtained by this opposition of the regulating force of resistance,
and the force of movement. The conservative element is repre-
sented more especially by those who fear above all things the
sacrifice of traditional virtues, the patrimony of the School ;
technical perfection, elegance, all the qualities acquired by the
work of generations, and transmitted by teaching. The innovators,
or at least the bolder spirits among these, have no respect for this
venerable heritage. They speak boldly the artistic language they

have themselves created.
But nothing shows the
necessity of a strong tradi-
tion more clearly than an
over aggressive individu-
alism. The conservative
break is no less salutary
than the revolutionary
impulse ; art would stag-
nate or go astray if it
lacked one or the other.
The true innovator is he
who, bearing all the
weight of tradition, yet
has the courage to lead
the way.

FIG. 818. — COTTET. LUW TIDE
IN BRITTANY.

(Petit-Pabis, Paris.)

412

NATURALISM

KIC. 819. — K. MEN'ARD. THE LAKE.

(The Luxembourg, Pari>.)

In sculpture, tradition
has more power against
individualism ; the natural-
istic tendency showed
itself here in the second
half of the nineteenth
century ; but sculpture
evolves slowly. The
language of stone and
bronze is less docile than
that of colour. Painting
had achieved and aban-
doned several aspects of
" integral realism," while
sculpture was still making
the same effort to bring
modelling into closer contact with the forms of life, and adapt it to

he movements of passion.

Towards the middle of the century, sculpture had recovered
from the Romantic emotion. Jean du Seigneur and Preault
had not succeeded in subduing their material. Rude, indeed, had
convulsed his figures with modern passion, but for the most part
he had preserved the attitudes of antique heroism. Barye alone
had adopted freer methods, because he had modelled the muscles
of the larger wild beasts. But from Cortot to Piadier, and from

Pradier to Guillaume, sculpture had retained the Graeco- Roman

rounded modelling and proportions. Eugene Guillaume's figures

(1822^1905) seem to

demonstrate that living

forms are merely those

of a somewhat imperfect

geometry ; he reduced

the most irregular forms

to simple planes, and de-
duced a generalised model

from the living model.

His works, \\hich are

marked by a pure and

somewhat cold distinc-
tion, are those of a

pupil of the ancients.

But his intelligence was

KIG. 820. — SIMON. THE rROCESSloN.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

413

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 821.

-DAUCHEZ. THE PINES OF LESCONIL.

{Photo. Crevaitx.)

mainly critical ; he drew taste, elegance and correctness from the

antique sources, but not the secret of vitality.

Meanwhile, Florentine influence intervened to modify that of the

ancients. Many
French artists
stopped at Flor-
ence on their way
to Rome, and there
discovered the
sculpture of the
fifteenth century.
Before these dry
and nervous works
they found out
that there was a
good deal of in-

D f -I- T^i , , . . , sipidity in Grasco-

Koman facility. 1 he deeply artistic realism of Ghiberti, Donatello
and Verrocchio inspired a whole generation of French artists
very happily. Falguiere, Fremiet, Paul Dubois, Eugene Barrias,
Gerome and Antonin Mercie, resuscitated this style in their
respective manners. This Florentine influence was more propitious
to sculptors than to painters ; the works of the fifteenth century
really lent new expression to statuary, whereas imitation of the
Pre-Raphaelites failed to give birth to a visible school of painting.
Michelangelo's athletic
forms and daring attitudes
also inspired a number of
lively and expressive
works. Carpeaux some-
times recalls the great
Florentine, and Paul
Dubois has placed four
bronze figures at the
angles of General La-
moriciere's tomb in Nantes
Cathedral (Fig. 822)
grave and meditative as
those of the Medici
Chapel. Rene de Saint-
Marceaux, again, has more than once translated the proud beauty
and the vigour of the Sistine nudities into marble.

414

FIG. 822.

-1'. DUBOIS. TOMI! OF LAMOKICI^RE.

(Cathedral of Nantes.)

NATURALISM

Florence also played a part in the work of those admirable artists,
Chaplain and Roty, who gave so much prestige to the art of the
medallist. Chaplain has struck some energetic effigies in which
the solid relief of great sculpture is enclosed in contours as pure as
those of a drawing by Ingres (Fig. 824). In Roty's medals, the
delicate refinement of the forms gives his allegories a charm of
youth and a freshness hardly to be looked for in these little metal
pictures (Fig. 826).

The images of contemporary life, no less than the example of the
past, have given sculptors the courage to innovate. The same
generation witnessed the appearance of naturalism among sculptors
and among painters. While
Courbet's aggressive art was
raising an uproar, Carpeaux
(1827-1875) was throwing the
ardour of his temperament into
living forms. The world in which
he lived chastened his impetuosity
without sapping his vigour. The
lively and sensual society of the
Second Empire, the haughty
elegance of princesses, and the
charm of opera-dancers were
portrayed by this robust kneader
of clay. Even to his mythological
figures he gave a carnal life, and
not the generalised and somewhat
abstract modelling of classical
sculpture. His Ugolino makes
us think of Michelangelo's tormented giants, and his laughing
nymphs of Clodion's plump female fauns. His Four Quarters of
the World are agile dancers. His true Muse was Terpsichore, or
rather the fair women he saw waltzing in the ball-rooms of the
Tuileries (Figs. 827-830, 833).

Carpeaux rediscovered the warmth and movement of life ; his
work contains a lesson that was quickly understood. A Flemish
sap runs through the creations of this Valenciennes sculptor. That
of his successors seems to have been set in motion by the vivacity of
Toulouse. Palguiere spoke at first in the sharp and nervous language
of the Florentines. But he gradually revealed his predilection for
the robust feminine nudities to \vhich his chisel gave even the
quivering life of the epidermis (Figs. 837, 839). Antonin Mercle's

415

I'U;. S23. — J. L. J^KOMIi. lUlNAl'AIMI-:.

(The Luxembourg, I'aiis.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 824. — CHAPLAIN.
IMEDAL OF V. HUtiO.

{Photo. Giraudon.)

new develop-
ments, this is due in great part to the
initiative of Dalou (1838-1902). He
began as an elegant decorator in the
Renaissance style dear to the Second
Empire. But a powerful vitality was
seething in him ; he threw aside the
affected subtleties of the style, and his
impetuous vigour occasionally betrayed
him into vulgarity. He had something of
Rude's afflatus ; but since Rude, marble
had borrowed the warmth and softness of
flesh, and Dalou's modelling no longer
shows the muscular system of antique
heroes with its clearly defined planes, but
the swelling outline and agitated contours

of Rubens'

talent has great flexibility, whether he
exercises it on intelligence, on melan-
choly, or on tenderness (Figs. 83 1 , 838).
Injalbert is carried away by an im-
petuosity akin to that of Rubens ; more
than one Southern sculptor has indeed
translated the brilliant touch and even
something of the colour of the Flemish
master into stone. None of these
sacrificed classic purity of form ; but all
gave breath and life to their material.

If French sculpture is making its
way towards

825. — DANIEL-DUl'UIS.
THE SPRING.

FIG. 826. — ROTY.
MARRIAGE.

figures. Da-
lou was further one of the artists who
did most to win plastic expression from
modern costume. He never finished
the monument to workmen which he
contemplated ; but his numerous pre-
parations for it were not in vain.

Since the Renaissance, sculptors had
seen in the human body a magnificent
but useless machine ; the ideal divinities
take elegant attitudes ; they sometimes
make use of passionate gestures to

416

NATURALISM

FIG. £27 — CAKPEAU.V.
THE MAKQUIS DE LA BOKDE.

(The Louvre, Paris.)

show their strength or flexibihty ;

but they never make any effort

with an instrument or a tool.

Millet showed how moving and

majestic the gesture of the sower,

the reaper and the water-carrier,

or the bending attitude of the

gleaner, may be. After the painter

the sculptor discovered in his turn

that there is nothing more logical,

better balanced and consequently

more harmonious than a navvy

wielding his pick or a blacksmith

at the forge. Dalou was one of

those who taught young sculptors

the expressive beauty of a body

straining every nerve in some useful

effort. Young artists such as

Henry Bouchard and Roger

Bloche show every day how much vigour and emotional charm

may be expressed by sculpture which deals with the man of the

factory and the man of the fields (Fig. 845).

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the language of
sculpture has gained considerably in
richness and flexibility. The inno-
vators have sometimes disconcerted
the public by their audacities ; but
many of them have gradually com-
pelled acceptance. The most original
and powerful of these sculptors was
Rodin ; many young artists have
taken him for their guide, and his
work IS characteristic of the latest
evolution of French sculpture. He
practises a kind of plastic poetry,
which sometimes offends our concep-
tion of objective forms. The colour-
istic fantasies of the Impressionists
were perhaps less amazing, because
they were not out of harmony with
the caprices of light. But in sculpture, ik;. 828.— carpeau.v. dance.

even more than in painting, it is (Ku<;acleof the Opera House.)

417 E E

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 829. — CARCEAUX AND FR]£mIET.

THE FOUNTAIN OF THE OBSERVATORY.

I'ARIS.

difficult for us to lay aside the
sense of objective truth. Now
Rodin very often makes his
modelhng subserve the will of
his genius audaciously enough ;
he is no more a realist than was
Delacroix ; he has proved him-
self a perfect master of anatomi-
cal science, but this science is
not his guide ; he adapts the
forms of life to his conceptions,
and sacrifices what we call
elegance or correctness without
scruple. Often he leaves his
forms unfinished, hardly dis-
engaged from the marble,
because they suffice for the ex-
pression of his idea in this
incomplete state. Michelangelo's giants contain as much fiery
energy as Rodin's figures, but they never lose their supreme
elegance. Their gestures show the languor of lassitude or the
tension of effort. Rodin s figures overstep these limits. It is
because they express the paroxysms of human passion, from delight
to torture, that they seem unable to
control the twitching of their re-
bellious muscles. The rugged, con-
torted, interlaced masses, which he
twists and bends at will, suggest
wills and sufferings stronger than
themselves. It is not absurd thus to
submerge human personality in a
world of forms and lines which
exceeds it ; the physical and moral
harmony of an individual may be
overwhelmed by the stress of passion.
The bronze limbs of the " Citizens of
Calais " seem rude and heavy ; their
hands hang heavy as paving-stones at
the end of over-long arms ; the feet
that press the ground seem almost
incapable of movement ; and the
' Thinker, ' a giant rugged as a

330. — C.\KI'EAUX. UGOl.lXO.

( The Louvre, Paris.)

418

NATURALISM

I!'.;. 031. — A. .MET^CIE.
DAVID.

(Tlie Luxembourg, Paris.)

menhir, concentrates all his troglodyte

strength and contracts his mighty muscles

over some poor glimmer of thought.

On the other hand, the marble becomes

mellow, warm and fluid, to render the

tenderness of an embrace, and suggest a

lingering and caressing contact (Figs. 841-

843).

This art, which realised ambitions dear

to the Romanticists, is frankly hostile to

the ideals of classical sculpture. A^ll the

post-Renaissance sculptors, even the most

daring, such as Michelangelo and Puget,

were governed by ideas of beauty and cor-
rectness. If Rodin has ancestors, we must

look for them in the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries, at the time when Gothic idealism

had died out and classic idealism was not yet

born. It was then that vigorous artists like

Claus Sluter and Donatello let loose the indomitable violence of

their genius in rugged figures. The danger in an art so unfettered

by any restraints is that it may not always be
intelligible. In the artistic as in the social
order, even the most gifted individuals must
accept a little of the common discipline. The
artist does violence to the language of form
when he forces it to express a certain cha-
racter, even at the price of incorrectness.
The sculptor who proposes to make his
modelling dramatic or tender in itself runs the
risk of being misunderstood, like the writer
who sets out to make music with words.
There is no inevitable harmony between the
means and the end. If the thought is in-
adequate, the work remains amorphous ; and
we see only an mert mass of material. Such
an art is inexorable to the lapses of genius ; if
his inspiration falters, the artist has neither
the resources of realism nor the rules of taste
which govern normal sculpture to support
him. Rodin's poetry becomes intolerable in
some of his disciples ; it is only the artist of

419 t E 2

I'lo. S 32. — ni'isois.

TirE I'UIKKNI INK SIN(;EK.

(The Lu.xemboura;, P.nris. )

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. S33. — CAHl'EAUX. MODEL FOU THE GKOUl'
OF FLORA.

genius who can set aside the rules of science and of traditional correct-
ness with impunity ; average mortals must respect syntax, or their

speech becomes delirium.
Art such as Rodin's is
so well attuned to modern
individualism, that it has
naturally had a strong
influence on the young
generation of artists.
There is now a style in
sculpture which deliber-
ately preserves all the
evidences of impatience,
awkwardness, and ner-
vousness m execution.
The modeller in clay has
added his style to that of
the worker m metal or
marble. The bronze is
allowed to fix, and occasionally to give a brutal emphasis to the
fortuitous prints of thumb or trowel. Contemporary sculpture tends
more and more to lose the smooth elegance and quiet amenity of
the earlier art. In the work of several sculptors of original talent,
Pierre Roche, Bareau,
Bouchard, Landowski,
Segoffin, and Roger
Bloche, we see that this
attempt to render the
aspect and emotions of
modern man has by no
means failed ; we discern
sensibility and passion in
many somewhat unat-
tractive groups. Some
clever pupils of this school
have attempted a com-
promise between elegant
correctness and insistence
on expressive contours.

