Monday, November 1, 2010

France's Brilliance in 1500

A new exhibit at the Grand Palais.
After the end of the Hundred Years' War, during the reigns of Charles VIII (1483–98), Louis XI (1498–1515) and Anne de Bretagne, who was wife to both, France was already a meeting ground for the most important artistic currents of the North and South—realism and oil painting techniques from Picardy, Flanders and the Brabant; innovations in perspective and the influence of newly rediscovered antiquity in Italy. Along with the two kings and their queen, there were nobles, prelates and rich merchants also commissioning artists and architects. Among the most important was Good King René, a bon vivant who reigned in Provence with a slew of titles including King of Naples and Sicily, and filled his court with artists, musicians, poets and scholars.

The show brings together more than 200 works—paintings, sculptures, tapestries, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, coins, medal and precious objects—of such exceptional quality that the impact is breathtaking. The immediate impression is the brilliance of color—ruby reds, sapphire blues, emerald and lime greens, sunflower yellow—not only in the paintings and stained glass but also in the scores of illuminations in manuscripts and early printed books, from small Books of Hours to desk-sized tomes, that are one of the show's strong points.

Aside from Leonardo da Vinci, with "La Belle Ferronière" (c.1495-97), most of the artists here are unfamiliar to the general public, but this is the place to meet them—Jean Fouquet, Nicolas Froment, Jean Poyer, Girolamo Pacchiarotti) (known as Jérôme Pacherot), the Master of Moulins, now almost unanimously identified as Jean Hey, and many others.

The Master of Chaource (probably Jacques Bachot), working in Champagne, is credited with the stunning lifesized stone figure of Saint Martha (c. 1510–15), whose slender face and delicate hands seem almost miraculously real. The very young, almost impossibly lovely "Notre Dame de Grasse" (c. 1470), looking away from the infant on her knee who so closely resembles her, is an anonymous work from the Languedoc region, as is the young Madonna (c. 1500) whose child is touching her cheek in a quintessential infant's gesture perfectly captured in stone.

Attributed to Pacherot and the atelier of Michel Colombe in Tours, the marble tomb of the young children of Charles VIII is a masterpiece of elaborate ornamentation, with putti, dolphins, mythological scenes and imaginary creatures surrounding the small sleeping figures of the toddler princes who died in 1495 and 1496, aged three and one.
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10 comments:

Stephanie A. Mann said...

Thanks for posting this! Now I know where I'll be Monday morning, November 15--standing in line outside the Grand Palais for this exhibit! Looks wonderful.

elena maria vidal said...

You're going to France again! Have fun, Stephanie!

Stephanie A. Mann said...

Yes, that's the plan! Here's some info about the sources of this exhibit from the Grand Palais website: "The exhibition is organised jointly by the Réunion des musées nationaux and the Art Institute of Chicago, staged in collaboration with the Louvre Museum, the Cluny Museum (the National museum of the Middle Ages) and the National Renaissance Museum in the Château d'Ecouen, with the support of the French National Library.
Commissioners: Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, director of the National Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris, Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, Director of the Department of Sculpture in the Louvre Museum, Thierry Crépin-Leblond, Director of the National Renaisssance Museum, Château d'Ecouen, Martha Wolff, curator in charge of pre-1750 European painting at the Art Institute of Chicago."
The exhibit might appear in Chicago next year!

elena maria vidal said...

I'm in awe! I wish I were going with you!!

Stephanie A. Mann said...

That would be fun! We visited the Chateau in Ecouen a few years ago--the home of Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France. It has an excellent restaurant and we walked through a forest to reach the chateau/musee/restaurant!

elena maria vidal said...

Great! You know how I love good restaurants!

Julygirl said...

Wish we could make it a threesome!

Stephanie A. Mann said...

That would be great! I plan to do some research on the Carmelites of Compiegne by visiting Place de la Nation, Avenue du Trone, and Cimitiere Picpus the next day.

Stephanie A. Mann said...

Update: I did attend this exhibit at the Grand Palais Monday morning, spending more than an hour with very intent Parisians, reading each word and noting every detail!

elena maria vidal said...

Stephanie, how wonderful! I'm JEALOUS!