Paris: Grant Allen's Historical GuidesAllen, Grant
History
Paris: Grant Allen's Historical Guides
Allen, Grant
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Guidebooks
The =third window= contains some charming but mutilated
fragments from the tomb of the Duc de Guise: more figures by Germain
Pilon; and a thoroughly Renaissance Awakening of the Nymphs, attributed
(with little doubt) to Frémin Roussell. Germain Pilon’s good bust of
Charles IX strikes the keynote of the king’s vain and heartless
character. The baby Christ, by Richier, though evidently suffering from
water on the brain, is otherwise a charming early French conception of
soft innocence and infantile grace. Notice, above this, a somewhat
transitional Pietà, placed as a votive offering (like so many other
things) in the (old) church of Ste. Geneviève, with the kneeling donor
represented as looking on, after the earlier fashion. The Judgment of
Daniel, attributed to Richier, though splendid in execution, forms an
example of the more crowded and almost confused composition which was
beginning to destroy the unity and simplicity of plastic art. As a
whole, the works in this room should be attentively and closely studied,
illustrating as they do the one exquisite moment of perfect fruition,
when the French Renaissance burst suddenly into full flower, to be
succeeded almost at once by painful degeneracy and long slow decadence.
I would specially recommend you to compare closely the more classical
works of this room with those in the adjoining Salle de Michel Ange in
order to recognise the distinctively French tone as compared with the
Italian. The importance of these various rooms, of both nationalities,
to a comprehension of Paris and French art in general, cannot be
over-estimated. By their light alone can you fully understand the fabric
of the Louvre itself, the Luxembourg, the Renaissance churches, the
tombs at St. Denis, and above all, Fontainebleau, St. Germain,
Versailles itself, and the entire development of architecture and
sculpture from François I^{er} to the Revolutionary epoch. Especially
should you always bear in mind the importance of works from the Château
de Gaillon (early) and Château d’Anet (full French Renaissance).
In the =vestibule=, as you pass out, notice a copy in bronze, probably
by Barthélemy Prieur, of the antique Huntress Diana, the original of
which we have already noticed in the Classical Gallery. It helps to
accentuate the direct dependence of French Renaissance sculpture upon
the classical model as well as upon that of the contemporary Italians.
Observe that while each of these arts is based upon the antique, it
necessarily follows the antique models _then and there_ known to it—not
the “Venus of Milo” discovered in 1820, or the figures from Olympia of
quite recent discovery.
3. MODERN SCULPTURE.
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