This Impressionism of sculpture, like that of painting, has trans-
formed the technique even of those who least approve it.

In spite of its fertility, modern sculpture shows a certain indecision

420

FIG. 334. — FK^.MlIir. OKANG-OUTANG AND SAVAGE,
IN BORNEO.

NATURALISM

IIG. 835. — CHAI'U. MONUMENT
TO HENRI KEl.iNAUl.T.

(K.cole des lieaux-Arts, Paris.)

of vocation. What becomes of the
population of statues which appears
annually at our exhibitions ? Some go
into our museums ; but we may ask if
statuary might not play a more useful
part, and one more closely related to
the social order ? Those who cite the
wealth of sculpture which adorns the
porches of our Gothic cathedrals wish
that sculptors would collaborate more
closely with architects, and apply them-
selves more especially to decoration. But
they have now been practising an inde-
pendent and expressive art too long to be
able to accept architecture as their raison
d'etre. The best of modern sculptors,
Puget and Carpeaux, decorated classical
facades with very undisciplined figures.

Commemorative monuments are now
the principal resource of sculptors. Since sculpture has provided
public images for that religion of hero-worship, glorious memories,
and abstract principles which has replaced popular saints and the
mythology of the Humanists, statuary has recovered a certain social
utility which it lacked at the end of the
eighteenth century. These stone docu-
ments record the faith of France in the
nineteenth century, and the forms of
her ideal. The art of David d'Angers
dealt with celebrities approved by the
verdict of centuries, but now innumerable
statues glorify names which have not
undergone the test of time. Sculptors
show their ingenuity by variations of
arrangement, combining the portrait of
the great man and allegories of his
virtues more or less happily. But art
cannot give a soul when the memorial is
the expression of an impossible worship.
A public monument ought to express a
really national idea ; its beauty demands
the admiration of the crowd ; if it lacks
this sympathetic atmosphere, it is merely

421

FHi. 836. — l-UEMIEr.
JEANNE U'AKC.

(Place des Pyramides, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

KU;. 837. — KAL(;U1EUE. SAINT
VINCENT DE PAUL.

(PanthiJon.)

l-Ki. 838. — MEKC16.
KEMEMBRANCE.

(Tin; Luxembourg, Paris.)

a museum exhibit which looks out of
place m the open air.

On the other hand, when a modern
work has been the translation of a grand
and movmg idea, it has rarely been
mediocre. After 1 87 1 , certain figures
expressed heroic fury or despairing
pertinacity. Bartholdi's Roaring Lion,
Chapu's Youth presenting the palm of
the hero to Henri Regnault, Antonin
Mercie's Gloria Victis and other works
offered their pride and grace as a salve
to national pride. Happy the sculptor
who can thus fix the emotion of a whole
people in a beautiful form ! Even the
somewhat trivial charm of Pradier's
statue in the Place de la Concorde has
taken on a sort of mournful beauty.
Several sculptors have been happily in-
spired by Jeanne d'Arc, because a great
wealth of sentiment is inherent in such a
figure. Chapu's Jeanne is a humble
peasant girl ennobled by her communion
with the supernatural. Paul Dubois',
with sword uplifted and eyes fixed on a
celestial vision, urges her horse against
the enemy. Fremiet's grasps her ori-
flamme, graceful and triumphant as a
Saint George (Fig. 836).

Among the many modern works in
which individual emotion is expressed,
there are also certain monuments which
bring us into communion with the col-
lective soul of France. Dalou and
Bartholome will have left records as
moving and sincere as Rude's Marseil-
laise, the divinities of Versailles, or the
saints of the thirteenth century.

In 1900, Dalou completed his Monu-
ment of the Republic, in the Place de
la Nation, in Pans. Sculpture, which
once gave human shape to the gods, and
422

NATURALISM

1- IG. S39. — KAl.l ,L' 1 K](K.
liIANA DKAWIMi IIKI; r.liW.

then deified royalty, has made several

attempts to glorify Democracy. In 1 793

and 1848, it figured as a cold Minerva.

Dalou created a popular type of vigorous

beauty, the Phrygian cap on her head,

and a coarse robe veiling her muscular

limbs, akin to her who sings the Marseil-
laise in Rude's group, and climbs upon the

barricade in Delacroix's picture. Now

she IS calm and triumphant, and with her

hand she makes a conciliatory gesture.

The procession advances slowly, pushing

the car, a huge mass round which the

sculptor has grouped majestic beasts, plump

children, women of the people who are

types of Fecundity, workmen of herculean

vigour, a tumultuous force, disciplined by

an irresistible progression. Hideous alli-
gators distorted by rage were to have

hurled water on the triumphal cortege ; Gardet replaced them by

less aggressive animals. All this movement, splendour, and colour

recalls Rubens, and also the sumptuous style used by Le Brun

to glorify Louis XIV. Dalou, the sincere democrat, has reverted to

monarchical allegory for the apotheosis
of the Republic (Fig. 847).

Bartholome's Monument to the
Dead has lately proved that sculpture
has not ceased to be the eloquent
language of deep emotion. The im-
perishable stone is a fit material for
the eternal theme of Death. The
sculptor has grouped his figures on
the facade of an Egyptian tomb. On
each side, figures which are so many
types of human lamentation, drag
themoclves towards the door of the
hypogea. In the tomb below he a
man and woman, guarded by a genius
with outstretched arms. What is the
function of this genius of immortality ?
The sculptor does not show us these
corpses rising from the grave. The
423

I'lC 840. — DALOLi. IMDNUMICNT

TI1 DKI.ACUOI.V.
( l.iriiiii (111 LuxfinliDurg, Paris.)

ART IN FRANCE

FIG. 841. — KODIN. MONUMENT TO THE
SIX CITIZENS, CALAIS.

living creatures carved by Bartholome at the threshold of the tomb
lament, because they cannot consent to the universal law stoically,

and because they have not
the confidence given by faith.
The consohng hope of a
thirteenth - century believer
finds no place here, and the
artist has not ventured to
give an image of the resur-
rection. We are conscious
of that same indecision which
weighs upon venerable cere-
monies, the old rites of which
have been corrected by the
philosophical spirit, that
emptiness which rationalism
has created in a sensibility
that has remained religious.
How IS It that a monument
which concentrates so much despair under an indifferent heaven
does not disgust us with life ? It is because the artist has modelled
his weeping figures with a kind of caressing gentleness. A young
girl turns to kiss her hand in farewell, and the sadness of her
fate is irradiated as it were by the incomparable grace of her
gesture. The prestige of art
takes the place of the absent
consolation.

How should we fittingly con-
clude a book which follows
history to the present day, and
to which every successive year
will add its page ? Let us end
It before these works which com-
bine a lofty idea, great talents,
and a significance far-reaching
enough to unite the France of
to-day with that of the past,
works which illustrate the con-
tinuity of French art, showing
how it reconciles forms of
government and effaces, not only

424

FIG. 842. — RODIN. BUST OF A WOMAN.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

NATURALISM

revolutions, but even the vicissitudes of
religious belief.

Each French style has been a re-
flection of French institutions, and
French art remains a faithful chronicle
of French history. The varied and
delightful aspects of the country appear
in the buildings of its cities, the old
stones of its soil, and the relics in the

museums. If
we visit its
ancient towns,
we shall find
g reat local
variations ;
some will

FK;. 843. — IvdDIX. THE KISS.

(The Luxembourg, Paris.)

FIG. 844. — D.M.OU.
I'RASANT.

(The Luxembourg. I'.iris.)

always remain
Gothic, because
they reached their apogee in the Middle
Ages ; others are slill irradiated by the
smile of the Renaissance ; others again still
bear the impress of Roman majesty. But
the same history may be read in every city.
In the majority of
these, the nine-
teenth century
placed Doric peri-
styles on the town
halls and trans-
lated administrative
centralisation bv a

uniform classicism. The eighteenth century
is to be recognised by the brilliant elegance
with which it adorned French reason, like
the graceful episcopal palaces which are
found nestling in the shadow of old
cathedrals. The seventeenth century was
not entirely absorbed by Versailles ; we
come now and again upon austere man-
sions of the time of Louis XIV, which
seem to embody the somewhat morose
loyalty of old parliamentarians. The

425

I 11.. 845. — k<)(;er bi.oche.

COLD.

(I'lio Luxembourg, Pans.

ART IN FRANCE

joyousness of the Renaissance i; revealed in
Its exuberant and spontaneous architecture, its
stone fantasies, its gay turrets and sunny gar-
dens. But the eye always returns to the
Gothic cathedral, buttressed by the houses that
cluster round its feet that it may raise its vault
the higher and point heavenwards with its
spire, an evidence of what French or human
genius can do when, in the shelter of a firmly
constituted society, all its efforts are concentrated
in a common purpose. As distance makes the
ages more obscure, their monuments emerge
more clearly : feudal fortresses, once impreg-
nable on their rocks, then shattered by the
royal cannon, and gradually dispersed in the
neighbouring villages, which used its stones to

build
their
houses ;
forsaken

;. 647. — DALOl". TIIF. TKlUMrjl
III'- THIi KKI'L'lil.IC.

(Place de la Nation, Paris.)

Fli;. S46. — ill. KlVlfiUIi.
IIIKVNE. (sfeVRESCHINA.)

{Arts ciccoratifs.')

monas-
teries, where the little flame
the monks kept alive with
pious hands after the twilight
of the antique world has died
out slowly in the strong
light of modern day ; Roman
rums, with their imperishable
masonry, where men some-
times sought shelter during
the tempests of barbarism,
relics the imperial majesty
of which has dominated
national history. Rome in-
deed still persists in our en-
cumbered civilisation. Often
the modern engineer, as he
turns over the soil, brings to
light a carved altar or some
mutilated head of a Gaul
shaved in the Roman fashion.
These old stones go to the

426

NATURALISM

FIG. S4S. — HAKTHOLOMK. IMd.NU.MICN'r Tl) THE DEAD.
(Cemelt-ry of PcTC-I.acIiaise, Paris.)

local museum to join the pictures Pans sends annually to the
provinces. Thus we may traverse some twenty centuries in the quiet
streets of a French country town ; twenty centuries of fine culture
and active civilisation, of life during which a society has been made
and remade continuously, and has decked its changing manifestations
with new forms of beauty.

BIBLIOGRAIMIY

Baron Haussniann, Memoir cs du Baron Hanssmann, Paris. 1890 1893, 3 vols.; the ihird
volume deals with the great works carried out in Paris, l-elix Narjoux, Monuments clevis par la
Villc. 1850-1880, Paris, 1881-1882. 5 vols. Th. Ballu. Monoi>raphic Je I'iglise dc la Sainle-
Trinilc, Paris, 1868; Monographie de I'eglise SaintAmhroisc, Path, 1874. Ch. Gamier, Lc
Nouvcl opera dc Paris, Paris, 1880, 2 vols, of illustrations. C. Sedille, Charles Gamier
(C. B. A.. 1898, II). L. Magne, L'Arebiteciurc franeaise du Si'cclc. Paris, 1889. -
H. Fierens-Gcvaert, Nouvcaux Essais sur I' Art conlcmporain. Pans, 1903. A. de Baudot,
L' Architecture cl lc Ciment arme, Paris, 1903. De Laborde. Rapport sur I' Exposition
Universellc dc Londrcs en 1852. L.ucien Lamlieau, /,7/o(c/ dc Villc de Paris. Paris, 1909. -
A. Al|)hand, Les Promenades de Paris, Paris, n.d., 2 albums. L. Riotor, Carpcaux,
Paris, n.d. M. Drcytous, Da/ou. Paris, 1903. L. Benedite, Al. Falguicre, Paris. 1902. -
F. Mazerolle, Catalogue des Medaillcurs : Gazelle numismaliquc franfaisc, 1897-1904.^
E. Babelon, J.-C. Chaplain cl I' Art dc la M6daille au XIX' siicle ( R. A. A.M.. 1909, II) -
E. Rod. Rodin (G. B. A.. 1898, I). F, Lawton, The Life and IVoik of Augu.tle Rodin.
London, 1906. Judith Cladcl. Augusic Rodin. I'CEuvre el I'Hommc. Paris, 1908. Castagnary.
Salons. 2 vols., 1892. G. Riat. Courbet. Paris, 1906. Sensier, La Vic cl I'CEuvre de
I- r. .Millet. Paris. D.Thomson. .Millet and the Barhizon 5c/ioo/, London, 1903. W. Gensel.
A/i7/c/ufK/ «0U55C<iU. Bielefeld, 1902. H. Marcel, A/(7/e/, Paris, 1903. R. Rolland. .V/i7/c/.
London, 1903. P. Desjardins, En memoirc de J.-C. Cazin (C B. A., 1901, II). G. Lafenestre,

