Summary of French Art
It’s hard to think of a country where the arts play a more significant part in the national psyche than France. French art has a rich history dating back to the Middle Ages when the country produced some of the finest Romanesque and Gothic works ever seen.French Renaissance was ably represented by court painter Jean Clouet, while by the middle of the 17th century, Nicolas Poussin had assumed the role of father of the French classical heritage. Rococo’s beautiful frivolity, which for many was the first authentically French art, eventually gave way to the age of Enlightenment, during which such luminaries as Jacques-Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, and Gustave Courbet introduced the world to Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism.
Paris, however, by the turn of the twentieth century, had become to modernity what Florence had been to the Renaissance. The bohemian café culture of Montmartre drew avant-garde painters and authors from all over the world to the French capital, which hosted the most experimental period in art history.
Even though by the middle of the twentieth century New York had supplanted Paris as the epicentre of modern art, French artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Yves Klein, and Louise Bourgeois have maintained a prominent international profile in the field of contemporary art.
Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Fête Galante (outside celebration) paintings epitomise the Rococo style; they are playful and lovely, but with more than a hint of sexuality. Pleasures of Love (1718-19), for example, depicted beautiful people in pastel clothing engaging in courtship rituals amidst a lush and pleasant outdoor scene.
As a reaction to the excesses of the Baroque and the “folly” of Rococo, Neoclassicism arose as an art genre that was open to both conservative and radical ideals. Indeed, artists could “return” to the timeless and universal virtues upon which European enlightenment was established by drawing on the rules of classical art.
Jacques-Louis David, a rebel who supported the monarchy, painted more works in the French Neoclassical style than any other artist of his time. One of the leaders of the French Revolution is depicted dying in a bathtub in his painting The Death of Marat (1793), a composition reminiscent of classical paintings depicting the crucifixion of Christ.
Romanticism is a style often associated with landscapes and artists that want to depict the “sublime” in nature. But in France, Romanticism took a new turn, applying the same dramatic visuals to issues of the day. Delacroix, the mastermind behind Liberty Leading the People (1830), one of France’s most recognisable works of art, became a prominent figure in French Romanticism.
The Italian Renaissance and the French Impressionist movement are the two most well-known national schools of painting in the world. Historian Kate Heveles wrote that “the dreamy, dauby landscapes of the Impressionists are generally regarded as French art in the common consciousness.”
By announcing the dawn of a new era, the Impressionists freed art from the “stuffy” authority of academic art and paved the way for a modern art style befitting the modern era through the use of bright colours, a focus on commonplace subjects, and paintings done en plein air (outdoors rather than in a studio).
Many people consider Marcel Duchamp to be the most influential artist of the 20th century. One cannot deny his importance to the growth of modern art. His inverted urinal Fountain (1917), which he signed “R. Mutt” and dated as an original artwork, sent shockwaves through the contemporary artworld and made him famous for his “readymade” sculptures.
Many at the time misunderstood Duchamp’s work as a joke, but he subsequently explained his motivations: “I was concerned in concepts, not only in visual objects.” Traditional modelling materials and subject matter were not required in sculpture after the work of Fountain. The advent of Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and Pop Art may be traced back to Duchamp.
Everything About French Art
The Beginnings of French Art
There may not have been a concept of a nation state at the time, but cave art, which includes the wall drawings and carved relief sculptures found in various French caverns, traces the history of French art back to prehistoric times.
The Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave (or simply the Chauvet cave) in the Ardèche Valley of France and the Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne region are two of the more well-known examples. In 1940, when Nazi Germany occupied France, the famous Lascaux cave was discovered.
The cave that is now known as the Hall of Bulls was discovered by a group of young boys who were trespassing on the estate of the Count of La Rochefoucauld. They had found the cave with the most elaborate decorations in all of Europe.
The oldest of the French cave paintings can be seen at the Chauvet cave, which dates back to 30,000 B.C. and was discovered in December 1994 by three cave explorers. Horses, lions, and rhinoceroses (animals that were never hunted and so presumably had animistic/spiritual powers) and several human handprints adorn the walls, which stretch about 400 metres and are divided into two major sections.
The limestone Arc de triomphe d’Orange in the town of Orange in Provence is a relic of Roman control that has been very well preserved, thanks to the pleasant climate in that part of France. The arc was erected as a memorial to Tiberius Caesar Augustus, the second Roman Emperor, and features panels showing naval and land conflicts, as well as the loot and spoils of war.
The Franks, from whom modern France receives its name, acquired control of Gaul in the fourth century after it had been under Roman dominion for nearly two millennia. In 768, Charles the Great (Charlemagne) was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the French and German kings after uniting the Gaul territories (France would remain a monarchy for a further thousand years).
