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FRENCH ART & ARCHITECTURE
"Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self."
Jean-luc Godard (b. 1930), French filmmaker, author.
THE 18TH CENTURY
On the death of
Louis XIV in 1715, his 5-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, became
king. The realm was guided until 1723 by a regent, Louis XIV's nephew
Philippe d'Orleans. During the regency, the single-minded direction
given the arts by Louis XIV was relaxed in favor of individualism and
Painting and Sculpture
During the last
years of the reign of Louis XIV and the first half of the 18th
century, the French became enamored of the small genre subjects of
17th-century Holland and of the more lighthearted, mythological
scenes of the Italian baroque. In French hands, these subjects gave
new definition to social refinement and luxury. Decorative arts and
interior design were transformed by the growing popularity of the
rococo style, a light-hearted and elegant style based on asymmetrical
While the academies
continued to pay lip service to the grandeur of the age of Louis XIV,
public attention shifted from the courtly taste set at Versailles to
the fashion set by the nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie in their
private Parisian residences, called hotels. Here literate
free-thinking tastes led to a delightful style of painting and
sculpture rich in decorative effect and expressive of human
sentiment. This new spirit received its finest expression in the
brilliant work of the Flemish painter Antoine Watteau, whose scenes
of revelers in contemporary dress, inhabiting a mythological realm of
pleasure, changed the direction of private patronage in France.
Artists such as Francois Boucher were inspired by the subject matter
and technical brilliance of Watteau to create ravishing combinations
of color and graceful forms. This development was encouraged by the
court of Louis XV, who adopted the taste of Paris as his courtly
style in the second quarter of the 18th century.
In the third quarter
of the 18th century, an effort was made by members of the Royal
Academy and Arts administration, notably the Marquis de Marigny
(1727-81), director of Royal Works, to revive the disciplined and
elevated goals of art established in the 17th century by Louis XIV
and his minister Colbert. The demand for a didactic, grand style led
to the emergence in the last quarter of the century of a generation
of artists devoted to high principles of art and the service of the
state. Most famous of these was the painter Jacques Louis David,
pioneer of a pure classicizing style based on that of Poussin. A wide
divergence existed between the didactic art of David and the courtly
taste of Louis XV and his grandson, Louis XVI, who preferred artists
such as Jean Honore Fragonard and Hubert Robert. Consequently, a
healthy variety characterized the art of late-18th-century France.
With the radical change of political and social structure that came
with the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon I, the didactic
art of David found a new outlet never anticipated by his royal
of the 18th century continued the classicizing tendencies of the 17th
century in France with greater reserve and refinement, using
classical motifs in a late baroque style. Restrained ornament,
delicate carved limestone details, and the sophisticated play of
volume and lighting give the domestic and public architecture of the
period a sense of calm grandeur. Among the architectural gems of the
reign of Louis XV is the Petit Trianon (1762) by Ange Jacques
Gabriel, a leisure retreat in the park at Versailles. The regular and
sedate proportions of the nearly cubic Petit Trianon never become
ponderous or dull, so refined are the rhythms of the surface
ornamentation, arrangement of windows, and crowning balustrade.
architecture was affected by a neoclassical revival comparable to
that in painting, and quoted architectural usages of the past with
archaeological correctness. Neoclassicism was particularly well
suited to monumental buildings, such as Jacques Germain Soufflot's
Sainte-Genevieve, now called the Pantheon, in Paris.
The "Joconde" database is a catalogue of drawings, stamps, paintings, sculptures,
photography and objects of art conserved in more than 60 museums throughout France. It
contains details on more than 130,000 works, dating from the 7th century to the present,
representing over 10,000 artists.
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