427

ART IN FRANCE

La Peinlure frarifaise du XIX^ biecle. Paris, 1898. On the representatives of classical
tradition : Baudry, Cabanel, Delaunay, Hebert. C. Mauclair, The grcal French Painters,
1830 /o the present Day. London, 1903. O. Greard, Meissonier, Paris, 1897. M. Vachon.
Detaille, Paris, 1896.-L. Gonse, E. Fromentin, Paris, 1881. A. Renan, La Peinture
orienlalisle (G. B. A.. 1894, I). G. Larroumet, H. Regnault. Paris, 1890. Ch. Ephrussi,
P. Baudry. Paris, 1887. Ary Renan, Gustave Moreau (G. B. A.. 1886. I). L. Benedile,
Gustace Moreau et Burne Jones (R. A. A. M .. 1899, \). M. Vachon, Puvis de Chavanncs,
Paris, 1896. L. de Fourcaud, Jules Bastien-Lepage (G. B. A., 1883, I), Jacques Blanche,
Fanlin-Latour (Revue de Paris. 1906). — Lorquet, La Peinture franfaise contempuraine.
Paris, 1900). G. Geffroy, La Vie Artistique, Paris. 6 vols. Th. Duret, Manet et son a:ucre,
Paris, 1902). G. Lecomte, L'Arl impressionnisle. Paris, 1892). A. Mellerio, L' Exposition
de 1900 et I'lmpressionnisme, Paris, 1900. P. Signac, D' Eugene Delacroix au Neo impression-
nisme. Paris, 1900. C. Mauclair, L'lmpressionnisme. Paris, 1903. H. von Tschudi,
Ed. Manet. Berlin, 1902. J. Meier-Graefe, Mane/ und sein Kreis. Berlin, 1903. G. Seailies,
Manet (Revue de Paris, 1910). J. Meier-Graefe, Der moderne Impressionismus. Berlin,
1903. R. de La Sizeranne, Questions esthetiques. 1904. Paul Mantz, La Can'ca(urc moJcrnc
(G. B. A.. 1888, I). G. Lecomte, Albert Besnard (G. B. A., 1905, I). -G. Seailies,
Eug. Carriere. Paris, 1901. G. Geftroy, L'CEuure i^e Carnere, Paris, ■.902. For the Cezanne-
Gauguin group, cf. the articles on the Salon d'Automne in the G. B. A., and by Charles Morice
in the Mercure de France. On the "modern style," cf. the reviews: Art et Decoration, I' Art
dccoratif. The Studio, and R. Marjr, Les .4tIs a I' Exposition de 1900. La Decoration et les
Industries d'Art (G. B. A.. 1900-1901). L. de Fourcaud, £. Galle. R. A. A. M.. 1902, 1.

FIG. 849. — UARDET. MICE .\ND SN.\11..
(.SEVRES CHINA.)

428

INDEX

References to Illits/rafions are indicated by an *. Buildings and pul>Iic
places are entered under the heading of the towns in which they exist.

Abadie. 355.

Academy of Painting and

Sculpture, French, 195,

196, 214-215, 239, 247,
255,291,300.

Academy in Rome, French

215,334.

Adams, the, 277, 281.
/Eginetan marbles. 68.
Agincourt, Battle of, 87.
Agrippa, 290.
Aigues-Mortes, 92 ; Ramparts

of, 84 ; Four Constance,

92.
d'Aiguillon, 287,
Aix in Provence, 87, 119, 120,

137, 190, 192.234: Door

of Church of St. Sauveur,

163*.

Aix-la-Chapelle, 10 : Peace of,
284.

Albi Cathedral, 59 , 60; Choir-
screen, 103 ; Rood-screen,
103; South Porch, 1 03'.

Alencon, Cathedral. Nave. 99 .

Alencon, Chateau, 87'.

Alexander, 7.

Algeria. 334.

Aligny, 340.

Alps, 196,209.

Amaury, 332.

Amboise, Chateau, I 33 \ 144;
Chapel of Chateau, 163' ;
Door of Chapel, 164'.

d'Amboise. Cardinal, 140, 141 ;
tomb of Cardinals. 1 65 .

Amiens Cathedral. 55; Apos-
tles at. 66-. 67'. 74. 79;

apse of. 50 : Beau Dieu
of, 69*, 71 ; Figures of
March and -April. 68*
f- light into Egypt, 162"
Gilded Virgin. 70.". 74
local saints, 75 ; Nave, 49'
sculpture at, 73. 74 ; West
Front, 41^.

Amiens, Museum, 397

Angelica Fra, 333, 407, 411.

d Angivilhers, 256.

Angouleme, Church of St.
Pierre, Facade, 19' ; Nave,
18".

Anguier, Fran<;ois, 1 88 ; sec
also Longueville and Mont-
morency.

Anjou, 41, 59.

d Anjou, Due, 87.

d'Antin, Due. 256.

Antwerp. 323.

Apostles in mediiEval sculpture.
74.

Aries, 2, 6, 12, 14, 20, 41 :
Church of St. Trophime,
25, 31, 67 : Porch of St.
Trophime. 32''' ; Roman
Theatre. 2'.

Arques, Chateau, 85'.

Arras, Grande Place, 145 ;
Hotel de Ville, 97, 1 46 .

Asia, 7, 8.

Athens, 300.

Attalus. 7.

.\ubazine Church. Tomb of St.
Stephen, 78 .

Audran, Claude, tapestry,
243.'

Augerolles, Screen from, 162'.

Augustodunum, 32.

431

Aulnay church, 33 ; Apse, 21 ;

South Porch. 34.
Austremonius, 6.
Austria, Anne of, 189; Statue

of, 190'
.4utun Church, 14, 20, 35,

36; Last Judgment, 31*;

sculpture at, 77 ; Gate of

St. Andre. 6".
Auvergne. 5,6, 19,22, 35, 37

41,90.
Avallon, DoQ tf - of Chu rch, 31*.
Avaricurtfr32.
Aved, '2b8 ; Portrait of Mmc.

Crozat.ZbW

Avignon,25, 92. 93, 107, 119,

137, 190; Notre Dame
des Doms, 184; painters
at. 192; Palace of the
Popes. 86, 88 . 93 ; Ram-
parts, 9 1 *.

Avioth. lantern-tower, 103.

Azay - le - Rideau. Chateau,
136'. 150.

Bachelier, Nicolas, 136.

Bail. 387.

Bailly, 308.

Ballu. 366.

Ballard. 355. 366. 368.

Barante, 335.
Barbizon. 377.
Bareau. 420.
Bar-le-Duc. 140.
Bartholdi, Roaring Lion. All.
Bartholome, 423 ; Monument
to the Dead. 42i. 424.

427'.

Barye, 351-353 ; TheCentaur. \

357^^ : Elephant. 357*.

Tiger and Crocodile, 357*.
Basilica?, 15. 16.
Baslien-Lepage, 400, 401 ;

Haynmking, 399* ; Por-
trait of Sarah Bernhardt.

392*.
Bastille. 85.
Baudoin. 272 ; The Toilet.

239'.
Baudry. Paul, decorations in

Opera House. 394 ; 7"oi7e(

of Venus, 389\
Bayeux, Cathedral. 58 : Apse

of, 57'; Bas-relief in. 25*;

Old House in, 92*;

Tapestry, 22, 23.
Beaucaire. 1 19.
Beauce, La. 54.
Beaulieu. 13. 36 ; Last Judg-
ment. 28'.
Beaune, Hospital, 88 ; Court of,

94*.
Beauneveu. 85.
Beauvais, Cathedral, 56, 57 ;

Apse, 51*; Choir, 51' ;

Transept Porches, 103.
Beauvais. factory. 228, 256 ;

Palais de Justice, 96".
Belly, Leon, Pool in the Forest

of Fontainebleau, 379*.
Berge, de la, 340.
Bernard of Chartres, 30.
Bernini.216, 217. 277, 278.
Berry, 54; Dukes of, 86, 105,
107, 111 ; Tomb of the
Duke of. 114*.
Bertin, 340.
Besancjon. 2,

Besnard, 404 ; The Evening
of Life, 407' ; The For-
tunate Islands, 408*.
Biard, Pierre, 186, 189.
Blanche. Jacques. 389 ; The
Painter ThauloW and his
Family. 4\0\
Blaye, 25.

Blois, 87 ; Chateau, Louis

XIl.'s Entrance, 1 35' ;

Francis I.'s Staircase. 1 36%

150.

Bloche, Roger, 4 1 7, 420 ; Cold.

425.-

Blondel. 234.

Bluysen, A., Villa at the Sea-
side, 371*.
Boeswilwald. 355,
Boffrand. 24 1 .

INDEX

Boileau, 239. 293,

Boilly, 308, 314, 315; Arrival

of the Diligence. 311*;

Houdon making a Bust of

A/onge, 312*.
Bologna, 215; Giovanni da, his

Mercury, 'iQ^' .
Bolognese School, 197.
Bonaguil. Chateau de, 92. '

Bonaparte, 308 ; see also

Napoleon I. j

Bonnat, 388; Portrait of ^

Cardinal Lavigerie. 394* ;

Portrait of Victor Hugo,

394-.
Bonvin, 387 ; The Refectory.

375',

Books of Hours. 116, 122, 123.

Bordeaux, 2, 25, 287 ; Church
of Sainte Croix, I 3 ; Porch
of Sainte Croix, 18: Flem-
ings at, 191 ; Fountains at,
363 ; Place de la Bourse,
289* ; Ruins of Palace,
of Gallienus, 5" ; Theatre,
290- , 3C7.

Boscherville. Church of St.
Martin. 20*.

Bosio, 346, 347,351.

Bosse, Abraham, 201 ; Visit
to the newly delivered
Woman. \97-, The Palais
Royal. 197'.

Bossuet, 225, 249.

Bouchard. Henry, 417, 420.

Bouchardon. 278, 279, 284;
Cupid. 284 ; Fountain in
the Rue de Crenelle, f''aris,
283, 293*.

Boucher, 256, 258 261, 271.
277, 280, 293, 294, 305.
311. 326. 336, 345, 373,
391 ; decorations at Fon-
tainebleau, 256 ; Diana
and Nymphs, 258* ;
Madame de Pompadour,
257' ; Toilet of Venus.,
257-.

Bouguereau, 381.

Boulanger, 325, 381 ; Prince
Napoleon's Pompcian

House. i90\

Boulle, 229.

Bourbon. Duke of. 107.

Bourdichon. Jean, 123, 144;
Anne of Brittanii and
patron Saints, 127* ; Na-
tivity, 127'.

Bourdon, Sebastlen, 191, 200.

432

202, 203 ; Children draw-
ing, 20i' ; Fouquet,206' :
Halt of Gypsies. 202.

Bourges, 32, 121 ; Cathedral,
54 ; Apse of Cathedral.
52'; Central Porch of ^
West Front, 78* ; Figure
of one of the saved, 73*,
76* ; Five Porches of Ca-
thedral, 52* ; Last Judg-
ment, 81*; revival of
sculpture at, 67 ; sculpture
at, 78.

Bourges. Jacques Coeur's House.
96, 97*; Ceiling of Chapel
in, 125'.

Bouts, Thierry, 411.

Brascassat, 344.

Brest, 287.

Breton, Jules, 380.

Brittany, 58. 90. 92, 141, 142,

287, 409.

Brioude, 6, 20 ; Church of St.
Julien. 29.

Broederlam, 117; Annuncia-
tion, 120.

Brongniart, 302.

Brosse. Salomon de, 181, 186.

Brou, Church at, 1 38 ; Rood-
screen, 1 49* ; Tomb of
Marguerite of Austria,
1 50*; Tomb of Marguerite
de Bourbon, 1 49*.

Brouwer, Adr., 268.

Bruant. 285.

Brueghels. the. 202, 254.

Bruyas, M.. 376.

BuUant, Jean, 154.

Burgundy. 2. 5, 20, 41, 66,
118; Dukes of, 86. 87,

105, 107, 109, 111. 117,

118. 120. 137.
Byron, 322.
Byzantium, 22.

Cabanel, 38 1 ; Birth of I enus,
390*.

Cabat. 340.

Caen. 136, 141 ; Abbaye aux
Dames (church of La
Trinite), 22, 51; Fa(;ade
of La Trinite, 20* ; Ab-
baye aux Hommes (church
ofSt.Etienne), 13,22,58;
Facade of St. Etienne, 21*;

INDEX

Church of St. Pierre. 141
Apse of St. Pierre. MS'
Hotel d'Ecoville, 143'
School of, 244.
Caffieri. J. J., 281 ; Clock by.

283-.

Cahors. Valentre Bridge. 9! '.

Cain, 352.

