King Arthur
The Maximilian Tomb, Innsbruck
The Age of Francis I.
Fortunately this sternly anti-humanistic creed was not adopted throughout Northern Europe. In particular, it failed to find acceptance among the Frenchmen who made their country the first power in Western Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As in Germany, the growth of an independent school of sculpture in France dated from the early years of the sixteenth century when the influence of the Italian Renaissance began to spread beyond the peninsula. The French equivalent of Peter Vischer was Michel Colombe. Colombe was the tailleur d’images to three kings of France, Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII. His best known work is the tomb of Francis II., Duke of Brittany, at Nantes. But it is rather as the founder of the school of sculpture at Tours that Colombe claims our attention.
Early in the sixteenth century Tours was the foremost art centre in France. Fouquet, the miniaturist, who died about 1480 a.d., was a native of the town. Jean Clouet (Janet), the portrait painter, also lived at Tours for some time. About 1520 there was an official studio in the town, presided over by Babou de la Bourdaisière with a full complement of sculptors, jewellers, engravers, and painters. The chief product of the school of sculpture at Tours was the long series of Royal Tombs at St. Denis, set up by the French kings of the sixteenth century. It is here that we can best estimate the capacity of the earliest native French sculptors.
The similarity in the general design of the royal tombs at St. Denis is so marked that almost any example would be equally illustrative. In many respects the most representative is that of Henri II., upon which Germain Pilon worked for sixteen years. It is remarkable for the magnificent kneeling figures of the French King and Catherine of Medici. But, perhaps, from the historical standpoint, a more instructive example is the tomb of Louis XII., by Jean Juste. This was removed from Tours to St. Denis in 1531. It therefore represents the sculpture of a period midway between Michel Colombe and Germain Pilon.
Jean Juste’s design is of a highly conventional character. As in the tomb of Germain Pilon, the central figures are the nude corpses of the King and Queen, rendered with a realistic fidelity which, at any rate, commands respect. Above the tomb Louis and Anne of Brittany figure again. This time they are pictured as in life and fully dressed. The keynote of Jean Juste’s work—its vigorous truth—is the same as that pervading Peter Vischer’s “King Arthur.” Like the work of the Nuremburg sculptor, it is devoid of real charm. It entirely lacks the emotional quality which attracts us in Quercia’s “Tomb of Ilaria del Caretto,” though five hundred years have passed since it was set up in the Cathedral at Lucca. Unlike the Italian sculptor, the French artist has failed to realize the peculiar power of marble and bronze as a medium of artistic expression.
Even in the days of Jean Juste (about 1530), however, a change was beginning. It became an accomplished fact a few years later, when the French sculptors finally abandoned the effort to express the thoughts and emotions of the masses and accepted the lesser responsibility of catering for the needs of the few. The importance of French sculpture during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries arises entirely from its association with the dominating factor in the history of the time. The age in which France was the first power in Europe was an age of the few, not of the many. This fact entailed the loss of much that might have been stimulating. But, at any rate, it enabled the sculptor to appeal to those who were shaping the history of their time.
Roughly, the political situation was as follows:
As the sixteenth century advanced it became evident that France could only preserve its place in the councils of Europe through an all-powerful monarchy. The earliest French king to realize this was Francis I., who succeeded to the throne in 1515 a.d. He was then twenty-one years of age. He proved to be the first Renaissance king of France, as Louis XII., his predecessor, had been the last mediæval monarch. Francis’ experience during the early years of his reign showed the absolute necessity of concentrating the resources of France into the hands of the king. His first step was naturally to deprive the French nobility of the power it had exercised in the past.
The effect of this general policy upon sculpture was instantaneous. If Julius Cæsar and Augustus were the fathers of Roman portraiture, Francis I. was the creator of what we term French sculpture. In the first place, Francis was forced to create an imposing Court where his turbulent nobles could be tamed into courtiers. This required the building of palaces where the reformed Court could meet. In other words, circumstances compelled Francis I. to be a great builder. The fortresses, which had been necessities during earlier centuries, were needed no longer. These were either suffered to fall into disrepair or the gloomy buildings with their turrets and moats were replaced by manorial châteaux with their lawns and their bowers. Naturally the king led the way. Equally naturally the necessity of building compelled him to become an energetic patron of the decorative arts. When Francis started to put up the Château of Chambord he employed such sculptors as Goujon, Bontemps, Cousin and Germain Pilon as a matter of course.
Francis’ greatest effort was the building of the Palace of Fontainebleau. It was begun in 1528. In a very short while he found that he could not rely upon French native talent for the extensive decorative scheme which he had planned. The discovery was not a new one. As early as 1495 Charles VIII. of France brought “makers of ceilings and turners of alabaster” from Florence and Milan. Cardinal d’Amboise, the minister of Louis XII., persuaded a number of Italian artists to try their fortune in Paris. He also installed several others at the Château de Gaillon. In those days the art instinct in France was dead. At the time when Raphael was working in the Vatican, the walls of the Cardinal d’Amboise’s castle at Gaillon were decorated with leathern hangings or simply-patterned cloths. No Frenchmen had considered the possibility of decorating his living rooms with pictures.
Under these circumstances Francis I. was compelled to turn to Italy. First Rosso and Primaticcio were summoned. A few years later, in 1537, Cellini accepted an invitation and spent some time at the French court. We can judge of the artistic enthusiasm of the kind and the marked change in the general appreciation of art owing to the growth of Court life from a spirited chapter in Cellini’s “Autobiography.”
While Cellini was in France, Primaticcio had been sent to Italy to collect art treasures on behalf of the king. The painter returned with the moulds of some of the most celebrated statues of antiquity. Bronze castings were made from these at the foundry at Fontainebleau and the statues were finally set up in the long gallery at Fontainebleau ready for the king’s inspection. They included the Vatican “Ariadne,” the “Apollo Belvedere,” the “Laocoon,” the “Aphrodite of Cnidus” and the “Hercules Commodus.” Cellini had certainly some ground for complaint when he found his silver statue of Jove placed in such a company, and it is not surprising that he attributed the chance to the envy of his rival, the painter. Readers of the “Autobiography” will remember the wealth of artistic detail intended to “add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative” with which Cellini narrates how the malice of Francis’ mistress, Mme. d’Estampe, was used against him. The visit of Francis to the gallery was delayed until evening in the hope that Cellini’s silver statue would appear mean among the ancient masterpieces with which it was to be shown. Of course the wayward Florentine was fully equal to the emergency. He placed a great torch in the hand of Jove and ordered his assistant to avoid lighting it until the king had passed the rest of the statues and was inspecting the silver one. The flood of light produced the effect which Cellini had anticipated. It was the modern statue, not the old-time bronzes which appeared the more effective.
The experience of Cellini at the Court of Francis I. proves that sculpture in France had now a body of influential and appreciative patrons—the first essential of a strong art movement. As we have seen, these patrons had very solid reasons for the interest they extended to the artists they employed. Francis’ marked preference for painting and sculpture of the Italian manner was not, however, without drawbacks. By selecting Rosso and Primaticcio to supervise the decoration of the palace at Fontainebleau, Francis practically endowed a foreign style. No doubt his judgment was sound. The native sculptors and painters had neither the experience nor the skill to carry out a scheme so foreign to anything upon which they had worked before.
In a very short while, however, the example of the Italians and the heavy premium placed upon any artistic talent led to the rise of native sculptors of distinction. The first French sculptor of supreme ability was Jean Goujon. The name first occurs in the building accounts of St. Maclou at Rouen in 1540. By 1547 Jean Goujon had entered the service of Francis I. Two years later he was at work upon the Fountain of the Innocents of Paris. The most instructive example of Goujon’s work is, however, the famous “Diana” now in the Louvre. The statue originally surmounted a fountain in the courtyard of Diana of Poitiers’ Castle of Anet, built by Henry II. for his mistress. The marble rested upon a sarcophagus raised upon tier after tier of carved decorative work. It was, therefore, intended to be viewed at an elevation, as can be seen in the well-known drawing by Goujon himself at the British Museum.
In estimating the genius of Goujon, the fact that he was first and foremost an architect must never be forgotten. The full beauty of his statues can only be properly appreciated when considered in connection with the sites for which they were designed. When we realize the decorative scheme of which a statue like “Diana” was intended to be the culminating-point, we can see that the claims of Goujon to be considered as the founder of modern French sculpture are not ill-founded. In addition to its fine decorative effect, the “Diana” possesses that balance which has always been a feature in the finest French art. For the rest, Goujon owes some prominent characteristics of his style to Cellini and the painters of the Fontainebleau school. Note, for instance, the elongated limbs and the over-slender proportions of his figures which Goujon has accentuated in his endeavour to endow his statues with all possible grace. The justification for the inclusion of Goujon among the great masters of sculpture depends upon the fact that he was the first French sculptor to introduce the nude figure as an object of æsthetic admiration into French decorative art. In doing so he freed French sculpture from the bonds of asceticism, and showed how its eventual greatness was to be secured.
JEAN GOUJON