The earliest artistic remains in France date from Paleolithic times (see \Tprehistoric art\t). The periods of Celtic culture from the late 5th century BC to the 1st century AD and of Roman occupation from the 1st century to the 5th century AD saw the building of towns and the creation of artifacts (see \TCeltic art\t; \TRoman\t \Tarchitecture\t). It is not possible, however, to speak of a nationally distinct French art before the mid-5th century AD, when the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties established authority over this region. MEROVINGIAN AND CAROLINGIAN PERIOD After the decline of the Roman Empire, France was left as it had been before the Roman conquest, divided among many small regional tribes. These became small kingdoms and duchies between the 2d and the 5th century AD. Christianity spread during this period, leading to the foundation of many abbeys and monastic communities in the 5th to the 7th century. Few artifacts survive from the Merovingian period (see \TMerovingian art and architecture\t), named for the dynasty of Frankish kings that began with Clovis (c.481). The most notable Merovingian survival is the baptistery of Saint Jean at Poitiers, dating from the 7th century. Merovingian churches, with floor plans based on the Roman \Tbasilica\t, had stone walls, timber roofs, prominent bell towers, and echoed classical motifs in their ornamentation. In the 8th century, under the authority of Charlemagne--the first king to create a unified realm--a great building campaign began. Carolingian churches were intricately decorated with pictorial murals, mosaics, goldwork, and tapestries. The richness of Carolingian church interiors was equaled by the \Tilluminated manuscripts\t created at the monasteries of Reims, Tours, Metz, and Paris. The best preserved of Carolingian churches is the Chapel of Charlemagne (796-804) at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), whose octagonal sanctuary reflects the influence on Carolingian art of the Early Christian, Byzantine, and Greco-Roman traditions. The Aachen chapel is modeled on the octagonal Byzantine church of \TSan Vitale\t (526-47) in Ravenna. In larger Carolingian churches, built from the 8th to the 10th century, several important innovations were made, including the construction of an elaborate westwork, or entrance \Tfacade\t flanked by towers; an ambulatory, or semicircular aisle around the \Taltar\t, allowing worshipers to circulate without disturbing services; and the use of the composite PIER instead of a simple, massive \Tcolumn\t to support the upper walls and roof above the \Tnave\t. ROMANESQUE PERIOD Architecture Two forces affected the development of church architecture in France from the 10th to the 12th century. One was the growth of large, wealthy monastic orders, and the other was a rapid increase in the number of religious pilgrimages to holy shrines. The Romanesque style in architecture (see \TRomanesque art and architecture\t) can be thought of as a product of the architectural experiments of the Carolingian period and as a response to the needs of monasteries and pilgrimage churches. Romanesque style varied from region to region, reflecting local traditions and requirements. The largest and most important Romanesque structure was the Benedictine monastery church at \TCluny\t in Burgundy (begun in 1088 and destroyed in the 19th century). Cluny was the center of the Benedictine order in France. The massive monastery church, crowned with a stone vault (see \Tarch and vault\t), contained five aisles, two \Ltransept\ls, a chevet (an ambulatory with chapels radiating from the \Tapse\t), an imposing westwork, and a NARTHEX. The pattern established at Cluny was imitated by Benedictine churches throughout France. The ability to surpass the limitations of a wooden beam ceiling by constructing a stone barrel vault allowed the builders of Cluny to make the body of the nave unusually broad. Although the use of wooden roofs continued in northern France, the stone vault was one of the most successful Romanesque innovations. The stone roof took several forms: a barrel vault, pointed as at Autun Cathedral (1120-1132), or a groin vault, as at Vezelay (1089-1206). Although the walls were made extremely thick to support the stone vaults and give an impression of enormous weight, the interiors were well lit through \Tclerestory\t windows set high in the walls of the nave above the lower roofs covering the side aisles. Sculpture The principal fulfillment of the devout medieval Christian was a pilgrimage to Rome, or to one of the many European shrines that contained holy relics. Pilgrimage routes crossed national boundaries to shrines as distant as Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and churches were built along these well-traveled routes, many of which traversed France. Romanesque sculpture developed as decorations in these pilgrimage churches and is characterized by its highly stylized depictions of natural forms. The most prominent location for religious sculpture was in the \Ttympanum\t over the main west door leading to the center aisle of the church. Here artists depicted scenes from the life of Christ or other subjects familiar to pilgrims and suitable for their contemplation. A fine example of such a carved tympanum survives at the church of Saint Pierre in Moissac. Sculpture also adorned columns, \Lcapital\ls, wells in \TCloisters\t, and \Lcrypt\ls. Enamelwork The ancient art of enamelwork (see \Tenamel\t), which had continued to develop in France throughout the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, reached unprecedented heights in the 11th and 12th centuries, when the technique of champleve came into general use. \TLimoges\t was a center of production, and its enamelwork was prized throughout Europe. GOTHIC PERIOD The Gothic style grew out of the Romanesque in a surge of activity that began in the mid-12th century (see \TGothic art and architecture\t). The increasing affluence of that period brought new commercial centers into prominence. Mercantile interests sponsored the construction of great cathedrals, thus giving the cities the initiative in artistic innovation over the rural monastic and pilgrimage churches that had dominated the preceding centuries. Gothic art evolved in Northern France and spread throughout Europe, becoming the universal style from the 13th through the 16th century. Although the influence of Romanesque architecture had spread beyond France, Gothic was the first French style to dominate Europe. Architecture Gothic architecture began with the construction of cathedrals in Noyon (begun c.1150-70) and Laon (begun c.1160) and of the abbey church of \TSaint-Denis\t near Paris. It continued to develop in churches close to Paris, at Senlis (1153-84) and Sens (begun c.1140), and in the cathedrals of \TReims\t (begun 1210) and Rouen (begun after 1200). Saint-Denis, the most important achievement of early Gothic architecture, was built on the foundations of an earlier church between 1137 and 1144. The Abbott \TSuger\t intended to make Saint-Denis a splendid showplace in keeping with its function as the royal abbey church of France and burial place of French kings. In order to make these Gothic churches larger, the ribbed vault, capable of spanning large areas, was devised. Ribbed vaults were made loftier by enlarging the clerestory zone and its windows to enormous size, inserting a new zone, the \Ttriforium\t, below it, and supporting them on an \Tarcade\t of high piers lining the nave. To bear the greater stress of these taller, broader interiors, and to create larger window areas, a system of external supports or flying buttresses (see \Tbuttress\t) was developed. This created a greater sense of unity between the spaces of the nave and the adjacent aisles and ambulatory chapels. As the builders became more sophisticated, they were able to achieve ever grander effects at \TNotre Dame de Paris\t (begun 1163), \TChartres Cathedral\t (1145; rebuilt after a fire begun 1194), \TAmiens Cathedral\t (begun 1220), the \TSainte-Chapelle\t in Paris (begun after 1243, completed 1248), and Reims. The windows were enlarged, not to lighten the interiors, but rather for extensive use of \Tstained glass\t, which attained the height of its development in the late 12th and 13th centuries at Chartres and the Sainte-Chapelle. Sculpture Both the exteriors of these churches and certain interior elements were decorated with elaborate sculpture. Facades were populated with large figures of kings; portals were flanked by pillar-statues, called jamb figures, of saints, angels, and apostles; and other parts of the building were encrusted with decorative cusps, finials, and grotesque \Lgargoyle\ls. Gothic sculptors took a revolutionary step beyond their Romanesque predecessors in their conception of the figures as independent, almost free-standing statues rather than as reliefs. From the columnar verticality of the jamb statues at Chartres, Gothic sculpture evolved quickly toward the sympathetic depiction of character in the figures at Reims (c.1224-45). Gothic sculpture became more sophisticated in the ensuing centuries. One of the finest 14th-century creations is the refined and mannered figure of the Virgin that stands in the south transept of Notre Dame de Paris. RENAISSANCE PERIOD The Italian \TRenaissance\t began to influence French art in the last decade of the 15th century, when Charles VIII returned (1496) from his conquest of Naples accompanied by several Italian artists. Italian styles first appeared in the chateaux of the Loire Valley and became predominant during the reign (1515-47) of Francis I. Initially, however, Italian decorative elements were superimposed on Gothic principles. The earliest example is the Chateau d'Amboise (c.1495), where \TLeonardo da Vinci\t spent his last years. The Chateau de \TChambord\t (1519-36) is a more elaborate marriage of Gothic structure and Italianate ornament. This style progressed in the work of Italian architects such as Sebastiano \TSerlio\t, who was engaged after 1540 in much of the work