Callot. Jacques, 198. 201 ; 1
Actors of the Comedie
Ilalienne. 195* ; Execu-
tion of Marauders, I 97 ;
Siege of La Rochellc,

I96\ i

Calvaries, 138, 142; see also

Pleyben and Plougastel.
Camargue, 20.
Canova, 346-
Cany, Chateau de, 183 \
Caravaggio, 197,201-203,247.

318.375.

Carcassonne, 92, 93, 355 ; Ca-
thedral, of, 60 ; Church of
St. Nazaire, 59" ; Ram-
parts of. 90*.

Caro-Delvaille, My Wife and
her Sisters, 410'.

Carolus - Duran. 388 ; The
Lady with the Cloi'e, 395.

Carpeaux, 415, 421 ; Dance,
417' ; Four Quarters of
the World (Fountain of
the Observatory). 415.
418" ; Marquis de la
Borde (bust), 417 ;
Model for Croup of
Flora, 420'; Ugolino,
415,418*.

Carracci, the, 202,

Carriera, Rosalba, 262.

Carriere. 390, 391, 411;
Children's Kisses, 397' ;
Maternity, 397*.

Carries, 572 ; Terra - cotta
figure of the Artist, 371 *.

Cartellier, 315.

Cavaignac, Tomb of General, by

Rude. 354^

Caylus, Comte de, 192.
Cazin, 341, 379, 380; In

Picardy, 380' ; Tobias

and the Angel, 379'.
Cezanne, 407 -,51111 Life. 409'.
Chadenac, Church of, 35".
Chaise-Dicu, I. a. Choir of

Church, 129 ; Cloister.

98^ : Dj.hcc of Death,

125".
Chalgrin, 302.

Chalons, Simon of, 1 37 ;
Adoration of the Shep-
herds, 174^

Chalons-sur-Marne. Church of
Notre Dame de lEpine,
148-.

Chambord, Chateau de, 1 37*.

Chambiges, Martin. 103.

Champagne, 1 19, 136, 139.

Champaigne, Philipp> de. 194,
222, 239; Dead Christ,
193 ; Mother Catherine
and Sister Suzanne (Ar-
nauld). 193* ; Portrait of
Richelieu, 194".

Champmol, near Dijon, 118-

no.

Chandelier. 285'.

Chantilly, 132*; bird's eye

vieviT of, 139' ; Tomb of

Conde, 192*.
Chaplain, 415; Medallion of

Victor Hugo, 416'.
Chaplet, 372.
Chaplin, Portrait of a )'oung

Girl, 392'.
Chapu, 422,- Jeanne d'Arc,

422 ; Youth presenting the

palm to Henri Regnault,

421". 422.
Chardin, 265-270, 294, 326,

377, 378, 399 ; Boy with

Teetotum, 267, 268' ;

Grace before Meat, 266',

267 ; The Housekeeper,

267; f he Housewife.

267 ; Industrious Mother,

266', 267; The Letter.

268' : Silver Goblet.

265* ; The Stone-cutter,

265\
Charlemagne, 4, 7, 24, 26 ;

Statuette of, 8'.
Charles V, 85, 86, 96, 105.

108, 109, 115; Statue of.

105* ; Fragment of statue

of, 105'.
Charles VI, 87, 109.
Charles VII. 87, 121, 122.
Charles VIII. 132. 143.
Charles IX,. I 47; Wax Medal-
lion of, 175 .
Charles X. 336, 363.
Charles the Bold, of Burgundy,

86.87, 118.
Charles IV. of Lorraine, 1 39.
Charlet. 336; The Army in

Africa, 337'.
Charonlon, Enguerrand, 119;

433

Coronation of the V^irgin
119, 122 .

Chartler, Alain. 144.

Chartres. 32, 35, 36; Cathe-
dral, 52-54. 65, 355:
Belfry of Cathedral, 103 ;
Choir-screen of Cathedral,
164*; Fa<;ade of Cathedral,
46 ; * Figure in N. porch
of Cathedral. 64 ; Frag-
ment of rood-screen in
Cathedral, 66' ; Fragments
of stained glass from Cathe-
dral. 23 ; local saints in
Cathedral, 76 ; Nave of
Cathedral. 48' ; North
Porch of Cathedral. 46 .
62' ; Detail of North Porch
of Cathedral, 63' ; Sou;h
Porch of Cathedral, 63' ;
sculpture at, 67 70, 77 ;
Statues of King and Queen
in porch of Cathedral, 60' ,
Statue of St. Theodore,
65* ; Tympanum of porch
of Cathedral, 60* ; Virgin
of the Annunciation, in
Cathedral, 61 * ; Visitation,
in Cathedral, 61 .

Chartres, Church of St. Pierre,
44'.

Chasseriau, 383, 392-395 ;
.\ude Woman. 389' ;
Tcpidarium, 390 .

Chateaubriand, 310, 333 355.

Chaleauhn, Charnel House,
58'.

Chaudet, 346.

Chaumont, Chateau de, 1 33".

Chelles, Jean de. 51.98.

Chenavard, 393, 396.

Chenier, Andre. 311.

Chenonreau, Chateau de, 1 38".

Chevalier, Etienne, 87, 121,
122.

Chintreuil, 343 ; Space, 347".

Citeaux. Abbey, 1 3.

Clermont, 20.

Clermont-Ferrand, church, 59 ;
Notre Dame du Port, 19 ;
Apse of Notre Dame du
Port, 12" : Capital In
Notre Dame du Port, 25 ;
Church of Si. Nectaire, 19.

Clodlon, 271, 281, 294, 311,

346, 41 5 ; Bacchante,
280 ; lemale Satyr,
281',
Clouet. Jean, Francis /., 1 75*.

F F

INDEX

Clouet, Francois, Elizabeth oj

Austria, 173".
Clouets, the, 169, 170, 171,

200.

Clovis, 4, 334.

Cluny, Abbey, 13, 20, 94;

Hotel de, 96. 97.
Cochin, 260, 261 ; the

Yojnger, 365.
Coe ir, Jacques, 88 ; see also

under Bourges.
Coffer, 15th Century, 117'.
Coffer of Walnut Wood, 173'.
Cognac, porch of Church, 35'.
Colbert, 214-219, 227, 233-

235, 237, 256, 290, 297 ;

tomb of, 225.

Coliignon. 225.

Cologne, 2.

Colombe, Michel 136, 158,
1 59 ; Figures of Justice,
Prudence, Strength,
Temperance, in Nantes
Cathedral. 154*, 155*;
.S;. George & the Dragon,
156; Tomb of Francis II.
of Brittany. 139.

Commines, Tomb of Philippe
de, 166 .

Communes, rise of the. 42, 2 1 2.

Compagnie des Indes, 287.

Compiegne, Town Hall, 94'.
97 ; Napoleon's Bedroom, ,
297* ; Villa at, 370-.

Compostella, Church of St.
lago, 20. 25. I

Conques. 1 5. 30. 35. 37 : j
statue of Ste. Foy at. 36* ; I
tympanum of porch at, 30'.

Constant, Benjamin. 386. 389. j

Constantine. Emperor. 26. 290. I

Constituent Assembly. 307
308.

Consulate. 300.

Convention, the. 296, 307. 308

353.
Corot, 340, 341, 344. 403;

Arras RoaJ.344' .Belfry
of Douai. 344* : Ponds
at Ville d'Avray, 343^;
Souvenir of Italy, 342*.

Corbeil, statues at, 67.

Cordes, 94.

Cormon, 384 ; Coin. 386*.

Corneillede Lyon, 170, 171.

Correggio, 245, 271, 277, 278
3 1 2, 388.

Cortot, The Soldier of Mara- 'l
//ion, 351*.

Cotelle, 231.

Cotte, Robert de, 218, 241,

408, 409.
Cottet, 408 : Low Tide in

Brittany, 412*.
Coucy. Chateau de. 86". 88,

89 ; Keep. 86^.
Counter- Reformat ion, 183.
Courbet. 318. 374-377, 387,

395, 396, 399, 401, 408,

411; Bonjour, Monsieur
Courbet. 374'; Funeral
at Ornans, 37}'. 376;
The Stone-breakers, 374*.

Couriois, Cavalry Skirmish,
204'.

Cousin, Jean, 136, 168; Last
Judgment, 176".

Coustou, Guillaume and Nico-
las, 243 ; Horses of Marly,
238", 242: Maria Lecz-
inska, 276' ; The Rhone,
219'; r/ie Sfldne, 220*.

Coustou, Guillaume, the
Younger, Tomb of the
Dauphin, 239*.

Coutances, Cathedral, 58 ; Fa-
(;ade of, 56' .

Couture, Thomas, 38 1 ; Ro-
mans of the Decadence,

333*. 381.

Coypel, Antoine. 239, 242,
245 : /Eneid, 246 ; Don
Quixote Tapestry, 243* ;
Esther and Ahasuerus,

240'.

Coysevox, 223-225, 243; Bust
of the Duchess of Bur-
gundy, 221", 224; Bust
of the Great Conde, 222* ;
Statue of Louis XIV.,
226" ; Nymph with a
Shell. 224; Tomb of
Mazarin, 220.

Cravant, Carolingian Pillar in
church at, 9'.

Crown of King Receswinthe.
8*.

Crozat Collection, 251.

Dagnan Bonveret. 401 ; Con-
scripts. 403'.
Dalbade, see under Toulouse.

Dalou, 352, 417, 422. 423;

Monument to Delacroit,
423' ; Monument of the

434

Republic, 422. 426* ;

Peasant, 425*.
Dampierre, Chateau de. 184*.
Dantan. 350.
Dante. 322.
Daret, Jean. 192.
Daubigny. 343. 344; Banks

of the Oise, 346" ; Spring,

348".
Dauchez. 408, 409 ; The Pines

of Lesconsil, 414*.
Dauphin, the, 263 ; tomb of,

239".

Daumier. 336. 337. 350, 406;

Lithograph, 338*; Robbers
and .4ss. 339".
David, Gerard, 124.

David, Louis, 271, 275, 291,
292, 298-301. 304-315.
316. 318. 327, 337. 346.
373. 391 ; Coronation of
Napoleon /.. 296*. 309 ;
Death of Marat, 307*;
Death of Socrates, 305 ;
Distribution of the Eagles,

304*. 307. 309. 346;
Ho rata, 305. 308;

Leonidas, 305 ; Oath of

the Tennis Court, 301 ;

Rape of the Sabines, 305 ;

Mme. Recamier, 305* ;

M. Seriziat, 305*.
David d'Angers. 349. 350.

421 ; Medallion of Victor

Hugo, 352* : Medallion

of Mme. Recamier, 352* ;

Pediment of the Pantheon,

349, 352*; Racine. 349;

Statue of Drouol. 352*.
Debucourt, 314; Gallery of

the Palais Royal, 315'.
Decamps. 320. 326. 336.

386 ; Bell-ringers, 326* ;

Children coming out of a

Turkish School, 32b' .
Decius. 6.
Defernex, Bust of Mme. de

Fondville. 282*.
Deffand. Mme. du, 263.
Degas, 406,411 : The Dancer

407*.
Dehodencq, 386.

Delacroix, 319-325, 327, 337-
339, 351, 360, 375, 386.
392-395. 406, 423; and
Ingres, 328-329 ; com-
pared with Rodin, 418;
Arab Fantasia, 321*;
Battles of Constantinople

INDEX

Nancy, and Taillehourg,
322.535 ■BallleofTaille-
bourg, 323* ; Crusaders
entering Constantinople,
322* ; Dante and Virgil in
Hell.3\9.320' -.Massacre

of Scio, 319*, 327, 338;

Portrait of Himself. 3\7\

Delaherche. 372 ; Vase, 372*.

Delaroche, 325, 335-336.381,
395 ; Bonaparte on Mount
St. Bernard, 335' ; Hemi-
cycle, 392 ; Princes in the
Tower, 334".

Delaunay, 394 ; The Plague
at Rome. 391*.

Delavigne, 335,

Delorme, Philibert, 48, 136,
146, 154,303, 362.

Demarne. 31 3.

Denis, Maurice. 407 ; Our
Lady among the School-
children. 409*.

Descartes, 180 ; Discours de la
Methode. 180.

Desjardins, Martin, Bust of
Pierre Mignard, 22 1 * ;
Passage of the Rhine,

225-.
Desportes, 248, 265. 266 :

Portrait of Himself, 246'.
Delaille. 383 ; Entry of the

Grande Armee, 1806,

383*.

Deveria, 325 ; Lithograph,
338- : Sketch for Birth of
Henry IV.,325-.

Diaz. 342 : Fairies Pool, 346*.

Diderot. 270, 291,293.
Dijon. 6, 107, 109, 118, 119,

137, 138 : Champmol,
near, 109, 110: Church of
Notre Dame, 53" : Church
of Si. Michel, 138, 151- ;
Renaissance at, 1 37 ; St.
Benigne, 13.

Dinan, 92 ; Ramparts, 87'.

Dinet. 387.

Dicersarum arlium schedule,
see Theophilus.

Donatello, 419.

Dorigny, 198.