French art can be traced back to its origins in the Middle Ages, roughly the period between the 5th and 15th centuries. A writer named Valentin Grivet claims that the Middle Ages were the first great age of French painting “if cave paintings and other older masterpieces are not counted.”
Some of the best works of art and architecture from the Middle Ages were built in France, namely during the Romanesque and Gothic periods. From the late tenth to the early thirteenth century, the Romanesque era was the earliest of the French styles (when it was overtaken by the Gothic style).
The Romanesque architectural style saw the construction of massive monasteries, pilgrimage churches, frescoes, and jewelled memorials. Traditional features of this style of architecture included basic cross-shaped floor plans and rounded stone arches reminiscent of ancient Roman buildings.
Aesthetically, Romanesque churches and cathedrals were quite unremarkable from the outside, but the interiors were sometimes elaborately decorated with murals and ossuaries depicting Christian stories.
Christian narratives were frequently shown in the tympanums of relief carvings and sculptures. The Romanesque relief of the Last Judgment of Christ that Gislebertus, a French artist, created for the tympanum of the Cathedral of Saint Lazare in Autun, in 1130, is one of the most well-known examples.
The French Gothic era spanned the years from the mid-twelfth to the early fifteenth. More height was sought after in church construction, and this inspired architects to create more daring structures. The use of stained glass in church windows also rose in popularity as a way for artists to depict Christian stories.
Slanted buttresses, sometimes known as “flying buttresses,” were used to support a building’s increased height and weight, while pointed arches and rib vaults were used to suit the new heights. Almost everyone will agree that the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is the best representation of French Gothic style.
The pointed arches and rosette windows typical of Gothic architecture, as well as the profusion of religious art that decorated both the inside and outside of Gothic churches, are telltale evidence of this trend.
Although paintings of Mary and the Christ child were popular throughout the Middle Ages, many of the earliest depictions of Christ resemble a shrunken adult. The Virgin of Paris at Notre Dame represents a departure from the flat and simple forms of religious iconography typical of Late Antiquity and the Byzantine periods.
Mary and the Christ child appear more natural (or infantile in Christ’s case) in this work. Mary’s body naturally curves to accommodate the weight of the child she carries on her hip, and here is a striking example of this anatomical peculiarity. During the late Gothic era, it was usual for parents to adopt this relaxed stance.
Gothic art often included book arts as well. Affluent patrons commissioned illuminated manuscripts and pocket prayer books (books of hours) for personal use. Although many of the books were made by unsung artists, names like Jean Fouquet, Master Honoré, and Jean Pucelle started to be associated with the School of Paris.
French Art Spanning 1450-1750
Although the Renaissance era’s origins may be traced back to Italy, the movement’s emphasis on humanism and the mathematical treatment of perspective caused it to soon expand throughout western and northern Europe. Valentin Grivet, the author claims that “The French Renaissance flourished from the late 15th century until the turn of the 16th.
Beginning with early works whose aesthetics still combined Gothic elements with new design principles and gave rise to artists like the painter Jean Fouquet, and ending with the final manifestations of Mannerism at the tail end of the 16th century, its evolution can be broken down into distinct phases “.
Although many Renaissance paintings still depicted religious scenes, portraiture also gained popularity during this time. In this vein, French artists particularly excelled at portrayals of aristocrats and generals. Artists often depicted France’s greatest monarchs—and even their mistresses—in their works, and the French royal court boasted some of the best artists of their day.
The French court painter Jean Clouet, who is best known for his portraits of King François I, was the genre’s finest master throughout the Renaissance (reigned 1515-47). More than anyone other, François is recognised with spreading the influence of the Renaissance throughout France. Since he was a liberal and intelligent ruler, François extended an invitation to Leonardo da Vinci to live and work in France.
The famous double-helix staircase of the Chateau de Chambord is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, despite the fact that the great Renaissance master died before construction began in earnest (two concentric spirals wind separately around a central column, allowing guests to pass without meeting while still being able to see one another through windows placed in a central column).
François commissioned Italian architect Domenico da Cortona to design the Renaissance Chateau, and the result was one of the earliest examples in France of a return to classical Greek and Roman architectural forms.
The construction of the Chateau was interrupted for a total of 28 years, and as a result, the French Renaissance architects Jacques Sourdeau, Pierre Neveu, Denis Sourdeau, and Francois de Pontbriant (the project’s overseer) are today recognised as major contributors to the final design.
The French Royal Academy began pushing a classical, or royal, style, dedicated to the glory of Louis XIV, in 1661; this model spurred the establishment of other schools across Europe (including British and Danish Academies).
Many French artists, including those working in the nineteenth century, looked up to the academies as the pinnacle of artistic achievement because of their role in developing national schools of painting and sculpture.
Le Brun was appointed director of the French Academy in 1663, and he followed in the footsteps of the earlier Italian Academies by establishing an art school, courting prominent benefactors, and adhering to a canon of high classical norms.
The “Poussinistes,” who valued the classical works of Nicolas Poussin (who spent the most of his career in Rome), and the “Rubenistes,” who loved the more sensual works of Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, gave new life to the debate between colorito and disegno at the Académie Royale.
Le Brun stated that “drawing imitates everything true, whereas colour simply depicts the accidental” during a 1672 Academy conference titled Sentiment on the conversation on the quality of colour. The French artist and theorist Le Brun summed up the general consensus by saying, “colour depends totally on matter, thus it is less noble than drawing, which depends only on the mind.”
The issue would be decided in favour of the Poussinistes, who would then make Poussin the foundational figure of the Academy’s tenets. Poussin was widely regarded by Academists as Raphael’s logical successor. According to art historian Michael Paul Driskel, “by interpreting Poussin as the ‘French Raphael,’ French art theorists in and around the Academy boosted Poussin’s prestige and strengthened his pedigree as the father of the French classical tradition in the hope of creating their own version of the beau idéal which is the highest possible standard of excellence.”
Hyacinthe Rigaud, a pioneer of the Baroque portrait genre, was a key figure in the development of the style. In particular, his paintings of King Louis IV and his children are famous. His subjects were positioned theatrically, either sitting or standing in front of elaborately adorned backdrops while wearing elaborate royal garb.
Busts of famous people, or portraits of them, were also common in Baroque art because of the prestige they brought to their subjects. Most of these were for members of the royal family or the military, as the bust of King Louis XIV that was commissioned by Antoine Coysevox in 1686. These kinds of busts were commonplace in the halls of royal homes, such as the magnificent Royal Palace at Versailles, France’s enduring monument to the Baroque and Rococo eras.
Despite the fact that the majority of Europe was captivated by the Baroque style because of the dramatic, almost theatrical, depictions of noble subjects and their residences, many French artists gave the movement a more austere tone. Indeed, French painters found the theatricality of the Baroque style excessive, therefore they countered it with more serious considerations of composition to fit more considered classical principles (hence the sometimes-used title, “Baroque Classicism”).
Paintings commonly showed lighthearted love scenes, vistas of nature, and youthful passionate encounters and were characterised by pastel tones and smooth, rounded shapes. In a nutshell, art historian Erica Trapasso says: “The French aristocracy no longer decorated their private quarters with expensive materials like gold and jewels; instead, they favoured more low-key materials like stucco, boiserie, and mirrored glass. The walls of these rooms were adorned with lovely new paintings of everyday life and courtly love, and the style was typified by its asymmetry, delicate curves, and elegance “.
Academy painter Jean-Antoine Watteau is widely regarded as one of the best Rococo artists. He first became famous as a painter of commedia dell’arte scenes (paintings based on popular Italian theatre characters), but he is now more widely recognised as the inventor of Fête Galante (or “outdoor courtship entertainments”).
These were often little works intended for display atop a cabinet, depicting passionate love scenes amidst lush natural scenery. Grivet compared François Boucher to Watteau, saying that the artist’s “themes of pleasure and sensuality” were occasionally tinted “with a touch of sexuality or licentiousness,” and that Boucher became the accepted “master of velvet-white female nudes.”
According to art historian Erica Trapasso’s writings, “Though enlightened thought was fostered all through the 18th century, a new mode of intellectual discourse emerged during this time, and it came to be known as the Enlightenment. Rococo ideals of frivolity and beautiful sexiness gradually lost ground in the wake of this new artistic revolution.
Critics like Denis Diderot yearned for a “nobler art,” and progressive thinkers like Voltaire blasted it for being too superficial. Some Rococo painters persisted in using their own scandalous style, but others created a new genre, Neoclassicism, that won over critics “.
French Art Between 1750-1850
By the middle of the 1700s, Enlightenment philosophers were demanding a new kind of art that better reflected the emergence of a new age, and they looked to the art of ancient Rome for guidance. Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette, an art historian, writes that the mid-century archaeological discovery of the Italian resort cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii marked the beginning of what would become French Neoclassicism (which had been buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD). Her words: “Magnificent homes were unearthed, displaying wonderful murals made by provincial painters.”
A new manner of making art presented itself to a generation of painters eager to make their mark at the Academy and with wealthy patrons when they discovered the linear, straightforward approach to sketching and cleanly painted regions of colour. She continues by saying that the “affinity to the basic compositions and strong lines of Poussin” had made it easier for “artists who were interested in being radical” to “assimilate the paintings of Pompeii.”
There are two distinct eras within French Neoclassicism. Those initial blossoms, as described by Willette, were visible in “the frozen sexuality of Joseph-Marie Vien.” He collaborated on paintings of women dressed in ancient Greek and Roman garb going about their daily lives with Angelica Kauffman, a Swiss artist living and working in London and a co-founder of the British Royal Academy.
Artworks like these were exhibited at the Salon Carré in 1763, where they were responsible for introducing the Neoclassical style to France. Although Vien’s paintings focused on mundane household life, a second phase of Neoclassicism emerged by the century’s close that embraced the more moral and serious ideals of history painting.
According to Willette, “heroic men would take centre stage as active and noble subjects” throughout this era. At the close of the 1700s, a style that favoured monumentality, sombre and serious hues, deep shadows, and dramatic settings populated by valiant individuals engaged in moral activities gained popularity.
The second phase of French Neoclassicism is most closely associated with Jacques-Louis David and his former student Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. He seemed to adopt a common style (in that its righteous principles appealed to nobility and revolutionaries alike).
However, Neoclassical art relied on the support of the wealthy aristocracy, and the trend toward more monumental history paintings might be seen as an attempt to legitimise the movement as the “greatest art.”
Willette adds that contrary to popular belief, “the Rococo style never faded away and was appreciated to the extent that throughout the Second Empire 1852-70, it – not Neo-Classicism – was considered as the actual national style of France.”
“The leading conservative painter in the first half of the nineteenth century was Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,” E H Gombrich stated. He’d learned from David and taken his lead, and he shared David’s appreciation for the heroic art of antiquity.
He was strict in the classroom, disliking sloppiness and improvising, and encouraging students to strive for perfection. It’s easy to see why many artists looked up to Ingres and admired his technical assurance and authority, even when they disagreed with him.
Even so, I can see how his more fiery contemporaries might have found his flawless smoothness intolerable. His detractors used paintings by Eugène Delacroix as a rallying cry
He could not stand hearing anyone else talk about the Greeks and the Romans, or insist on drawing correctly, or make any attempt to replicate the style of classical sculptures. He thought that colour was more important than draughtsmanship in painting, and imagination more significant than factual information.
Anne Louis Girodet helped bridge the gap between Neoclassicism and Romanticism (a former student of David). The dramatic subject matter, unnatural colouring, and highly emotional re-imaginings of classically themed material that Girodet employed marked him as a precursor to the more expressive Romantic style, which stood in opposition to the reason and order of the painters of the Enlightenment.
Romanticism was not confined to a single literary style. It is true that the focus of the movement, both domestically and globally, is on art that conveys the grandeur and strength of the natural world (known to art historians as the aesthetic of “the Sublime”). The French artists Delacroix and Théodore Géricault, on the other hand, were using the Romantic vocabulary to depict topical issues of social justice and human equality.
The Raft of the Medusa, an epic painting by Géricault, depicts a horrific collection of humans, some dead, some striving for life, in a tangled mass atop a homemade raft.
The events depicted in the artwork are based on those that occurred beginning on July 2, 1816, when a French navy ship carrying people to create a new colony off the West African coast drowned. The ship’s six lifeboats carried the colony’s newly appointed governor and the highest-ranking officials, leaving the other 147 passengers to cram into rafts.
Only fifteen men were still alive when a passing British ship found them thirteen days later, and five of them would perish before reaching land. When news of the incident spread, it became a national scandal and a damning indictment of the present French government’s priorities.
Domestic settings coexisted with exotic locations during the Romantic era. In the Romantic subgenre of Orientalism, the emphasis was on the bare female figure in ways that were both seductive and taboo.
According to author Alexandra Jopp, “the new Romantic concept of beauty contained exotica — something original, uncommon, uncharted, sensual, and erotic.
Beginning in ancient Greece, the idea of realism in art has evolved and grown over the ages. However, Realist art and literature in France eventually grew to establish itself as a distinct movement that lasted from the 1840s to the turn of the century.
Realists were committed to presenting the world as it actually is, without any exaggeration or gimmickry; this included their depictions of common, working-class subjects.
The realist movement in French art was a reaction against the ideals of the academies, specifically Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and an attempt to show the world a side of France and her culture that had been overlooked for too long.
Even though its roots can be traced back to the turn of the century, French Realism really took off “in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1848 that overturned the monarchy of Louis-Philippe and developed during the period of the Second Empire under Napoleon III,” as art historian Ross Finocchio of the Metropolitan Museum of Art puts it.
Painting, as Courbet put it in 1861, “is an essentially concrete art and can only consist in the representation of real and existing things,” and this view was reflected “in the naturalist literature of Émile Zola, Honoré de Balzac, and Gustave Flaubert,” and the “elevation of the working class into the realms of high art and literature” occurred at the same time as Pierre Proudhon’s socialist philosophies and Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, published
Corot was a landscape painter who is often viewed as a bridge between the realist tradition and the modernist era. His works show a departure from the historical and mythical concerns of his contemporaries and predecessors at the Academy, despite his own classical training.
An opposition to the romanticised historical settings that have served as the backdrops for mythological and religious myths. The artists of the Barbizon School (called after the village in France’s central north) were dedicated to a more accurate portrayal of the outdoors and rural life.
In a rejection of Romanticism’s indulgences, these artists depicted the world as it is, without adding any sort of aesthetic flourish. Although the Barbizon painters were known for their landscapes, the intensely devout Millet’s works were more likely to represent peasant labourers in a positive light. The working class man and woman would likewise come to be staples in the canon of Impressionist protagonists.
Honoré Daumier, a Parisian caricaturist and friend of Corot’s, created satirical lithographs that were both sophisticated and witty. Daumier, like Millet, was a dedicated socialist whose work aimed to expose the class distinctions and injustices in French society by portraying the working people as heroic and the elite as villainous. He satirised the government and the bourgeoisie in writings published in publications like La Caricature and Le Charivari (he was even imprisoned).
Courbet was aiming for a more egalitarian kind of painting by eliminating sentimentality, an accusation that could be levelled at Millet.
His paintings Burial at Ornans (1849) and the Stone Breakers (1850-51) were shown at the 1850-1851 Salon (1849). Both the art establishment and the general public were taken aback by the paintings, which were monumental in size and crude (by Academy standards) in execution.
Courbet’s one-man act, titled “Le Réalisme, G. Courbet,” debuted in a Parisian shanty in 1855. As Gombrich noted in his review of the show, “His’realism’ was to herald a revolution in art.” Courbet aspired to learn from no one except nature.
Courbet spent six months in prison during the Paris Commune of 1871 due to his political activism, which led him to participate in the destruction of the Vendôme Column (a memorial to Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz in 1805). While the Impressionists would eventually inherit Courbet’s Realist legacy, it would lose its incisive political edge in their hands.
Louis Daguerre had a brief career as a scenic painter in the theatre but decided to pursue photography as a means of bettering his craft. Because of this, he created the Daguerreotype camera, the first mechanical method of duplicating photographs that could create an accurate and lasting record of an event.
Daguerreotypes were rarely used outside of the studio due to the long exposure durations (often 10 to 15 minutes) and cumbersome equipment required (and still lifes and portraiture). However, Daguerre photographed a street scene in Paris’s Boulevard du Temple.
There is no sign of vehicular traffic on the busy avenue, and the sole sign of human life is visible in the bottom left of the frame, where a shoe-shine boy and his customer have stood still long enough for their footprints to remain on the copper plate.
Before 1863, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was the only place where artists could aspire to the pinnacle of artistic excellence (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture). Acceptance to the Academy’s school, the École des Beaux-Arts, and membership in the Academy were both highly sought after.
French art students have an annual opportunity to showcase their work at a prestigious exhibition called the Salon, which can significantly boost their professional standing.
The author Benedetta Ricci explains the significance of the Salons by saying that “both artists and students of the Royal Academy – and, later, of the Academy of Fine Arts – used to display their work in the hope of capturing the interest of art critics, dealers, collectors, and possible patrons since the Salon, drawing large crowds and attention from the press, represented the only outlet to obtain exposure, reputation, and to ensure a successful artistic career.”
Many argue that the spark for the modernist movement was Édouard Manet’s 1863 rejection of Le Déjeurner sur l’herbe by the Salon jury.
The name given to this event was “Salon des Refusés.” Supposedly, in the words of Ricci, “The Salon des Refusés of 1863 was a watershed moment in the history of modern art. Freedom of exhibition came to mean freedom of artistic expression as artists recognised their own right to explore their own artistic interests without censorship.
Young artists, freed from the Salon’s monopoly, began organising their own shows without the oversight of a jury. The meticulous rigidity of conservative academic taste was gradually surpassed by the qualities of spontaneity and originality, making way for Impressionism and the avant-garde experiences that followed “.
In fact, although the public and critics were slow to warm up to the modernists – Manet himself caused further public outrage in 1865 when he exhibited his masterpiece, Olympia – the Salon des Refusés effectively announced the dawn of a new era in art history, ushering in a time when Paris would become the undisputed epicentre of world art.
Even so, upon their initial showing, paintings like Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise (1872) continued to receive scathing criticism. The sloppy, unrefined brushwork was seen as a major flaw by many viewers. Indeed, Monet became the de facto leader of the Impressionists, to the point that he coined the term.
It’s true that Monet, a true master of colour, light, and atmosphere, developed works in his later years, such as his famous paintings of his own gardens at Giverny, that veered dangerously close to pure abstraction.
Artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Gustave Caillebotte abandoned the grand portraits and canvases of the Academy in favour of depictions of life on the streets of Paris, while Camille Pissarro used the methods of the Naturalists to paint scenes of rural peasant life.
In the early modern Parisian art world, women artists also found a stronger voice. French Impressionist painters Marie Bracquemond, Eva Gonzalès, and Berthe Morisot are well-known for their depictions of domestic interiors (which were still widely considered more appropriate subject matter for women).
Morisot achieved the most prominence of the bunch, and she became a major player in the revolution. Morisot was a dogged individual who frequently pursued the same themes as her male contemporaries. She took full advantage of the many facets of female culture that were off-limits to men thanks to her sex.
As the name implies, Post-Impressionism was a backlash against Impressionism and is most commonly associated with the works of Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh.
Painting, for the Post-Impressionists, was not about providing a “window on the world,” and this marked the beginning of abstract art.
Some people classify Seurat’s approach to painting as Neo-Impressionism. The Museum of Modern Art in New York claims, “The Neo-Impressionists rejected Impressionism’s impromptu style in favour of a more methodical approach to painting that was based in science and the study of optics. When compared to the results of traditional palette mixing, the Neo-Impressionists believed that the use of individual brushstrokes produced more vibrant colours “.
Pointillist or Divisionist painting was developed by Seurat, who believed that it produced better colour effects than mixing paints on a palette and whose work still dealt (like the Impressionists’) with urban subjects and subject matter. For him and his devotees, this scientific worldview was commensurate with the advanced times in which they were living.
Three of his works were included in the 1874 Impressionist exhibition, but it was not until he painted a series of still-lifes in the mid to late 1870s that he began his now-famous experiments with constructing his compositions through subtle shifts in form and colour rather than by recreating effects of light and shadow.
In the 1880s, he created a number of volumetric landscape paintings by layering horizontal planes with geometric (sphere, cone, cylinder) patterns. Meanwhile, in 1890, he painted a now-famous set of five cards featuring Provençal farmers.
These works not only showed Cézanne’s skill at creating depth with colour gradations, but also served as a celebration of the everyday lives of rural workers.
His time there (between 1888 and 1890) was the most fruitful of his brief life. The two men’s use of bold, non-realistic colour and dramatic brushwork was illustrative of their deep feelings about and reactions to their surroundings.
The decline in Van Gogh’s mental health and the tragedy of his death (by self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest) have entered the realm of folklore; the concept of the tortured artistic genius has given van Gogh’s work a psychological resonance perhaps unparalleled in the history of art. As evidence of his erratic personality, Gauguin left France for the colony of Tahiti after a fight with Van Gogh, during which the latter threatened the artist with a razor.
In the late 1880s, Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, and Louis Anquetin developed a painting style that Gauguin named “Synthétisme” as a deliberate departure from Impressionism (Synthetism).
Despite his association with the Pont-Aven School and his friendship with Van Gogh, Gauguin is more widely recognised for his artwork created during his sojourns in French Polynesia in the 1890s.
Here, he was able to fully absorb the influence of primitive (non-Western) art forms, and his work, such as the iconic Spirit of the Dead Watching (Manao tupapau) (1892), began to take on more esoteric themes.
His Tahitian cycle was symbolic of his deep religious convictions and his firm belief that non-Western cultures were more in tune with the concept that humans could be at one with the natural and spiritual worlds.
Nabis may not have mandated a particular style, but the artists who worked on their flat surfaces did so by using primary colour areas and bold outlines to create patterns that are both highly decorative and suggestive of a move towards pure abstraction.
Bonnard was famous for his Japanese ukiyo-e prints and striped and checked patterns, while Denis was known for his tasteful arabesque designs. Vuillard was known for his interiors.
Kelly Richman, the author claims that “Nabi artists frequently used painterly brushwork and expressive colour, and they all shared a common goal of evoking emotion rather than depicting reality in their works.
Because they had abandoned a realistic sense of perspective, the Nabis were no longer constrained by the constraints of actual space “. A picture, before being a war horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered by colours in a certain order,” Denis said at the Nabis’ first exhibition in 1891. This statement became the group’s defining dictum.
In 1889, Toulouse-Lautrec was asked to create a series of posters to promote the opening of the now-famous Moulin Rouge cabaret. His poster designs and subjects were inspired by traditional Japanese woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e, which made them popular during the height of the Japonisme trend.
The woodblock prints of Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige were an obvious inspiration for Lautrec, who used bold outlines, areas of strong flat colour, and slanted angles in his own work.
The impact he had on modernism was best described by Cora Michael of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “In the late nineteenth century, his career spanned just over a decade and coincided with two major events in Paris: the advent of modern printmaking and the explosion of nightlife culture.
As well as bringing fame to Montmartre’s performers, Lautrec’s lithographic posters for their shows also established the medium of the advertising lithograph as a legitimate form of art in its own right.
Personal and humanistic, his paintings of dance hall performers and prostitutes bring out the sadness and humour lurking under rice powder and gaslights. His legacy will live on long after his untimely death (at age 36) from alcoholism and syphilis-related complications. It’s safe to say that there wouldn’t have been an Andy Warhol without Toulouse-Lautrec “.
It was a Parisian dealer named S. Bing who is credited with popularising the Art Nouveau style there under the moniker L’Art Nouveau. This moniker was not universally adopted.
French artists like Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as the general vogue for the decorative pattern effects of Japonisme and ukiyo-e printmaking, influenced the development of L’Art Nouveau’s signature asymmetrical lines.
Fred Kleiner, the author and historian, “Those who supported this trend made concerted efforts to bring together diverse artistic disciplines in an effort to produce naturalistic works of art suitable for mass distribution.
Although the Salon des Refusés marked a significant shift in power, it would be premature to declare a full modernist revolution in French art and that the art establishment “was no more.” Many of France’s most influential modern artists received their formal training at the prestigious but conservative École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (it also had schools in other cities throughout France), including the painters Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas and the Art Nouveau architect Hector Guimard.
The school’s influence on French architecture in the nineteenth century was considerable, especially after it was granted autonomy by Napoleon III in 1863. Author Kristin Hohenadel elaborates as follows: “Beaux-Arts is a style of architecture that originated at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Beaux-Arts structures are grandiose, ornate, and theatrical; they combine the symmetry and proportions of Roman and Greek classicism with the more flamboyant influences of the French Renaissance and Italian Baroque “.
The Orsay Hotel and Train Station were among the most impressive Beaux-Arts structures in the city. It was created by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne, and Émile Bénard, and it made its debut at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle. The building was transformed into the Musée D’Orsay between 1977 and 1986, and it is now the permanent home of French modern art and design masterpieces from the years 1848 to 1914, which may seem ironic to some.
French Art 1900-Today
Fauvism is just one of many avant-garde art styles that emerged in the early modern period as a reaction to prevailing social mores. According to author Tatty Martin’s account, “Initially associated with French artists like Henri Matisse and André Derain, Fauvism later became a global movement. Fauvism is distinguished by its use of vibrant colours, expressive brushstrokes, and non-photorealistic subject matter.
Fauvist artists developed as a natural offshoot of the Impressionist movement of the turn of the 19th century. Fauvists, in contrast to Impressionists, focused on depicting human feeling. The Fauvists were artists who popularly painted scenes from nature with vividly heightened colour and tone, including portraits, landscapes, and even nude scenes “.
The term “fauves” (“wild beasts”) was coined by early critics to describe what they saw as the crude colour schemes of artists like Matisse and Derain. Fauvism was meant as an insult, but the Fauves accepted the label wholeheartedly and proudly displayed their insignia.
The Fauvism era, however, did not continue for very long. Writer George Philip LeBourdais claims that “Its savagery toward established artistic norms became itself the norm. Common usage of the term “fauves” in the Parisian art world dates back to 1907. Scores of artists labelled themselves as linked with the movement, diminishing its once radical intentions”.
For this reason, it can be used to describe the work of artists like Gauguin, the Fauves, and the Cubists. The term “imperialism” is fairly charged in modern discussions about art, with negative implications for many. Henri Rousseau, an artist who never left France and whose works were widely panned as “childlike,” nevertheless, is a prime example of this style.