at the Chateau de \TFontainebleau\t. At Fontainebleau grand interior galleries and ballrooms were decorated by Italian artists who formed the first school of Fontainebleau. The principal figures of this school were \TRosso Fiorentino\t, Francesco \TPrimaticcio\t, and Niccolo dell' Abbate (1512-c.1570). The art of engraving was also developed in France by foreign artists who helped disseminate the Italianate style. The climate of active royal and aristocratic patronage encouraged many talented artists and architects, including Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (c.1520-1585), Philibert \TDelorme\t, (c.1510-70), Giacomo \TVignola\t, and Pierre \TLescot\t. One of the finest surviving monuments of the French Renaissance is the southwest interior facade of the Cour Carree of the Palais du \TLouvre\t in Paris, designed by Lescot and covered with exterior carvings by Jean \TGoujon\t. Strong regional schools appeared in Lorraine as the arts continued to flourish under the reigns of Henry II and Henry III. BAROQUE PERIOD The reign of Henry IV (1589-1610) was a period of competent and enlightened government. The king's marriage to Marie de' Medici of the ruling house of Florence helped to ensure high esteem for Italian artistic accomplishments. The Place des Vosges (1605), then called the Place Royale, and the Place Dauphine (1607) were planned and built. In Paris a second generation of artists--called the second school of Fontainebleau--were trained or inspired by Italian painters to perpetuate the Italianate tradition under the patronage of Henry IV. Architecture In the second and third quarters of the century, during the ministries of Cardinal Richelieu to Louis XIII and of Cardinal Mazarin to the child-king Louis XIV, France became a great European power. These sage men required prestigious dwellings suited to their station. The architects Jacques \TLemercier\t--builder of Richelieu's Palais Cardinal (begun 1633), now site of the the Palais Royale, and of the Church of the Sorbonne (begun 1635)--Francois \TMansart\t and Louis \TLe Vau\t adapted the Italian baroque style to French needs (see \Tbaroque art and architecture\t). During the personal reign of Louis XIV (1661-1715) the arts served the state under the direction of the powerful minister of commerce and of royal works, Jean Baptiste \TColbert\t. The Louvre was enlarged, and the magnificent palace of \TVersailles\t (c.1669-90) was built as a fitting residence for the powerful king of France. The leading architect of the latter half of the 17th century was Jules \THardouin-Mansart\t, who designed parts of the palace of Versailles, the Orangerie, and numerous squares and public buildings in Paris. Painting Italy played a fundamental role in the redirection of French painting in the 17th century. Some French artists, notably Nicolas \TPoussin\t and Claude \TLorrain\t, created new modes of painting while living in Italy. Other artists, such as Simon \TVouet\t, fostered a native French baroque style. Colbert founded the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1663) to protect this group of artists and enlist their services for the state. Charles \TLe Brun\t was named first painter to the king and guided the academy. Under his leadership, artists celebrated the triumphs of the Sun King. Their work included \Tmural\t \Lpainting\ls, altarpieces, tapestry \Lcartoon\ls, and other large-scale narrative works associating Louis XIV and his reign with great men and events from classical literature. The same was true in sculpture--monumental figures of the king or large-scale structures were needed to ornament public squares and formal gardens. Recognizing that Italy was the great school of both classical and Renaissance art, Colbert founded the French Academy in Rome in 1666, to which gifted French artists and architects were sent at the expense of the crown. THE 18TH CENTURY On the death of Louis XIV in 1715, his 5-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, became king. The realm was guided until 1723 by a regent, Louis XIV's nephew Philippe d'Orleans. During the regency, the single-minded direction given the arts by Louis XIV was relaxed in favor of individualism and personal indulgence. Painting and Sculpture During the last years of the reign of Louis XIV and the first half of the 18th century, the French became enamored of the small genre subjects of 17th-century Holland and of the more lighthearted, mythological scenes of the Italian baroque. In French hands, these subjects gave new definition to social refinement and luxury. Decorative arts and interior design were transformed by the growing popularity of the \Trococo style\t, a light-hearted and elegant style based on asymmetrical natural forms. While the academies continued to pay lip service to the grandeur of the age of Louis XIV, public attention shifted from the courtly taste set at Versailles to the fashion set by the nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie in their private Parisian residences, called hotels. Here literate