Dou, Gerard, 264.

Dresser, 16lh century, 1 I7\

Drolling, 314; Interior of a
Kitchen, 314 .

Drouais, 272 ; Portrait of
Madame dc Pompadour,

262 .

Dubois, 198.

Dubois, Paul. 414. 422;
Florentine Singer, 419*:
feanne d' A re, 422 ; Tomb
of General Lamoriciere.
414*.

Due, 368.

Duez, 401.

Dufan, Mile., 405.

Dufrene, 371 .

Dumonslier, 200 ; Portrait of

the Due de Longueville,

196*.
Dupont, Iron grille by, 370*.
Dupre. Guillaume, 189, 200;

Henry IV and Marie

de' Medici. 187\
Dupre, Jules, 343; Low Tide,

347- ; The Old Oak

348*.
Dutert, 369.

Duval. A., 332.

Dyck, Van, 248, 263.

Echcbrune, Fragment of Fa-
fade ol Church, 37*.
Echecs .Amoureux. Scene from.

129*.

Ecouen, Fireplace in Chateau,

167-.
Edelinc'k, 222.
Egmont, Justus van, 194.
Egypt. 214.
Eisen, 260.
Elnes, cloister, 15'.
Embroidery, 18th century,

243*.

Empire, the. 296, 297. 303,
306, 313, 314; Second,

332, 363.
Etruscans, 1 5.
Eutropius, 6.

Evangeliary, Cover of, 38*.
Ex-voto, 6'.
Eyck, Jan Van, 88.
Eycks, the Brothers Van, 1 18.

Falconet, 280 ; Camondo Clock,
278' ; Pygmalion and the
Statue, 277'; Statue of
Peter the Great. 280.

Falguiere, Diana. 423* ; Si.
Vincent de Paul, 422

435

Fantin-Latour, 390 ; .\fanet's

Studio at Les Batignolles,

395*.
Fel, Mile., 263 ; see also La

Tour.
Ferrier, 386.
Ferle-Mi on. La, 86.
Fibula of Glass Cloisonne, 6*.
Finsonius, 192.
Firep'aceof Hugues Lallement,

167*.
Fireplace of 16th century. I 18*.
Flamboyant Style, 140.
Flameng, 386.
Flanders. 86, 97, 1 09, 118

120, 239, 247. 250;

emigrant painters from.
190 194.
Flandrin, 332, 333. 393. 394,

396; S apoleon n L 33Q-
Xalicity. 332.

Flaxman, 326.

Florence, Cathedral, 186; the
French in, 143.

Florentine influence in France.
135.

Florentin Dominique. I 36, 1 39.

Fontaine (architect), 303, 362.

Fontainebleau. 151, 187, 211,
275 ; Bird s eye view of,
140; Council Chamber,
256, 287* ; decorators of.
1 78. 256 ; Forest of. 342 ;
Francis I's Gallery at.
141*. 187; Henry ll's
Ball-room, 141*; Horse-
shoe Staircase at. 140*;
Jewel Cabinet at. 297' ;
Oval Courtvard at. I 39* ;

School of, 145, 198, 374.

Fontelte. Memorial Statue of
Antoinette de, 116".

Forain, 406.

Fortunatus, 5.

Fouesnant. 32.

Fouquet. Jean. 87, 121-123,
139. 144,268; Adoration
of the Magi. 124*: Book
of Hours, 1 22 ; History of
thefews, 122; Portrait of
Charles VH. 126- ; Por-
trail of Himself, 123*;
Portrait of fouvenel des
Ursins, 1 26' ; Siege of
fericho, 1 24*.

Fouquet, Nicholas. 183.219.

Fovatier. Spartacus, 353*.

Fragonard. 257. 271,277, 293,
294, 305. 311, 404 :

F F 2

INDEX

Bathers. 270' ; Le Chiffrc
d Amour, 271* ; Two
Women talking, 271*.

Franche-Comte, I 38 ; " Guer-
cino" of, 376.

Francheville, 189 ; Orpheus,
189*.

Francis 1, 133. 142. 143, 150,
151, 216, 296, 297;

Tomb of.

Francis II of Brittany, Tomb of.
154% 159.

Frejus, 2.

Freminet, 198.

Fremiet, 352, 422 ; Jeanne
d'Arc, 42 r, 422; Orang
Outang and Savage, 420*;
Fountain of the Observa-
tory (with Carpeaux),
418*.

Froment, Nicolas, 1 20 ; Burn-
ing Bush, 120, 123*;
Resurrection of Lazarus,

120.

Fromentin, 386 ; Hawking,

387-.

Gabriel, 217, 227. 278, 284

288, 294, 366.
Gail lard (designer), 371;

Comb, 373 ; Dom Prosper

Gueranger, 391 *.
Gaillard, Chateau 85. 88.
Gaiiion, Chateau de, 140.
Gaiie (designer), 370.
Gardet, 352; Mice & Snail,

428%

Garnier, 367.

Gatianus, 6.

Gauguin, Paul, 407 ; Socage

Legends, 408'.
Gaul, 1-8, 31 ; art in. 24,

conversion of, 6 ; Romans

in, 1-4.
Gavarni, 336, 337 ; Litho

graphs, 337', 339.
Genoels, 221 .
Geoffrin, Mme., 263.
Georges, Mile., 309.
Gellee, Claude, 198, 201, 209,

210; see also Lorrain,

Claude.

Gerard, 305, 307, 309, 315

317; Portrait of Latitic
Bonaparte. 307' ; Portraii
cf Mme. Recamier, 304'.

Gericault, 318, 319,374,375;
Chasseur Officer. 318*;
Horse Races at Epsom.
323* ; Raft of the Medusa.

319,320*.

Germain, Soup Tureen, 286* ;

Germany, 119,288.

Germigny, 10.

Gerome, 381 ; Bonaparte en-
tering Cairo, 41 5*.

Gervex, 395, 401.

Gigoux, 325.

Gillot, 250.

Giotto, 1 13.

Girardon, 222, 233, 243, 276 ;

Bathing Nymphs. 218*;
Statue of Louis XIV, 222,
278 ; reduction of Statue
of Louis XIV, 2\7\
Girodct, 305, 307, 310-312.

317, 326; Atala at the
Tomb, 306* ; Battle of
Cairo. 310; Deluge. 3 1 0.

Glaber, Raoul, 16, 17.

Gobelins factory. 228, 229,

247, 248.

Goethe, 322.

Goujon, Jean, 136, 163, 164,
346; Diana. 164, 171';
Doorway of the Louvre,
143' ; Fontaine des Inno-
cents, 163,.164, 169 , 170'.

Gouthiere, 290.

Granet, 314; Interior of a
School. 3 1 3 .

Grasset (designer), 370.

Graveiot, 260 ; Design for
Heading of a Volume,

258'.

Greece, 7. 216.

Greeks, the, 42, 61.

Gregory of Tours, 5-7.

Grenoble, Chapel of St.
Laurent, 9.

Greuze, 268-271, 311
Broken Pitcher. 269*
Father's Curse. 270
Morning Prayer. 269',
Village Bride. 270'

Gros, 301, 307, 308, 312
313,315, 317, 318, 320;

Battlefield of Eylau. 313,
346 ; Embarkation of th(
Duchesse d Angouleme.
309' ; Plague-stricken at
Jaffa. 308,* 313; Princes
Lucien Bonaparte. 308".

Guercino, 375.

Guerin, 302, 304, 309. 315

436

318; Return of Marcus

Sextus. 306'.
Guiilain, ^imon. Group of

Louis XIII. Anne of

Austria and Dauphin, 189,

190*.
Guillaumet, 387 ; La Siguia.

387'.
Guillon, 363.

Guizot, 335.

Hals, Frans, 263, 387, 400.
d Harcourt, Tomb of the Due,

279

Harpignies, 380 ; Moonrise.

384.
Haussmann, Baron, 363.
Hebert, 334.
Heim, Reading a Play at the

Comedie Fran(aise. 319*.
Henner, 388; Idyl. 396*,

Reading Girl. 396".
Henry 11, 132, 142.
Henry IV, 178, 180,187, 193;

Bust of, 187' ; Statues of,

189,212,347.
Here (architect), 288, 371.
Hesdin, Jacquemart de.

Marriage of Cana, 122.
Hobbema, 342.
Holbein, 263, 330.
Honnecourt, Villard de, 1 14.
Houdon, 225, 263, 281. 282,

294. 345, 346; Bust of

Louise Brongniard, 282* ;

of Diderot, 282 ; of

M i r a b e a u, 282 ; of

Napoleon I, 301*; of

Rousseau, 282 ; of Voltaire,

282; Diana, 279*. 281 ;

Statue of Voltaire, 282* ;

Winter, 278*.
Huet. Paul, 339 ; Inundation

at St. Cloud. 341'.
Hugo. Victor. 335, 360 ; The

Fortress. 324*.
Humbert, 389.
Hundred Years War, 102.
Hygeia or Demeter, 7'.

Ile-de- France. 44, 48, 51, 60,
92, 94, 1 33.

Illumination: Satan among the
Damned. 24*.

INDEX

Impressionism. 402-404. 407-

409.
Impressionists, the. 401.
Ingres, 327-332. 383. 391.'

395.596.331 ; Apotheosis

of Homer. 328\ 331.333.

392: Bain Turc. 33\ ■'

Mme. Delorme. 329* ;

Mme. Devaufay, 329* ;

Portrait of Himself. 3 1 7" ; |

Martyrdom of St. S\)m- j

phorien. 327*, 329, 331 ;

Odalisque. 330% 331 :

(Edipus. 329; La Source.

331' ; Sirulonice. 331.

381 ; Vertus .Anadyomene.

328 : Vou- of Louis X/H.

327-. 331.
Isabeau de Baviere, statue of.

105*.
Isabey. 335 ; View of "Dieppe.

340\
Issoire, 1 3.
Italy. 31, 86. 118. 120. 123,

137, 190. 192. 201, 216,

222.239.274; the French

in. 143.
Italian artists in France. 1 45.
Ivories. 106; Coronation of the

Virgin, 76" ; Shrine of

St. Yved, 38" ; Triptych,

14th Century, 116*;

Virgin of the Sainte

Chapelle. 68- .

Jacques, Charles, 344 ; Flock
of Sheep. 349.

Jansenists, 194.

Jesuits, in art. 184.

Jean. Duke, and Jean. King,
see John.

Jeanne de Bourbon, statue of,

Jeaural, 268

106*. I

Johannot, 325.

John the Good, King, 85 ;
Portrait of, 1 20-.

John the Fearless, Duke of
Burgundy, 86, 111; Tomb
of, 113*.

Josselin, Chateau de, 95*.

Jouffroy. Young Girl telling her
first Secret to Venus. 350*.

Jouvenel des Ursins. 87, 121.

Jouvenet. Jean. 244 ; Descent
from the Cross. 239' ; Por-
trait of Fagon. 224*.

Kermaria, 126.

King, statue of a, 1 07^.

Korai, 68.

Labille-Guiard. Mme., Mme.

Elisabeth. 273*.
Labrouste, 368.
La Fosse, Charles de, 245,

258,277; Metamorphoses

Hangings, 240* ; Triumph

of Bacchus. 24r.
Lagneau, 200 : Portrait of a

Man. 195*.
La Hire, 197, 202; Pope

.Nicholas V and St.

Francis. 201".
La Huerta. 1 12.
Lalique, 372 ; Brooch, 372*.
Lamoriciere, Tomb of, 414*.
Lamour. 290, 371.
Lancret. 253 ; Actors of the

Italian Theatre, 249' ;

Mile. Camargo, 253' ;

hountain of Pegasus.

252* ; Peep-show. 252" ;

Winter. 53 .'
Landowski, 420.
Langeais, Chateau de, 148;

Keep of Chateau. 89*.
Langres, 2.
Languedoc, 20, 22 ; sculpture

in, 66.
' Langue d oc and Langue

d'oil,"4l.
Laon, 119; Cathedral of, 52,

355 ; Fa(;adeof Cathedral,

45".
Largilliere. 221, 248. 249;

The Artist with his Wife

and Daughter, 24b' : Por-
trait of Mme. de Cueydan,

245.*

La Rochelle, Hotel de Ville,
142".

Lassus, 355.

La Touche, Gaston, 404.

La Tour, Maurice Quentin de,
262. 263. 282 ; Portrait
of the Abbe Huret, 259" ;
Portrait of the Artist.
260" : Portrait of Mile.
Fc/. 260".

Laurens. J. P.. 385 ; Excom-
munication of Robert the
Pious. 385."

Laurent. Ernest. 405.
Laval. Jeanne de, 120.
Lavreince. The Billet-doux,

272".
Lazarus. 14. 20, 25.
Lebourg. 404.
Le Brun. 195. 196, 198. 215.

218-222. 239. 241. 245,

248, 250, 276, 277. 292.

293. 299. 335, 367. 423 ;

Battles of Alexander,
220 ; Fragment of Ceiling.
Versailles. 230* ; Grace
before Meat. 225*;
Gobelins Tapestry. 233* ;
Hangings. 234 ; Portrait
of Turenne, 224* ; Tomb
of Le Brun's Mother. 217*

225.
Leczinska. Maria. 272.
Lefebvre. Claude. 222 ; A

Master with his Pupil.

225*.
Lefebvre, Jules, 381 ; Truth,

389.

Legros. Alph.. Ex-Voto, 376*.

Le Liget (Indre et Loire). 28.

Le Mans, Cathedral. 54. 67 ;
Apse of Cathedral, 53*.

Lemercier. 187. 218.

Le Moiturier, Antoine. Ill,
112.

Lemot, 347.

LeMoyne.245,257.277, 278;
Hercules and Omphale.
241*.

Le Nain. the Brothers, 200.
201. 268; The Black-
smith. 199" ; Interior with
a I'amily, 198* ; Portrait
of a Member of the
Perussy Family, 199".

Le Nain, the Brothers, ascribed
to: Card-players. 198;
Toper at Table, 200.

Lenoir, Alexandre, 354, 355.

Le Notre. 229 231.287. 363.

" Leonard. Master " (Leonardo
da Vinci). 144.

Lepautre, 241.

Lescot, 218. 362.

Le Sidaner, 405.

Le Sueur. Eustache, 198, 199,
246; Death of St. Bruno,
206* ; Series of The Life
of St. Bruno, 199; Melpo-
mene, Erato and Poly-
hymnia, 204" : 5/. Paul
preaching at Ephesus,

437

INDEX

205'' ; Sl.Scholastica and

St. Benedict. 205*.
LeTellier, Michel. 223.
Lethiere. 302, 309; Brutus

condemning his Son, 332'
Le Vau, 218, 227.
Lhermitte, 380.
Ligier-Richier, 136. 139. 140:

Figure of a Child, 161 ' ;

Sepulchre at St. Mihiel,

1 60* ; Skeleton in the

Church of St. Etienne at

Bar-le-Duc, 161 ■.
Lille, The Bourse. 145 ; Porte

de Paris, 216'.
Limburg Brothers, the, 116;

Hunting at Vincennes,

1 19-.

Limoges, 6, 1 36 ; church at,
13, 59; enamels, 37;
enamel of Christ in Glory,
38* ; enamel Shrine of St.
Calmine, 80^ ; enamel
Shrine, 13th century, 80*.

LimDsin, Leonard, 1 36.

Limousin, 20, 37,90.

Lippi. Filippo, 41 1 .

Loire, the, 21, 41, 58, 122;
School of the. 121.

Longueville Family, Monu-
ment of. 191'.

Loo, Van, 256, 258; Halt of
Sportsmen. 264* ; Portrait
of Louis XV. 263-.

Lorient, 287.

Lorrain, Claude. 333, 341.
409 ; see also Gellee,
Claude.

Lorrain. Robert, 243 ; Relief.
Hotel de Rohan. 238-.

Lorraine. 136, 137, 139.

Lotharingia (Lorraine), 1 37.

Louis IX, see St. Louis.

Louis XI, 87, 121, 122, 132.

133, 143. 145, 147, 179;

Tomb of, 192'.
Louis XII, 136, 137, 140, 143.

144.
Louis XIII. 210, 227; statue

of, 186, 190\ 347.
Louis XIV, 36, 143, 196. 197.

211-214, 227, 235, 237,

240, 242, 250. 256, 261.

296, 297, 302, 307, 313,

335, 366, 367, 423. 425 ;

portraiture in reign of.

200; statues of, 189,347.

Louis XV, 284, 303, 361 ;
architecture under, 283 ;

alterations at Versailles
under, 275 ; furniture, 370,
371 ; statues of, 189,217*,
190.

Louis XVI, 303, 311. 363 ;

furniture. 370, 371.
Louis XVIII, 301, 303, 347.
Louis-Philippe. 334-336, 348,

350,351. 362, 363, 393 ;

completes Place de la
Concorde, 284.
Louis, Victor (architect), 218.
287. 367.

Louviers, Church, South porch,
102*.

Louvois, 227, 233.

Low Countries, I 18.

Lude, Vane on Chateau de.

I 13-.
Luzarches, Robert de, 55.
Lyons, 2, 7, 119, 136, 137.

192; Cathedral. Relief
of Aristotle and Campaspe,
115*; Notre Dame de
Fourvieres, 364 ; Apse of
Notre Dame de Fourvieres,
368- : Hotel de Ville
(town-hall), 182*.

Machard, 386.

Magdalen, relics of the. 14. 20.

Maignan. Albert, 401.

'■ Mais " of the Goldsmiths'

Guild, 190.
Maisons. M. de, 183.
Maisons-Lafitte, Chateau de.

183.*
Malouel, Jean, 117; Pieta,

119.
Manet, Edouard, 318. 387,

388.399-401 ; Bar of the

Folies - Bergeres. 400* ;

Breakfast on the Grass,

399. 400- ; Woman with

Cherries, 401'.
Mansart, 217, 218. 227, 229.

233, 251, 266. 285, 287.

367, 369.
Mantegna. 299.
Mantes, No:re Dame, Right

Door, 102-.
Marchand. Jacques, 136.
Marcus Aurelius, statue of, 190,

279, 284.
Marie Antoinette, 272, 303,

Marguerite of Austria, Tomb

of, see under Brou.
Marigny, M. de. 256, 273.
Marilhat. 326. 386; Ruins of

Mosque at Cairo, 340*.
Marivaux. 269.
Marly, 240.
Marseilles, 2, 7 ; Cathedral,

368*; Museum. 398 ;

Notre Dame - la - Grande,

364 ; Palais de Long-
champ, 364, 367*.
Marsy. 222.

Marletange, Pierre, 1 84.
Martial, 6.
Martin. Henri, 405 ; The

Mowers, 411*; The Old

Shepherd. 4\ 2^.
Mary Magdalen, slalue. 109*.
Matha, deserted Church at,

36*.
Mazarin, 91 ; Tomb of, 225.
Medici, Marie de', 181, 193

258.
Mediterranean, 92, 93, 409.
Meillant, Chateau of, 1 35*.
Meissonier. 382,383 ;"1807,"'

383; "1814," 381*, 383;

La Rixe, 381.*
Mellan. Claude, 200; Portrait

of Peiresc. 194*.
Memling, 124, 411.
Menard, 5, 408, 409; The

Lake. 413*.
Mercie, A., 41 4, 41 5 ; David.

419' ; Gloria Victis,A22;

Remembrance, 422.
Merimee, 353.
Merson, L. O., 381.
Meryon. The Stryge, 324*.
Metz. 28.
Meulen, Van der. 221. 247,

250.313; The King enter-
ing Arras, 234.
Meung, Jean de, 144.
Michel. Georges, 339;

Environs of Montmartre,

341*.
Michelangelo. 137, 189, 226.

319,377,418,415. 419.
Michelei, 322, 388.
Michelozzo, 123, 141, 144.
Mignard. Nicolas. 193; Piela.

228-.
Mignard, Pierre, 198, 221.

222 ; Mme. de Montespan

and her Son. 228*.
Milan, the French in, 143.

Millet, 374, 377-379. 399,

438

INDEX

406. 408, 410, 417; The
Angelas, 377" ; The Man
with the Hoe, 378* :
Mother feeding her Child,
378* ; The Shepherdess,
376".
•' Modern Slyle." 370, 373.

Moissac. 12. 31. 32, 34, 35,

Church at, 60 ; Capital in

the Cloister, 26*. 27^ ; the

Cloisters. I r;Porch. 28" ;

Tympanum. 30*.
Mol.Van. 194.
Monet. Claude. 401. 403. 404.

411; Gere St. Lazare,

405" ; London Bridge,

404* ; Portrait of a Wo-
man, 404*.
Monnier, Henri, 336, 337.
Monnoyer. 265.
Montferrand, 94.
Montmajour. Cloisters, 16*.
Montmorency, Tomb of the

Due de, at Moulins, 188,

191-.
Montmorillon, 28 ; Mystic

Marriage of St. Catherine,

at, 24.
Monloire, 28.
Montpellier, Courbet at, 376 ;

Flemings at, 191 ; Le

Peyrou,at, 288,290-.
Montrouge, Church of St.

Pierre, 364.
Mont St. Michel. 58, 355 ;

Court of the Cloister, 57* ;

Salle des Chevaliers, 56* ;

Salle des Hotes, 55* ;

South Side, 54'.
Moreau, 275 ; Landscape,

314 .
Moreau the Younger, 260 ;

The Adieu, 272-.
Moreau, Gustave, 383, 384 ;

The Apparition, 388*;

Venice, 388'.
Morienval, 32.
Morot, Aime, 385 ; Rezonville,

382-.

Morocco, 394 ; Delacroix in.

322.
Mottez. 332.
Mojiins. 87. 121 ; Cathedral.

i03. 123.

Moulins. Master of, 124 ; .-Innc
de Beaujeu and St.
John, 128; The Mag-
dalen and an Unl{nown,
128*; Naiii'ity, 126*;

Pierre de Bourbon and Si.
Peter, 127*; Virgin in
Glory with Donors, 125.

Murat, 307. 313.

Mycenas. 384.

Nancy. 287-289; Church of
St. Epvre. 356 ; Nave of
St. Epvre. 258 ; Doorway
of Ducal Palace. 147' ;
Fountain of Neptune. 29 1 ' ;
" Modern Style" at. 370.
371 ; Place Stanislas. 292';
Tomb of Rene II of Lor-
raine. 165

Nantes, 287 ; Cathedral,
statues, and Tomb of
Francis of Brittany, sec
under Michel Colombe.

Nanteuil. Robert. 222. 325.

Naples. 209; French in. 143.

Napoleon I. 143. 301. 302.
304. 307. 308. 311. 314,
335, 346, 362 ; Tomb of.
351.356 .

Napoleon III, 363.
Narbonne, 2, 6 ; altar-piece of
the Crucifixion from, 118'.

119.

Narbonne Cathedral. 59.

Nattier, 249, 263, 264, 272;

M ad a m e Adelaide
tatting, 263' ; Madame
de Chateauroux as Diana.

262'.

Natoire, 257.
Nenot. 367.
Netherlands. 109. 121.
Neuilly. House at. by E.

Navarre and R. Rousselet,

369-.

Neuvillc, Alph. de. 383 ;

Champigny, 384'.
Nimeguen. Peace of. 284.
Nimes. 2. 5. 7 ; " La Fontaine. '

288; fountains at. 288.

363 ; Maison Carree. 290.

302.
Normandy. 44. 48. 140,
Norman architecture. 22. 57.
Normans, 59.
Notre Dame, 5cc under

Amiens. Chartres. Paris,

Reims, etc.

439

Oise. Valley of the. 48.
Olivier. Tea-Party, 256*.
Oppenard. 241 .
" Opus francigenum." 48.
Orange, 2 ; Arch of Marius,

4*.
Oratorians, 187.
Orleans, I 36 ; Cathedral, South

Porch, 147*.
Orleans, Louis. Due d', 86, 87.
Ostade, 202.
Oudry. 256. 265 ; Hunting

Scene, 256*.
Oulchy, 32.
Ourscamp, grille from, 79*.

Pagani, 3.

Pajou. 281. 345. 341 ; .\fme.
Dubarry, 281 ' ; Psyche,
279*.

Palissy. Bernard. 1 36 ; En-
amelled Pottery. 1 72" ;
Dish. 173".

Palladio. 367.

Panini, 274.

Paris, 6, 1 2, 44. 48. I 1 4. 1 20,
190, 192. 217. 234.273;

antiques in. 216; art-lovers
in. 208. 238 ; beginnings of
moJern. 178. 179; School
of. 239; transformation of.
363 ; Paris temp. Louis
XIV.. 211-213.
Arc de Triomphe du Car-
rousel, 299*. 303, 346;
Arc de Triomphe de

TEtoile, 300 ', 302, 350,
362.

Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve,

by Labrousse, 364', 368.
Bibliotheque Nationale, 181 '

368.
Bourse. 298', 302. 366.

Cathedral of Notre Dame.
50, 51. 52. 96, 98. 213.
290. 355: Facade. 44*:
Hinge of hammered iron.
79' : Left Porch. 62" ;
Nave. 43 ; North Door,
47- : Relief on Choir
Screen, 69' ; Reliefs on
West Front, 64'. 65' ;
South Side, 45' ; Tympa-

INDEX

num, 79 : patron saints of

Paris at, 75.
Champs Elysees, 368.
Chapslle Expiatoire, 298^,

303.
Chapelle, Sainte, 47', 66,

335 ; Apostle bearing

Cross of Dedication, 75*.
Church of St. Augustin,

363-,364. 366, 368.
Church of Sle. Clotilde,

356, 359\

Church of St. Etienne du

Mont, 152", 186; Rood

Screen in, 1 53*.
Church of St. Eustache, 225 ;

Nave of, I5r.
Church of St. Germain

1 Auxerrois, 355.
Church of St. Germain des

Pres, 12,333,355.

