Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

FRENCH.]
SCULPTURE
563
The abbey church of St Denis possesses the largest collec¬
tion of French 13th-century monumental effigies, a large
number of which, with supposed portraits of the early
kings, were made during the rebuilding of the church in
1264; some of them appear to be “archaistic” copies
of older contemporary statues.1
Four- In the 14th century French sculpture began to decline,
iteenth though much beautiful plastic work was still produced.
century. gome 0f the reliefs on the choir screen of Notre Dame at
Paris belong to this period, as does also much fine sculp¬
ture on the transepts of Rouen cathedral and the west end
of Lyons. At the end of this century an able sculptor
from the Netherlands, called Claux Sluter, executed much
fine work, especially at Dijon, under the patronage of
Philip the Bold, for whose newly founded Carthusian
monastery in 1399 he sculptured the great “Moses foun¬
tain ” in the cloister, with six life-sized statues of prophets
in stone, painted and gilt in the usual mediaeval fashion.
Fifteenth Not long before his death in 1411 Sluter completed a
century. Very magnificent altar tomb for Philip the Bold, now in
the museum at Dijon. It is of white marble, surrounded
with arcading, which contains about forty small alabaster
figures representing mourners of all classes, executed with
much dramatic power. The recumbent portrait effigy of
Philip in his ducal mantle with folded hands is a work
of great power and delicacy of treatment.
The latter part of the 15th century in France was a
time of transition from the mediaeval style, which had
gradually been deteriorating, to the more florid and real¬
istic taste of the Renaissance. To this period bdong a
number of rich reliefs and statues on the choir-screen of
Chartres cathedral. Those on the screen at Amiens are
later still, and exhibit the rapid ad¬
vance of the new style. Fig. 11 shows
a statuette in the costume of the end
of the 15th century, a characteristic
example of the later mediseval method
of treating saints in a realistic way.
Sixteenth In the 16th century Italian influ-
century. ence} especially that of Benvenuto Cel¬
lini, was paramount in France. Jean
Goujon (d. 1572) was the ablest French
sculptor of the time; he combined
great technical skill and refinement of
modelling with the florid and affected
style of the age. His nude figure of
Diana reclining by a Stag, now in the
Louvre, is a graceful and vigorous piece
of work, superior in sculpturesque
breadth to the somewhat similar bronze
relief of a nymph by Cellini. Between
1540 and 1552 Goujon executed the
fine monument at Rouen to Duke Louis
de Breze, and from looo to 1562 was —Statuette of
mainly occupied in decorating the Louvre gt Mary Magdalene,
with sculpture. One of the most pleas- late 15th century ;
ing and graceful works of this period, paint,ed
thoroughly Italian in style, is the marble anc gl
group of the Three Graces bearing on their heads an urn
containing the heart of Henry II., executed in 1560 by
Germain Pilon for Catherine de’ Medici. The monument
of Catherine and Henry II. at St Denis, by the same
sculptor, is an inferior and coarser work. Maitre Ponce,
probably the same as the Italian Ponce Jacquio, chiselled
the noble monument of Albert of Carpi (1535), now in
the Louvre. Another very fine portrait effigy of about
1570, a recumbent figure in full armour of the duke of
Montmorency, preserved in the Louvre, is the work of
Barthelemy Prieur. Frangois Duquesnoy of Brussels
(1594-1644), usually known as II Flamingo, was a clever
sculptor, thoroughly French in style, though he mostly
worked in Italy. His large statues are very poor, but his
reliefs in ivory of boys and cupids are modelled with won¬
derfully soft realistic power and graceful fancy.
No sculptor of any great merit appears to have arisen Seven-
in France during the 17th century, though some, such asteentl1
the two Coustous, c““ut)'-
had great techni¬
cal skill. Pierre
Puget(1622-1694)
produced vigor¬
ous but coarse and
tasteless work,
such as his Milo de¬
voured by a Lion.
Other sculptors
of the time were
Simon Guillain,
Frangois and Mi¬
chel Anguier, and
Chas. Ant. Coyze-
vox (1640-1720),
the last a sculptor
of Lyons who pro¬
duced some fine
portrait busts.
Fig. 12 shows a
group by Clodion,
whose real name
was Claude Michel
(c. 1745-1814).
He worked largely
in terra-cotta, and
modelled. . with fig 12.—Bacchanal group by Clodion in
great spirit and terra-cotta,
invention, though
in the sensual unsculpturesque manner prevalent in his
time.
In the following century Jean Antoine Houdon (1740-Eight-
1828), a sculptor of most exceptional power, producedeeul11
some works of the highest merit at a time when the plastic cen ur'jr"
arts had reached a very low ebb. His standing colossal
statue of S. Bruno in S. Maria degli Angeli at Rome is
a most noble and stately piece of portraiture, full of
commanding dignity and expression. His seated statue of
Voltaire in the /oyer of the Theatre Frangais, though
sculpturesque in treatment, is a most striking piece of
lifelike realism. Houdon may in fact be regarded as the
precursor of the modern school of French sculpture of the
better sort. About the middle of the 18th century a
revolution was brought about in the style of sculpture by
the suddenly revived taste for antique art. A period of
dull pseudo-classicism succeeded, which in most cases stifled
all original talent and reduced the plastic arts to a lifeless
form of archaeology. Regarded even as imitations the
works of this period are very unsuccessful: the sculptors
got hold merely of the dry bones not of the spirit of classic
art; and their study of the subject was so shallow and
unintelligent that they mostly picked out what was third-
rate for special admiration and ignored the glorious beauty
of the best works of true Hellenic art. Thus in sculpture,
as in painting and architecture, a study which might have
been stimulating and useful in the highest degree became
a serious hindrance to the development of modern art, and
this not only in France but in the other countries of
Europe; in France, however, the victories of Napoleon I.
and his arrogant pretension to create a Gaulish empire on
the model of that of ancient Rome caused the taste for
1 See Felibien, Jlistoire de VAbbaye de Saint-Denys, Paris, 1706.