free-thinking tastes led to a delightful style of painting and sculpture rich in decorative effect and expressive of human sentiment. This new spirit received its finest expression in the brilliant work of the Flemish painter Antoine \TWatteau\t, whose scenes of revelers in contemporary dress, inhabiting a mythological realm of pleasure, changed the direction of private patronage in France. Artists such as Francois \TBoucher\t were inspired by the subject matter and technical brilliance of Watteau to create ravishing combinations of color and graceful forms. This development was encouraged by the court of Louis XV, who adopted the taste of Paris as his courtly style in the second quarter of the 18th century. In the third quarter of the 18th century, an effort was made by members of the Royal Academy and Arts administration, notably the Marquis de Marigny (1727-81), director of Royal Works, to revive the disciplined and elevated goals of art established in the 17th century by Louis XIV and his minister Colbert. The demand for a didactic, grand style led to the emergence in the last quarter of the century of a generation of artists devoted to high principles of art and the service of the state. Most famous of these was the painter Jacques Louis \TDavid\t, pioneer of a pure classicizing style based on that of Poussin. A wide divergence existed between the didactic art of David and the courtly taste of Louis XV and his grandson, Louis XVI, who preferred artists such as Jean Honore \TFragonard\t and Hubert \TRobert\t. Consequently, a healthy variety characterized the art of late-18th-century France. With the radical change of political and social structure that came with the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon I, the didactic art of David found a new outlet never anticipated by his royal sponsors. Architecture French architecture of the 18th century continued the classicizing tendencies of the 17th century in France with greater reserve and refinement, using classical motifs in a late baroque style. Restrained ornament, delicate carved limestone details, and the sophisticated play of volume and lighting give the domestic and public architecture of the period a sense of calm grandeur. Among the architectural gems of the reign of Louis XV is the \TPetit Trianon\t (1762) by Ange Jacques Gabriel, a leisure retreat in the park at Versailles. The regular and sedate proportions of the nearly cubic Petit Trianon never become ponderous or dull, so refined are the rhythms of the surface ornamentation, arrangement of windows, and crowning balustrade. Late-18th-century architecture was affected by a neoclassical revival comparable to that in painting, and quoted architectural usages of the past with archaeological correctness. \Tneoclassicism\t was particularly well suited to monumental buildings, such as Jacques Germain \TSoufflot\t's Saint-Genevieve, now called the Pantheon, in Paris. THE 19TH CENTURY The 18th century interest in sentiment and emotion led to an interest in extremes of sensibility in the romantic art of the following century (see \Tromanticism\t, art). Painting The greatest practitioners of romantic painting in France were Theodore \TGericault\t, Eugene \TDelacroix\t, and Jean Auguste Dominique \TIngres\t. Gericault's Raft of the Medusa (1818-19; Louvre, Paris), a depiction of the victims of a shipwreck, exposed the full range of human emotions from despair to exhilaration. Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus (1827; Louvre) explored the potential of color and vibrant brushwork as a means of heightening the sensations aroused by a dramatic narrative episode. In harem scenes such as The Great Odalisque (1814; Louvre) Ingres reflects 19th-century European fascination with the life of the senses and exotic foreign cultures. By the mid-19th century the self-indulgence of romanticism was tempered by the changing relationship of the artist to the subject matter. Gustave \TCourbet\t insisted that his painting owed no debt to any school or style and that art should offer detached observations of unidealized reality. Courbet's paintings of peasants, such as Funeral at Ornans (1850; Louvre), caused a scandal at that time, but his powerful depiction of nature found other exponents in Jean Francois \Tmillet\t and Honore \TDaumier\t (see \Trealism\t, art). An outgrowth of realism was a new conception of art as an activity that was worthwhile for its own sake regardless of its subject matter or allegiance to institutional values. This attitude was a necessary precondition for the emergence of \Timpressionism\t, a movement in painting that concentrated on the effects of light and color. The favored subjects of Claude \TMonet\t, Pierre Auguste \TRenoir\t, and Camille \TPissarro\t, were coastal and river scenes in which light dissolves form and softens focus. The loosely associated impressionist group also included Edgar \TDegas\t, whose interior scenes challenged conventional theories of formal composition and subject matter. \Tpostimpressionism\t, a general term for the work of such painters as Paul \TCezanne\t, Paul \TGauguin\t, Vincent \Tvan Gogh\t, Georges \TSeurat\t, and Pierre \TBonnard\t, evolved in reaction to the neutrality of subject matter and dissolution of form inherent in impressionism. These artists had few qualities in common, but their individual styles did much to determine the directions that painting would take in the 20th century. Sculpture In sculpture, the 19th century tended to be conservative. The romantic sculpture of Francois Rude, Jean Baptiste \TCarpeaux\t, and Antoine Louis \TBarye\t stands out. Auguste \TRodin\t revitalized sculpture by returning to the direct study of the human form. Rodin's portrayal of physical and emotional stress led to a fresh appreciation of the Renaissance masters Michelangelo and Donatello and exercised a profound influence on 20th-century sculpture. Architecture In architecture, the neoclassicism of the late 18th century was perpetuated by monumental forms serving the political ambitions of the Second Empire (1852-70) of Napoleon III. Later, an eclectic style based on both classical and baroque architecture emerged in the work of architects trained at the \TEcole des Beaux-Arts\t. Beaux-Arts buildings such as Jean Louis Charles \TGarnier\t's spectacular PARIS OPERA (1861-75) played an important role in Baron \THaussmann\t's modernization of the city during the Second Empire. Properties of new industrial materials and construction techniques were investigated by such pioneers as Henri \TLabrouste\t and Alexandre Gustave \TEiffel\t, whose \TEiffel Tower\t (1889) has become a symbol of Paris. THE 20TH CENTURY Painting and Sculpture In the early 20th century Paris was the center of the art world, but art in France--not French art--must be considered when describing the international influence of the Parisian avant-garde, because many expatriate artists worked in the city. The course of 20th-century art was shaped from Paris by the Spaniard Pablo \TPicasso\t, the Russian Wassily \TKandinsky\t, the Romanian Constantin \TBrancusi\t, and many lesser figures. The history of 20th-century expressionist art (see \Texpressionism\t, art) descends from van Gogh and other postimpressionists through the Fauve group (see \TFauvism\t) that formed around Henri \TMatisse\t, one of the most influential French artists of the 20th century. Picasso and Georges \TBraque\t changed the direction of painting through their cubist experiments with the pictorial values of composition, color, and form (see \Tcubism\t). The last influential Parisian artistic movement was \Tsurrealism\t, a literary and artistic movement devoted to the exploration of irrational and subconscious states of mind. Architecture In architecture, France was at the forefront of the creation of a new 20th-century aesthetic. At the turn of the century, the experiments of \TArt Nouveau\t led to the creation of graceful decorative motifs based on natural forms. The Swiss architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret, called \TLe Corbusier\t, in France, pioneered a philosophy of functionalism in architecture that can be summarized by this famous dictum: "buildings are machines to live in." The theory and practices of Le Corbusier, reinforced by those of the \TBauhaus\t, in Germany, became the fundamental principles of the International Style (see \TInternational Style\t, architecture) typified by Le Corbusier's Villa Savoire (1929-31; Poissy-sur-Seine). Major achievements of French art since World War II include the paintings of Jean \TDubuffet\t, the brilliantly colored paper cutouts of Matisse, and Le Corbusier's Pilgrim Church of Notre Dame at Ronchamp (1950-55). Alden Rand Gordon Bibliography: Boime, Albert, The Academy and French Painting in the 19th Century (1971; repr. 1986); Bouret, Jean, The Barbizon School: Nineteenth-Century French Landscape Painting (1973); Bryson, N., ed., Word and Image: French Painting of the Ancient Regime (1983); Cleveland Museum of Art, Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French Art 1854-1910 (1975); Dennison, Lisa, Angels of Vision: French Art Today (1986); Evans, Joan, Art in Medieval France, 987-1498 (1969); Freeman, Judy, et al., The Fauve Landscape (1990); Friedlaender, Walter, David to Delacroix, trans. by Robert Goldwater (1952); Leymarie, Jean, Impressionism: Biographical and Critical Study, trans. by James Emmons (1955; repr. 1969); Male, Emile, Religious Art in France: The Twelfth Century (1978), Religious Art from the 12th to the 18th Century (1982), and Art and Artists of the Middle Ages (1986); Muehsam, Gerd, comp. and ed., French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism (1970); Museum of Modern Art, Les Fauves (1952); Perl, Jed, Paris without End: On French Art Since World War I (1988); Rewald, John, The History of Impressionism, 4th ed. (1973) and Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin (1956; repr. 1986); Stoddard, Whitney S., Art and Architecture in Medieval France (1972); Wakefield, David, French 18th Century Painting (1983).