Church of St. Gervais, 185*,

186.
Church of St. Louis-en-

I'-lle, 242.
Church of St. Louis des

Invahdes, 185, 186,216*,

225, 290 : decorations in,

244.
Church of the Madeleine,

290.291,298,* 302.
Church of St. Nicolas du

Chardonnet, 211,225.
Church of the Sacre Coeur,

Montmartre, 364. 369*.
Church of the Sorbonne,

185, 186,225.

Church of St. Sulpice, 185,

290 ; Facade of, 293*,
Church of La Trinite, 363,

366.
Church of the Val-de-Grace,

101, 185, 18o-, 221, 290.
Church of St. Paul. 185,

21 I.
Church of St. Vincent de

Paul, 362'.
College des Quatre Nations,

(Inslitut de France), 180,

186,212: Chapel of, 186,

, 225.

Ecole des Beaux Arts, 385 ;

Court of, 361 *.
Ecole Militaire. 285, 288^
Faubourg St. Germain, 285.
Faubourg St. Honore, 285.
Fountain in Garden of the
Luxembourg I^alace, 182\
Fountain of Moliere. 363.

Fountain in Place Louvois,
363; Fountain in Rue de
Grenelle, 293*.

Fountain of St. Sulpice, 363.

Fountains in Place de la
Concorde, 363.

Galerie des Machines, 369.

Halles (market), 368.

Hotel Carnavalet, 142*.

Hotel Cluny, 95*, 355.

Hotel des Invalides, 285.

Hotel de Salm, see Palais
de la Legion d Honneur.

Hotel Soubise, 241,287*.

Hotel Sully, 181*.

Hotel de Villa, decorations
in, 394.

lie St. Louis, 181.

Institute of France, 300 ; see
also College des Quatre
Nations.

Louvre, the, 96, 178, 181,
210-213, 303, 362, 366,
375, 392 ; artists lodged
in, 212; built, 85, 187;
completion of, 216-218;
Napoleon Land, 351 ; The
Colonnade, 215*; Central
Pavilion of Colonnade,
214* ; Galerie d' Apollon,
179*, 187,220, 233*, 322,
323 ; Long Gallery, 1 79^ ;
Iron Gate from Maisons-
Lafitte. 183' ; Lescot's
Wing, 141'.

Luxembourg Gardens,
statues m, 348.

Luxembourg Palace, 178',
181, 193 ; compared to
Pitti F^alace, 181.
Marais, the. 181,211,235.
Musee des Petits Augustins,
354.

Odeon Theatre, 302.
Opera House, 364', 364,

366, 367, 394. Grand

Staircase of, 365*.
Palais des Champs Elysees,

366.

Palais, le Grand, 364, 365*.
Palais de Justice. 361*, 368.
Palais, le Petit. 364, 366.'
Palais de la Legion

d'Honneur. 285, 291*.
Palais Royal. 181.
Pantheon, 290, 291, 294\

301. 302,393; decorations

in, 394.
Pavilion d'Hanovre, 286.

440

Place de la Concorde, 255*,
284. 366 : statues in, 348 ;

422.

Place des Conquetes (Place
Vend6me),218-,234.235.

351.

Place Dauphine, 179, 180'\
Place Royale (Place des

Vosges). 179. 180, 211.
Place Vendome, see Place

des Conquetes.
Place des Vosges, see Place

Royale.
Porte St. Denis, 115, 215*.
Quartier des Augustins, 212.
Sorbonne, the, 101,290,398
Theatre Francjais, 302.
Trocadero, 302, 364.
Tuileries, Palace, 303 ; de-
corations of, 393.
Parrocel, Pierre, 257.
Parthenon, 68.
Pater, 253 ; Conversation in a

Park. 249*.
Paul, 6.

Penicauds, the, 1 36.
Penicaud, Jean, Enamelled

Diptych, 173*.
Percier, 262, 302, 303.
Perelle, 182.
Pergamus, 7.
Perigord, 90.

Perigueux, 355 ; Church of
St. Front at, 21 ; Nave of
St. Front, 19*.
Perpignan, Fortress of, 1 34*.
Perrault. Charles, 297.
Perrault, Claude, 217. 229,
233, 234, 285, 288. 366.

Perronneau, 263 ; Portrait of
Mme. de Sorquainville,

261*.
Philip Augustus, 44, 50, 85,

98,213.
Philip VI., 108.

Philip the Bold of Burgundy,
86, 92, 111; Tomb of
1 1 3*.

Philip the Good of Burgundy,
86, 109, 111, 118.

Phrygia. 7.

Picard, Louis, 405.

Pierrefond, Chateau of, 89*,
355; built, 86, 87; re-
stored, 89.

Pigalle, 279; Mercury. 279;
Statue of Louis XV. at
Reims, 279 ; Tomb of the
Due d'Harcourt, 279 ;

INDEX

Tomb of Marshal Saxe,

277*, 279.

Pilon. Germain, 188, 225;
Bust of a Child. 169':
BustoJ Henry III, 170' ;
Statue of Rene Je Birague,
171" ; The Three Virtues,

172-.

Pmaigrier. I 36.

Piranesi, 274.

Pisan, Christine de, 1 I 5.

Pissarro, 40 1 .

Plessis-!es-Tours, Chateau of,
134-, 148.

Pleyben, Calvary at, 1 58* ;
Figures ofJA pestles at, 1 59*

Piougastel, Calvary at. 142.
I58\

Plumet (designer), 371.

Pointelin, 341 ; Ecening in
the Jura, 380'.

Poitiers, 28, 41 ; Baptistery of
St. Jean at, 7*, 9; Cathe-
dral, 59; Church of Notre
Dame la Grande, 59 ;
Facade of N. D. la Grande,
17': Church of St. Savin,
I 3 ; Fireplace in the f^alais
de Justice, 97' ; Statue of
a Queen in the Palais de
Justice. 109*.

Poitou. 5, 25, 28, 59, 180.

Pompadour,Mme. de, 263,271.

Pompei, excavations at, 298,

299, 384. I

Pont du Gard, 5*. '

Pot, Tomb of I'hilippe, 1 12.

I14-.
Pothinus, 7.
pourbus, 193.
^oussin, Nicolas, 191, f94,

201 209, 215, 219, 239,
245, 248. 273, 292. 299,
328, 380 : admirers in
1 'aris, 208 ; compared with
Millet, 378, 379; compared
with I'uvis de Chavannes,
598, 399 ; influence in
Frenchart, 219, 247; His
own Portrait, 207' : Or-
pheus and Euryjice, 20S' ;
Rescue of the Youthful
Pyrrhus, 207 ' ; The Shep-
Jicrds of Arcadia, 208'.
PraHier. 363, 422 ; Sappho,
355' : yiclories at the
Tomb of Napoleon I, 351,

356-. ,

Praxiteles, 100.311.312, I

Preault, 351 ; Crucifix, 355 \

Prieur, Barthelemy. Abun-
dance, 190'; Marie de
Barbanfon Cany, 189.

Protais, 383.

Provence. 2. 20, 31, 90. 118.
120. 192. 193, 274; art
in. 86. 87.

Provins. 92.

Prudhon. 311. 312. 388;
Andromache and Astya-
nax, 309* ; Empress Jose-
phine,3\3*;Psyche.i\0*:
Zephyrus carrying off
Psyche. }\0-.

Psalter of Charles the Bald.
Cover. 9*.

Psalter of St. Louis. 113. 114.

Puget, Pierre. 225. 226 ; Alex-
ander and Diogenes, 224'
Door and Balcony, Hotel
de V.lle. Toulon, 224'.
226 ; Gallic Hercules,

223*. 226; Milo of

Crotona. 223*. 226 ;
Supposed Bust of Louis

XIV. 222*.

Puvis de Chavannes. 332, 396-
399, 405, 410. 411. 419.
421 ; decorations at Lyons.
398: History of St. Gene-
ciece. 398 ; Childhood of
St. Genevieve, 398* ; St.
Genevieve watching over
Paris, 398' ; Letters and
the Sciences, 360* ; The
Sacred Grove, 398. 399*.

Pyrenees, 1,21.

Quercy, 20.

Quimper, Cathedral. 58"

Quintus Curtius. 220.

Racine. 239

Raffaclli. 406 ; Guests awaiting

a IV ed ding Party. 403 .
Raffet. 336. 350; ReveilU.

336-.

Raoux. Jean. 247 ; Vestal.

242'.
Raphael. 137. 199. 205. 299;

his influence on Ingres.

329: on l.c Brun. 219;

on Le Sueur. 199; his
works in the Vatican. 205.

Rayonnant Style, 99.

Reformation. 183. 353.

Regnault, Henri. 304. 309. 386 ;
Monument to, 422 ; Por-
trait of General Prim.
386'.

Reims. 2 ; Cathedral. 55 :
Capital in Lady Chapel.
82* ; Capital in Nave,
83 ; Chalice of St. Remi,
81*; Faqade, 48* ; Figure
of St. Joseph, 73* ; Figure
of Queen of Sheba, 72* ;
Figure of the Virgin on
central Porch. 72 ; Foot
of Candelabrum. 39* ;
local Saints m. 76 ; Plant
Ornament in. 71 ' ; Relief
of Abraham and Mel-
chizedech. 70^ ; St. Remi
conducted by Angels, 71';
sculptures at. 79, 8 I ; Virgin
of the Visitation, 74'.

Reims. Church of St. Remi, 32 ;
South Porch. 101* ; Gate
of Mars, 4 ; House of
the Musicians. 50*.

Reliquary Head of Si. Biu-
doum, 23'.

Rembrandt. 205. 326. 379.

399.

Renaissance. 135, 195. 213.

239. 299.

Rene, King, 87, 92, 119, 120.

137.

Rennes. 287.

Renoir. 404; DeVeuncr. 406' .

Restoration, the, 302. 303. 362.

Restouts. the. 244.

Restout. Jean. 257.

Revolution, French, 195. 297.

299-301. 306. 313. 314.

353.
Rhine. 1. 5.288.
Ribera, 376. 388.

Ribot. 318. 376. 401 ; St.

Sebastian. 375' .
Ricard. 387 ; Portrait of Heil-

bulh, 393' : Portrait of a

Woman, 393*.
Richard Cceur de Lion, 88.
Rieux. .ipostles, from Abbey

of. no.

Rigaud. H.. 221. 222. 228.
248. 249. 250. 261 ; Por-
trait of Boileau, 249 ;
Portrait of Bossuet, 246'

441

INDEX

249 ; Portrait of the
Marquis de Dangeau,
244* ; Portrait of Gas-
pard de Cueydan, 245' ;
Portrait of La Fontaine.
249 ; Portraits of Louis
XIV. 249.
Richelieu. 91. 180, 181. 367 ;
Tomb of Richelieu. 219* ;

223,225.

Riviere, Thomas, Phryne.
42b\

Robert, Hubert, 274, 275, 333,
354; Transformation of the
Park of Versailles under
Louis XVL 27 4" -.Maison
Carrie, Nimes, 275*.

Robert, Leopold, 334 ; Arrival
oj Harvesters in the Pon-
tine Marshes, 334*.

Robert-Fleury, Tony, 335.

Robespierre, 314.

Roche, Pierre, 420.

Rochegrosse, 384.

Rococo Style, 292, 283.

Rodez, Cathedral, 59, 101 ;
Tower of Cathedral, 104';
West Front, 104".

Rodin, 411,417-420; Bust of
a IVoman. 424' ; The
Kiss, 425 ; Six Citizens of
Calais, 418. 424' ; The
Thinker. 4\8\

Roland. Gestes of, 25.

Rolm. Nicolas, 88, 118.

Roll, 395, 401 ; Centenary of
1789, 402' ; The Nurse.
401*.

Roman Bridge on the Vidourle,

Romans, architecture of the, 1 -3.

Romanticism, 273, 315, 319
358.

Rome. 196, 204, 205. 209.
214, 215, 269, 274, 300,
328; The Capitol, 190;
Church of Gesii, 184;
Church of San Giovanni
Laterano, 290 ; Church of
St. Peter, 184, 186,290;
French in, 143; King of,
302 ; Pantheon. 290.

Roncesvaux, 2, 25.

Rosa, Salvator, 274.

Roslin,264 ; Young Girl, 273*.

Roty, 415 ; Marriage (medal-
lion), 41 6\

Rouen, 1 36, 3b5 ; Cathedral,
54", 57, 100; Facade of,

55; Lady Chapel, 100.
140; Portail de la
Calende, 74*. 100; Por-
tail des Libraires, 75*,
100; Portail des Mar-
mousets. 1 03 ; Tombs of
d Amboise and de Breze,
140, 141 ; Tour de la
Beurre (Butter Tower),
55*; Church of St,
Maclou, 1 03 ; Aitre St.
Maclou. 93*, 126; Porch.
100' ; Spiral Staircase in,
lOL ; Church of St. Ouen,
37, 58, 99, 356; Facade,
358 ; Nave, 99 ; Fountain
de la Crosse Horloge.
292' ; Hotel Bourgthe-
roulde, 144'; Museum.
397, 398 ; Old House at,
92' ; Palais de Justice,
90*, 97, 140; Pottery,

285* ; School of, 244.

Rousseau.J.J., 272,273, 300.

Rousseau, Theodore, 341, 342,
374. 377, 403 ; compared
with Harpignies, 380 ;
Charcoal Burner's Hut,
345' ; Sunlit Oak, i45\

Royat, Church, 1 3,

Roybet, 387.

Rubens, 192, 201, 205. 247,
248, 251, 258, 264, 271,
318, 392. 395. 401, 423;

in France. 194.
Rude, 350 ; Marseillaise, 350.
353, 422. 423; Napoleon
awaking to Immortality,

354'.
Ruprich-Robert, 355
Ruysdael. 339, 342.

Saint Antonin, 95 ; Hotel de
Ville (town-hall), 14'.

Saint Aubin, Gabriel de, 260

Saint Bernard, 34.

Saint Chamas, Bridge of, 3',

Saint Cloud, Chateau de,
221.

Saint Denis, 6, 49. 75.

Saint Denis, Abbey of, 37, 49.
64, 65, 108, 291 ; Char-
lotte of France, statue,
160' ; Choir, 43 ■; Claude
of France, statue, 159';

Crypt, 42' ; Figure of a
Queen, 60* ; revival of
sculpture at, 67 ; royal
tombs at, 1 07 ; Tomb of
Charles V, 85 ; Tomb of
Francis I, 168'; Tomb of
Louis XII and Anne of
Bretagne. 1 66'.

Saint Eleutherius, 49.

Saint Eligius (Eloi), 8, 76.

Saint Firmln, 75.

Samt Fortunade, Head of,

108'.

Saint Foy, 15, 30. 35, 37;

statue of, 36', 37.
Saint Galmier, Virgin and

Child, in Church of, 1 53'.
Saint Germain. 6 ; Abbey of.

12; Chateau, 137"; Fair

of, 212.
Saint Gilles (Provence), 13, 14,

25, 94, 31 ; Decorative

Motives in Church of, 33' ;

Porch of Church, 17;

Romanesque House at,

\6\
Saint Gobain, factory, 228.
Saint Helena, 302, 351.
Saint Honore, 75.
Saint Julian, 6.
Saint Lo, Church. 58.
Saint Louis. 52, 92, 93, 108;

Psalter of, 1 1 3, 1 1 4.
Saint Luke. Guild of. 195.
Saint Michael overcoming

Satan, 107'.
Saint Malo. 92, 287.
Saint Martin, 6, 24, 26.
Saint Maurice, Head of, 107.
Saint Mihiel (Lorraine), 140.
Saint Modeste. 76.
Saint Nectaire. Church of. 12*.
Saint Potentien, 76.
Saint Quentin, Hotel de Ville

(town hall). 93. 97;

Museum. 262.
Saint Remi, 76,
Saint Remy, Mausoleum, 3* ;

Triumphal Arch at, 2*.
Saint Rusticus, 49,
Saint Savin (near Poitiers),

28 ; God creating the Sun

and Moon, from. 22* ;

5ccne from the Apoca-
lypse, from, 22'.
Saint Siffrein, 121 ',
Saint Sixlus, 76.
Saint Stephen, 75.
Saint Trophime. 14.

442

INDEX

Saint Victor, Hugues d3. 1 3.

Saint Yved, Shrine of. 33'.

Saints as patrons of Guilds, 76.

Saintes, 2, 6 ; Cathedral, 26 ;
Church of Sainte-Marie-
des-Dames, 33 ; Archi-
volts in Church of Sainte
Mane-des- Dames, 34 .

Saintonge, 25, 1 36 ; Dutchmen
in, 191.

Sambin, Hugues, 136, 138;
Sideboard attributed to.
172*.

Sansovino, 367.

Santerre, 246 ; Susanna at the

Bath. 242*, 246.

Sarazin and Sauvage. Villa at

Compiegne, 370*.
Sarrazin, Jacques, 187. 189:

Tomb of Henri de Conde.

192\

Sarto. Andrea del, 145.

Saturninus. 6.

Savoy, 86.

Saxe, Tomb of Marshal, by
Pigalle,277*.

Scheffer, Ary. 325. 393 ; St.
Augustine and St. Monica,
331*.

Schliemann, 384.

Schnetz, 334.

Scott. Sir Walter. 322.

Segoffin. 420.

Seigneur. Jean du, 351 ; Or-
lando [' arioso, 356'.

Seine, 41, 88, 180, 182, 275,

Selmersheim, 371 .

Sens. Cathedral. 100": Hotel
de Ville (town-hall), 96.

Serlio. I 79.

Servandoni, 290.

Seven Years' War, 257.

Sevres China, 256, 304 : group.
The Kiss, 280 ; statuettes
of, 280.

Shakespeare, 322.

Sideboard, temp. Henry II.,
172.

Silvestre, Israel, 182: The
Long Gallery of the
Louvre. I 79* ; The Small
Gallery of the Louvre,
1 79-.

Simon. Lucien, 318,408.409;

The Procession, 413".
Sisley, 401 ; Banks of a River,

406" ; Snow Effect, 405".
Slodtz, M. A.. 277. 281 ;

Cabinet, 283",

Sluter, Claus, 86, 109, 110,
419; Door, Abbey of
Champmol, Ml; Well of
the Prophets, Champmol.
Ill", 112; Christ, Well
of the F^rophets, 114.

Snyders, 248.

Sohier, Pierre, 136, 141.

Soissons, Church at, 52.

Solario, Andrea, 145.

Solesmes, " Sepulchre at,

157" : Magdalen of "Se-
pulchre," 157".

Sorbonne. 367.

Sorel, Agnes, 1 22.

Soufflot, 290. 291.

Souillac. 13, 34; Pillar with
Chimaeras, 27* ; Prophet
21 .

Souvigny, 1 07.

Stanislas, King, 288, 371.

Steinlen, 406 : Masons uatc'i-
ing a pas'iing Funeral,
401".

Stella family (artists), 192.

Stella, Jacques, Supposed Por-
trait of 200*.

Strasburg, 28B.

Subleyras, 257.

Suger, Abbe. 43, 49. 65.

Sully, Maurice de, 52.

Swebach, 308.

Syria, 7.

Talma, 302, 309.

Tapestry of the Apocalypse, at

Angers, 130*.
Tapestry with Legend of St.

Qucntin, 1 74".
Tapestry of the Unicorn (Cluny

Museum). 131.
Tattegrain, 385.
Temple, Raymond du, 96.
Teniers. 202, 250, 254, 268.
Texier, Jean, 103.
Theophilus (monk), 28, 64.
Thierry, Augustin, 335.
Tiber. 273.
Ticpolo. 404.
Tiryns, 384.
Tissot. James, 381. 382; The

Magi, 582- .
Titian, 251.

Tocque, 264 : Maria Leczin-
\ ska, 264'.

443

Tomb, Figure on a. a Canon

praying. 115.
Tojl, Cathedral. Fa<;ide, 1 52*.

To jIo use. 5. 1 2, 86! 1 36, 234,

283 : brick architecture at
20, 405 ; Capital from St.
Etienne, with Herod's
Feast, 29" ;Capitole, 394;
Capitole, Henry IV.'s
Court. 1 44 ; Capitole
Salle d-s Illustres. 365* ;
Church of St. Sernin, 1 3,
20, 60, 1 37 ; Apse of
Church of St. Sernin. 1 3 ;
Capital in Church of St.
Sernin, 26" ; Nave of
Church of St. Sernin. 14" ;
Relief from Church of St.
Sernin, 26" : Cloister of
the Musee de; Augustins,
98"; The Dalbade, 137
Flemings at, 191 ; Hotel
d'Assezat, 136, 143*.

Touraine, 122. 125, 136, 142.

Tournehem, 256.

Tournier, D^scent from the
Cross, 227' .

Tournieres, .4 Magistrate, 244.

Tours. 6, 24. 121 ; Cathedral,
100, 146".

Tourny, 287.

Trajan s Column, 220, 245.

Treves, 2.

Trianon, 240. 294.

Trophimus, 6.

Troy, Francois de, 245, 250 ;
Oyster Feast, 241 ".

Troyes, Church of the Made-
leine, Rood Screen, 103,
150' ; St. Martha. 139.
155'': Visitation, 139.

156".

Troyon, 344 ; Feeding Poultry,
350" ; Oxen going to
plough, 349".

Tubi, 222, 225 ; Tomb of Le
Brun's Mother, 217'.

Turenne. 225.

Turner, 401 .

Turpin. Gcstcs of. 26.

Tuileries, the, 178, 362.

Umbria, 124.

Unknown artist ; Ball at the

Court of Henri HI.. 1 76* ;

Descent from the Cross,

INDEX

121*; Diana and Nymphs,
1 74* ; Porlrail of a
Woman, 227" ; Virgin of
Pity, 123'.

Usse, Chateau of, I 38 \

Uzes, 120.

Valentin, 197, 198; Concert,
202 \ Gypsy and Soldiers,
201 -.

Valois Kings, 85.

Vase, Antique, 39*.

Vaudremer, 362"

Vaux-le-Vicomte, Chateau of.

183. 184".

Vaudoyer : Cathedral of Mar-
seilles, 368".
Velazquez, 388.
Vendome, Church of La Tri-

nite, 102'.
Venice, 323, 386 ; St. Mark's '

Church, 22.
Vernet, Carle, 314, 315; The

/Race. 315*.
Vernet, Horace, 335, 336 ;

Talking of the Smala,

333".
Vernet, Joseph, 256, 273275,

337, 409; View of the

Bridge and Castle of Sanl

Angelo, 274".
Veronese, Paul, 198,251,392,

395.

Versailles, Chateau de, 180,
183, 211, 213, 229, 240,
242, 243, 302, 334, 351,
366, 367, 391, 392, 425 ;

alterations under Louis
XV., 256 ; Chapel of,

242, 231 ; Cour de
Marbre, 229' ; decorative
work at, 248 ; Faqade from
the gardens, 230* ; Foun-
tains at, 230, 231 ; Frieze
of CEil de Boeuf, 231*;
Galerie des Glaces, 220,
228, 229, 232*: Louis
Xllls Chateau, 2 18; Louis
XlV's Bedroom, 236" ;
Louis XI Vs Palace, 218-
233 ; Park and Gardens of,
229-233; Petit Trianon.
285, 288" ; " Hamlet "
of Petit Trianon, 289';
sculpture at, 187, 348;
Tapis Vert, 231,232*.
Vezelay. Church of, 14, 20,
31,35,36; Nave of, 15*;
Tympanum, 29'.

Vien, 299. 304, 305.

Vienne, 7.

Vigee-Le Brun, Mme., 272 ;
The Artist and her
Daughter, 276* ; Marie
Antoinette and Children,

272, 27 5 \

Villeneuve-les-Avignon, 119;

Ramparts, 88 .
Vincennes, 85.
Vincent, 309.
Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci, 40,

145; see also Leonard,

Master.

Viollet-le-Duc. 88, 89,93,355.
Virgil, 207, 239, 273.

Virgin, The Black, 77".
Virgin and Child (Musee des

Augustins), 108".
Virgin and Child (wooden

statue), 37 .

Virgin and Child (silver gilt

statuette), 1 08 .
Virgin of Olivet, 1 54*.
Virgin of Pity, 123*.
Virgin, type in French

Sculpture, 72-74, 104-

106.
Virgin, see also Ivories.
Visconti, 351, 363; Tomb of

Napoleon 1, 351, 356'.
Vitruvius, 179, 182,283.
Vollon, 387.
Voltaire, 293.
Voragine, Jacobus de, 77.
Vouet, Simon. 198. 199, 248;

Wealth, 203.

Warin. 189. 200; Gassendi,
188" ; Richelieu, 188'.

Watteau, 237, 250 254, 259,

271. 294; The Concert.

251*; The Dance. 250' ;

The Embarkation for

Cythera, 251*. 253;

G e r s a i n t s Signboard.

237* ; LTndigerent, 248" ;

Pages in Album. 247' ;

Rural Pleasures. 250*.
Wax Medallions, 175*.
Weyden, Rogier van der, 86

83, 118.

Yvon, 383.

Ziem, 386 ; Keni'ce, 385'.

COLOURED PLATES.

Marquise de Boglione. Nattier. Collection of the Marquis de Chaponay
Portrait of the President de Laage. Largiltiere. The Louvre, Paris •.

La I'inette. Watteau. The Louvre. Paris

Portrait of M. Bertin. Ingres. The Louvre, Paris

Frontispiece
To face p. 1 28

240
330

R. CLAV AND SONS LT1>., URKAD ST. HILL E.C., AND HUN<;AV, SUFl'OLK.

444

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES

COLLEGE LIBRARY

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