French Art Supplement

International Gothic Style

Jean Fouquet, 1420-1481

Jean Fouquet developed the so-called International Gothic style that spread through Europe and incorporated the new Flemish influence as well as the innovations of the Italian early Renaissance artists.

Renaissance

School of Fontainebleau

Leonardo produced little after to retiring to France.

Francis I turned his ambition as a patron of the arts on the Palace at Fontainebleau. Italian artists brought rather strained Mannerism, which soon turned into French elegance. School of Fontainebleau from 1531 included: Rosso Fiorentino and Niccolò dell'Abbate.

She is the presumed subject of the painting Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses sœurs by an unknown artist (c.1594). Gabrielle sits up nude in a bath, holding (presumably) Henry's coronation ring, whilst her sister sits nude beside her and pinches her right nipple. Henry gave Gabrielle the ring as a token of his love shortly before she died.

French Baroque Painting

The Le Nain brothers were uninfluenced by the Italian magnet. They painted powerful pictures of peasant families with deep conviction but little pictorial science.

What interested de la Tour was a dramatic simplicity of tone which candlelight not only produced but made credible: and when he took the further step of rigorously simplifying form, he was able to evolve a style that combined the advantages of startling realism and nearby attraction.

Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1665

Simon Vouet, 1590-1649

Claude Lorrain, 1600-1682

French Rococo Painting

Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721

Francois Boucher, 1703-1770

Jean-Honore Fragonard, 1731-1806

Jean-Simeon Chardin, 1699-1779

Barbizon School: Corot, Millet

The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain (c.1599-1648), Louis Le Nain (c.1593-1648), and Mathieu Le Nain (1607–1677).

David was imprisoned for his support of the Revolution

1804
At the moment of the crowning when the Pope said, "Receive the imperial crown...", Napoleon turned and removed his laurel wreath and crowned himself and then crowned the kneeling Joséphine with a small crown surmounted by a cross, which he had first placed on his own head.[8] "Napoleon's detractors like to say that he snatched the crown from the Pope, or that this was an act of unbelievable arrogance, but neither of those charges holds water. Napoleon was simply symbolizing that he was becoming emperor based on his own merits and the will of the people, not because of some religious consecration.


Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical.

Poussin spent most of his working life in Rome. Same is true of Lorrain.

Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy was a French musician and composer.

Oath of Horatii originally commissioned to support royalty. But David supported the Revolution and this painting came to be seen as supporting the revolution.

In the Raft of the Medusa, at least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practised cannibalism.

Corot is associated with Barbizon school of painting.

The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, near the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered.