A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Part 22

CHAPTER XXII.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Fergusson, Muntz, Pal.u.s.tre. Also Berty, _La Renaissance monumentale en France_. Chateau, _Histoire et caracteres de l'architecture en France_. Daly, _Motifs historiques d'architecture et de sculpture_. De Laborde, _La Renaissance des arts a la cour de France_. Du Cerceau, _Les plus excellents bastiments de France_. Lubke, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Frankreich_. Mathews, _The Renaissance under the Valois Kings_. Pal.u.s.tre, _La Renaissance en France_. Pattison, _The Renaissance of the Fine Arts in France_. Rouyer et Darcel, _L'Art architectural en France_. Sauvageot, _Choix de palais, chateaux, hotels, et maisons de France_.

+ORIGIN AND CHARACTER.+ The vitality and richness of the Gothic style in France, even in its decline in the fifteenth century, long stood in the way of any general introduction of cla.s.sic forms. When the Renaissance appeared, it came as a foreign importation, introduced from Italy by the king and the n.o.bility. It underwent a protracted transitional phase, during which the national Gothic forms and traditions were picturesquely mingled with those of the Renaissance. The campaigns of Charles VIII.

(1489), Louis XII. (1499), and Francis I. (1515), in vindication of their claims to the thrones of Naples and Milan, brought these monarchs and their n.o.bles into contact with the splendid material and artistic civilization of Italy, then in the full tide of the maturing Renaissance. They returned to France, filled with the ambition to rival the splendid palaces and gardens of Italy, taking with them Italian artists to teach their arts to the French. But while these Italians successfully introduced many cla.s.sic elements and details into French architecture, they wholly failed to dominate the French master-masons and _tailleurs de pierre_ in matters of planning and general composition. The early Renaissance architecture of France is consequently wholly unlike the Italian, from which it derived only minor details and a certain largeness and breadth of spirit.

+PERIODS.+ The French Renaissance and its sequent developments may be broadly divided into three periods, with subdivisions coinciding more or less closely with various reigns, as follows:

I. THE VALOIS PERIOD, or Renaissance proper, 1483-1589, subdivided into:

_a._ THE TRANSITION, comprising the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. (1483-1515), and the early years of that of Francis I.; characterized by a picturesque mixture of cla.s.sic details with Gothic conceptions.

_b._ THE STYLE OF FRANCIS I., or Early Renaissance, from about 1520 to that king's death in 1547; distinguished by a remarkable variety and grace of composition and beauty of detail.

_c._ THE ADVANCED RENAISSANCE, comprising the reigns of Henry II.

(1547), Francis II. (1559), Charles IX. (1560), and Henry III.

(1574-89); marked by the gradual adoption of the cla.s.sic orders and a decline in the delicacy and richness of the ornament.

II. THE BOURBON OR CLa.s.sIC PERIOD (1589-1715):

_a._ STYLE OF HENRY IV., covering his reign and partly that of Louis XIII. (1610-45), employing the orders and other cla.s.sic forms with a somewhat heavy, florid style of ornament.

_b._ STYLE OF LOUIS XIV., beginning in the preceding reign and extending through that of Louis XIV. (1645-1715); the great age of cla.s.sic architecture in France, corresponding to the Palladian in Italy.

III. THE DECLINE OR ROCOCO PERIOD, corresponding with the reign of Louis XV. (1715-74); marked by pompous extravagance and capriciousness.

During this period a reaction set in toward a severer cla.s.sicism, leading to the styles of Louis XVI. and of the Empire, to be treated of in a later chapter.

+THE TRANSITION.+ As early as 1475 the new style made its appearance in altars, tombs, and rood-screens wrought by French carvers with the collaboration of Italian artificers. The tomb erected by Charles of Anjou to his father in Le Mans cathedral (1475, by _Francesco Laurana_), the chapel of St. Lazare in the cathedral of Ma.r.s.eilles (1483), and the tomb of the children of Charles VIII. in Tours cathedral (1506), by _Michel Columbe_, the greatest artist of his time in France, are examples. The schools of Rouen and Tours were especially prominent in works of this kind, marked by exuberant fancy and great delicacy of execution. In church architecture Gothic traditions were long dominant, in spite of the great numbers of Italian prelates in France. It was in _chateaux_, palaces, and dwellings that the new style achieved its most notable triumphs.

+EARLY CHaTEAUX.+ The castle of Charles VIII., at Amboise on the Loire, shows little trace of Italian influence. It was under Louis XII. that the transformation of French architecture really began. The +Chateau de Gaillon+ (of which unfortunately only fragments remain in the ecole des Beaux-Arts at Paris), built for the Cardinal George of Amboise, between 1497 and 1509, by _Pierre Fain_, was the masterwork of the Rouen school.

It presented a curious mixture of styles, with its irregular plan, its moat, drawbridge, and round corner-towers, its high roofs, turrets, and dormers, which gave it, in spite of many Renaissance details, a mediaeval picturesqueness. The +Chateau de Blois+ (the east and south wings of the present group), begun for Louis XII. about 1500, was the first of a remarkable series of royal palaces which are the glory of French architecture. It shows the new influences in its horizontal lines and flat, unbroken facades of brick and stone, rather than in its architectural details (Fig. 175). The +Ducal Palace+ at Nancy and the +Hotel de Ville+ at Orleans, by _Viart_, show a similar commingling of the cla.s.sic and mediaeval styles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 175.--BLOIS, COURT FAcADE OF WING OF LOUIS XII.]

+STYLE OF FRANCIS I.+ Early in the reign of this monarch, and partly under the lead of Italian artists, like il Rosso, Serlio, and Primaticcio, cla.s.sic elements began to dominate the general composition and Gothic details rapidly disappeared. A simple and effective system of exterior design was adopted in the castles and palaces of this period.

Finely moulded belt-courses at the sills and heads of the windows marked the different stories, and were crossed by a system of almost equally important vertical lines, formed by superposed pilasters flanking the windows continuously from bas.e.m.e.nt to roof. The facade was crowned by a slight cornice and open bal.u.s.trade, above which rose a steep and lofty roof, diversified by elaborate dormer windows which were adorned with gables and pinnacles (Fig. 178). Slender pilasters, treated like long panels ornamented with arabesques of great beauty, or with a species of bal.u.s.ter shaft like a candelabrum, were preferred to columns, and were provided with graceful capitals of the Corinthianesque type. The mouldings were minute and richly carved; pediments were replaced by steep gables, and mullioned windows with stone crossbars were used in preference to the simpler Italian openings. In the earlier monuments Gothic details were still used occasionally; and round corner-towers, high dormers, and numerous turrets and pinnacles appear even in the chateaux of later date.

+CHURCHES.+ Ecclesiastical architecture received but scant attention under Francis I., and, so far as it was practised, still clung tenaciously to Gothic principles. Among the few important churches of this period may be mentioned +St. Etienne du Mont+, at Paris (1517-38), in which cla.s.sic and Gothic features appear in nearly equal proportions; the east end of +St. Pierre+, at Caen, with rich external carving; and the great parish church of +St. Eustache+, at Paris (1532, by _Lemercier_), in which the plan and construction are purely Gothic, while the details throughout belong to the new style, though with little appreciation of the spirit and proportions of cla.s.sic art. New facades were also built for a number of already existing churches, among which +St. Michel+, at Dijon, is conspicuous, with its vast portal arch and imposing towers. The Gothic towers of Tours cathedral were completed with Renaissance lanterns or belfries, the northern in 1507, the southern in 1547.

+PALACES.+ To the palace at Blois begun by his predecessor, Francis I.

added a northern and a western wing, completing the court. The north wing is one of the masterpieces of the style, presenting toward the court a simple and effective composition, with a rich but slightly projecting cornice and a high roof with elaborate dormers. This facade is divided into two unequal sections by the open +Staircase Tower+ (Fig.

176), a _chef-d'uvre_ in boldness of construction as well as in delicacy and richness of carving. The outer facade of this wing is a less ornate but more vigorous design, crowned by a continuous open loggia under the roof. More extensive than Blois was +Fontainebleau+, the favorite residence of the king and of many of his successors.

Following in parts the irregular plan of the convent it replaced, its other portions were more symmetrically disposed, while the whole was treated externally in a somewhat severe, semi-cla.s.sic style, singularly lacking in ornament. Internally, however, this palace, begun in 1528 by _Gilles Le Breton_, was at that time the most splendid in France, the gallery of Francis I. being especially noted. The +Chateau+ of +St.

Germain+, near Paris (1539, by _Pierre Chambiges_), is of a very different character. Built largely of brick, with flat bal.u.s.traded roof and deep b.u.t.tresses carrying three ranges of arches, it is neither Gothic nor cla.s.sic, neither fortress nor palace in aspect, but a wholly unique conception.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 176.--STAIRCASE TOWER, BLOIS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 177.--PLAN OF CHAMBORD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 178.--VIEW OF CHAMBORD.]

The rural chateaux and hunting-lodges erected by Francis I. display the greatest diversity of plan and treatment, attesting the inventiveness of the French genius, expressing itself in a new-found language, whose formal canons it disdained. Chief among them is the +Chateau of Chambord+ (Figs. 177, 178)--"a Fata Morgana in the midst of a wild, woody thicket," to use Lubke's language. This extraordinary edifice, resembling in plan a feudal castle with curtain-walls, bastions, moat, and donjon, is in its architectural treatment a palace with arcades, open-stair towers, a n.o.ble double spiral staircase terminating in a graceful lantern, and a roof of the most bewildering complexity of towers, chimneys, and dormers (1526, by _Pierre le Nepveu_). The hunting-lodges of La Muette and Chalvau, and the so-called +Chateau de Madrid+--all three demolished during or since the Revolution--deserve mention, especially the last. This consisted of two rectangular pavilions, connected by a lofty banquet-hall, and adorned externally with arcades in Florentine style, and with medallions and reliefs of della Robbia ware (1527, by _Gadyer_).

+THE LOUVRE.+ By far the most important of all the architectural enterprises of this reign, in ultimate results, if not in original extent, was the beginning of a new palace to replace the old Gothic fortified palace of the Louvre. To this task Pierre Lescot was summoned in 1542, and the work of erection actually begun in 1546. The new palace, in a sumptuous and remarkably dignified cla.s.sic style, was to have covered precisely the area of the demolished fortress. Only the southwest half, comprising two sides of the court, was, however, undertaken at the outset (Fig. 179). It remained for later monarchs to amplify the original scheme, and ultimately to complete, late in the present century, the most extensive and beautiful of all the royal residences of Europe. (See Figs. 181, 208, 209.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 179.--DETAIL OF COURT OF LOUVRE, PARIS.]

Want of s.p.a.ce forbids more than a pa.s.sing reference to the rural castles of the n.o.bility, rivalling those of the king. Among them Bury, La Rochefoucauld, Bournazel, and especially +Azay-le-Rideau+ (1520) and +Chenonceaux+ (1515-23), may be mentioned, all displaying that love of rural pleasure, that hatred of the city and its confinement, which so distinguish the French from the Italian Renaissance.

+OTHER BUILDINGS.+ The +Hotel-de-Ville+ (town hall), of Paris, begun during this reign, from plans by _Domenico di Cortona_ (?), and completed under Henry IV., was the most important edifice of a cla.s.s which in later periods numbered many interesting structures. The town hall of +Beaugency+ (1527) is one of the best of minor public buildings in France, and in its elegant treatment of a simple two-storied facade may be cla.s.sed with the +Maison Francois I.+, at Paris. This stood formerly at Moret, whence it was transported to Paris and re-erected about 1830 in somewhat modified form. The large city houses of this period are legion; we can mention only the Hotel Carnavalet at Paris; the Hotel Bourgtheroude at Rouen; the Hotel d'ecoville at Caen; the archbishop's palace at Sens, and a number of houses in Orleans. The +Tomb of Louis XII.+, at St. Denis, deserves especial mention for its fine proportions and beautiful arabesques.

+THE ADVANCED RENAISSANCE.+ By the middle of the sixteenth century the new style had lost much of its earlier charm. The orders, used with increasing frequency, were more and more conformed to antique precedents. Facades were flatter and simpler, cornices more p.r.o.nounced, arches more Roman in treatment, and a heavier style of carving took the place of the delicate arabesques of the preceding age. The reigns of Henry II. (1547-59) and Charles IX. (1560-74) were especially distinguished by the labors of three celebrated architects: _Pierre Lescot_ (1515-78), who continued the work on the southwest angle of the Louvre; _Jean Bullant_ (1515-78), to whom are due the right wing of Ecouen and the porch of colossal Corinthian columns in the left wing of the same, built under Francis I.; and, finally, _Philibert de l'Orme_ (1515-70). _Jean Goujon_ (1510-72) also executed during this period most of the remarkable architectural sculptures which have made his name one of the most ill.u.s.trious in the annals of French art. Chief among the works of de l'Orme was the palace of the +Tuileries+, built under Charles IX. for Catherine de Medicis, not far from the Louvre, with which it was ultimately connected by a long gallery. Of the vast plan conceived for this palace, and comprising a succession of courts and wings, only a part of one side was erected (1564-72). This consisted of a domical pavilion, flanked by low wings only a story and a half high, to which were added two stories under Henry IV., to the great advantage of the design. Another masterpiece was the +Chateau d'Anet+, built in 1552 by Henry II. for Diane de Poitiers, of which, unfortunately, only fragments survive. This beautiful edifice, while retaining the semi-military moat and bastions of feudal tradition, was planned with cla.s.sic symmetry, adorned with superposed orders, court arcades, and rectangular corner-pavilions, and provided with a domical cruciform chapel, the earliest of its cla.s.s in France. All the details were unusually pure and correct, with just enough of freedom and variety to lend a charm wanting in later works of the period. To the reign of Henry II. belong also the chateaux of Ancy-le-Franc, Verneuil, Chantilly (the "pet.i.t chateau," by Bullant), the banquet-hall over the bridge at Chenonceaux (1556), several notable residences at Toulouse, and the tomb of Francis I. at St. Denis. The chateaux of +Pailly+ and +Sully+, distinguished by the sobriety and monumental quality of their composition, in which the orders are important elements, belong to the reign of Charles IX., together with the Tuileries, already mentioned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 180.--THE LUXEMBURG, PARIS.]

+THE CLa.s.sIC PERIOD: HENRY IV.+ Under this energetic but capricious monarch (1589-1610) and his Florentine queen, Marie de Medicis, architecture entered upon a new period of activity and a new stage of development. Without the charm of the early Renaissance or the stateliness of the age of Louis XIV., it has a touch of the Baroque, attributable partly to the influence of Marie de Medicis and her Italian prelates, and partly to the Italian training of many of the French architects. The great work of this period was the extension of the Tuileries by _J. B. du Cerceau_, and the completion, by _Metezeau_ and others, of the long gallery next the Seine, begun under Henry II., with the view of connecting the Tuileries with the Louvre. In this part of the work colossal orders were used with indifferent effect. Next in importance was the addition to Fontainebleau of a great court to the eastward, whose relatively quiet and dignified style offers less contrast than one might expect to the other wings and courts dating from Francis I. More successful architecturally than either of the above was the +Luxemburg+ palace, built for the queen by _Salomon De Brosse_, in 1616 (Fig. 180). Its plan presents the favorite French arrangement of a main building separated from the street by a garden or court, the latter surrounded on three sides by low wings containing the dependencies.

Externally, rusticated orders recall the garden front of the Pitti at Florence; but the scale is smaller, and the projecting pavilions and high roofs give it a grace and picturesqueness wanting in the Florentine model. The +Place Royale+, at Paris, and the chateau of Beaumesnil, ill.u.s.trate a type of brick-and-stone architecture much in vogue at this time, stone quoins decorating the windows and corners, and the orders being generally omitted.

Under Louis XIII. the Tuileries were extended northward and the Louvre as built by Lescot was doubled in size by the architect _Lemercier_, the Pavillon de l'Horloge being added to form the centre of the enlarged court facade.

+CHURCHES.+ To this reign belong also the most important churches of the period. The church of +St. Paul-St. Louis+, at Paris (1627, by _Derrand_), displays the worst faults of the time, in the overloaded and meaningless decoration of its uninteresting front. Its internal dome is the earliest in Paris. Far superior was the chapel of the +Sorbonne+, a well-designed domical church by _Lemercier_, with a sober and appropriate exterior treated with superposed orders.

+PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV.+ This was an age of remarkable literary and artistic activity, pompous and pedantic in many of its manifestations, but distinguished also by productions of a very high order. Although contemporary with the Italian Baroque--Bernini having been the guest of Louis XIV.--the architecture of this period was free from the wild extravagances of that style. In its often cold and correct dignity it resembled rather that of Palladio, making large use of the orders in exterior design, and tending rather to monotony than to overloaded decoration. In interior design there was more of lightness and caprice.

Papier-mache and stucco were freely used in a fanciful style of relief ornamentation by scrolls, wreaths, sh.e.l.ls, etc., and decorative panelling was much employed. The whole was saved from triviality only by the controlling lines of the architecture which framed it. But it was better suited to cabinet-work or to the prettinesses of the boudoir than to monumental interiors. The +Galerie d'Apollon+, built during this reign over the Pet.i.te Galerie in the Louvre, escapes this reproach, however, by the sumptuous dignity of its interior treatment.

+VERSAILLES.+ This immense edifice, built about an already existing villa of Louis XIII., was the work of _Levau_ and _J. H. Mansart_ (1647-1708). Its erection, with the laying out of its marvellous park, almost exhausted the resources of the realm, but with results quite incommensurate with the outlay. In spite of its vastness, its exterior is commonplace; the orders are used with singular monotony, which is not redeemed by the deep breaks and projections of the main front. There is no controlling or dominant feature; there is no adequate entrance or approach; the grand staircases are badly placed and unworthily treated, and the different elements of the plan are combined with singular lack of the usual French sense of monumental and rational arrangement. The chapel is by far the best single feature in the design.

Far more successful was the completion of the Louvre, in 1688, from the designs of _Claude Perrault_, the court physician, whose plans were fortunately adopted in preference to those of Bernini. For the east front he designed a magnificent Corinthian colonnade nearly 600 feet long, with coupled columns upon a plain high bas.e.m.e.nt, and with a central pediment and terminal pavilions (Fig. 181). The whole forms one of the most imposing facades in existence; but it is a mere decoration, having no practical relation to the building behind it. Its height required the addition of a third story to match it on the north and south sides of the court, which as thus completed quadrupled the original area proposed by Lescot. Fortunately the style of Lescot's work was retained throughout in the court facades, while externally the colonnade was recalled on the south front by a colossal order of pilasters. The Louvre as completed by Louis XIV. was a stately and n.o.ble palace, as remarkable for the surpa.s.sing excellence of the sculptures of Jean Goujon as for the dignity and beauty of its architecture. Taken in connection with the Tuileries, it was unrivalled by any palace in Europe except the Vatican.