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Theory Of Decoration

The French Renaissance

The French Renaissance

As Gothic art had been a borrowed art in Italy and had never been able to develop into a complete maturity south of the Alps, so the art of the Renaissance drifted north from its native Rome and Florence and entered France frankly as a foreign invader.

It took the French people over six hundred years to develop a national consciousness. From the time of Charlemagne (d. 814) to Joan of Arc (d. 14.31) France, like all of the medieval countries, had been largely under ecclesiastical control. This period had been one of religious fervor and fabulous church building activity. Between the 12th and 14th Centuries, the zenith of Gothic art had been reached and the immortal piles constructed by the hands and hearts of the inhabitants of France remain to this day the glories of all people for all ages.

In the beginning of the 15th Century, the Maid of Orleans, by what appeared to be supernatural means to a superstitious people, aroused and developed the national spirit and patriotism in the manhood of France, expelling the last of the English and ending the Hundred Years' War. By this process she earned the gratitude of her country, and by her action the people of France developed into a race and nation with a unity of purpose that eventually came to lead the world in genius and creative instinct. The years immediately following the victories of Joan were spent in administrative reforms, effecting territorial unity, consolidating gains and organizing for foreign conquest. This period was also coincident with the decline of Gothic art, which through overelaboration was less representative of the vigor of the newly established nation. Signs of exhaustion of the medieval mysticism were on every hand, and a reaction toward realism had become apparent.