Primitivism, also known as Nave art, is often connected with the late-in-life (in his forties) start of the self-taught Rousseau (as it is sometimes termed). Though he was mocked by some in the art world, he ultimately established himself as an important figure in the history of French modernism. “Rousseau was best renowned for his bold drawings of the jungle, bursting with vegetation and fauna,” the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, proclaims.
His most famous works were shaped “by visits to the botanical gardens, the zoo, and colonial expositions as well as visions of foreign locations seen in books and periodicals.
The cubist movement of the early 20th century was one of the most consequential in the history of Western art. Artists Pablo Picasso of Spain and Georges Braque of France came up with the idea.
The important art dealer and supporter of Braque and Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, wrote a book in 1920 called Der Weg zum Kubismus (The Rise of Cubism) in which he distinguished between two distinct Cubist idioms. Kahnweiler categorised the years 1910–1912 as “Analytic Cubism,” and the years 1912–1914 as “Synthetic Cubism.”
Braque and Picasso went into seclusion in 1908–1910, when Analytic Cubism was at its peak, and drew inspiration from the faceted landscapes of Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne and the African sculptures they encountered in Paris’s ethnographic museums. It’s a term for an aesthetic movement in which the subject is broken up into fragments and shown as angular, multi-layered surfaces that push still lifes and portraits to the brink of abstraction.
By bringing together, or “synthesising,” a variety of mixed media through its trademark papier collé collage process, Synthetic Cubism welcomed a larger palette, simplified geometric planes, and more representable subject matter. Synthetic Cubism is said to have peaked by 1914 when World War One forced many French artists (including Braque) away from their studios to fight at the front.
However, after exhibiting in the 1911 Salon des Indépendants, another group of Cubist artists came to be known as the Salon Cubists (as opposed to Braque and Picasso, who were known as the “Gallery Cubists” due to their exclusive connections with Kahnweiler’s gallery). Members of this group included Juan Gris, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, and Albert Gleizes.
Even when still in the analytical phase, Braque and Picasso produced small-scale “brown and grey” pieces that eschewed the “decoration” of colour and any sense of a single picture viewpoint. Salon Cubism, with its bigger scale and bolder use of colour, is sometimes seen as “second-tier” Cubism, but it was actually the Salon Cubist that broadened the movement’s popularity.
Orphism, a term established in 1912 by the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, is most commonly linked to the husband-and-wife team of Robert and Sonia Delaunay and their close adherence to the aesthetic principles of Salon Cubism.
There was an effort to evoke connections to other art forms, particularly music, through its emphasis on light and colour. (In fact, Apollinaire had gotten the name Orphism from the ancient Greek mythological poet and musician Orpheus.)
Artists working in the Orphist idiom, in contrast to the Cubists Braque and Picasso, considered colour to be an integral part of the painting process and sought to incorporate it into the Cubists’ geometric compositions.
Both Michel-Eugène Chevreul’s De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and Their Applications to the Arts) (1839) and Georges Seurat’s Pointillist paintings influenced Robert Delaunay (who preferred the term Simultanism to Orphism). Orphism, in contrast to Seurat, abstractly explored color’s energy.
Works by Orphists were first shown alongside those of the Salon Cubists at the Salon des Independants in 1913, but the following year the movement began to take shape as its own entity. Metzinger, Léger, Francis Picabia, and Marcel Duchamp are just a few of the artists that have been linked to the Orphist movement.
In addition, the more compact Cubist movement known as Crystal Cubism, pioneered by Metzinger and Gleizes, overlapped with Orphism.
Between 1918 and 1925, there was a post-war artistic movement called Purism that was spearheaded by the Swiss-French architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (better known as Le Corbusier) and the French painter Amédée Ozenfant. Professors of history Jean-Louis Cohen and Tim Benton write, “Ozenfant popularised the term “Purism” to characterise an austere and methodical artistic movement in his art and fashion magazine L’Elan.
Jeanneret was taken with the term, and the two of them worked to turn it into a cultural movement through a series of essays and artworks “. In 1918, Jeanneret and Ozenfant released their manifesto, titled Aprés le Cubisme (After Cubism), which served as the official proclamation of the new movement.
The Purists believed that the majority of the art world was too tied to “bourgeois” ideals of beauty and that a really progressive art movement would demand uniformity and simplification.
This policy was developed with the hopes of winning over a generation that values mass production and a return to classical order in the visual arts.
The Purists painters, who also included Fernand Léger and Jacques Lipchitz, were known for their dedication to still lifes and their desire to “reduce them to aesthetically beautiful, shapes and forms that accentuated the simple beauty of the modern world.”
Jeanneret declared that a contemporary home should be a fully functional “machine for living in,” and he argued that mass manufacturing of dwellings would amount to “an efficient and comfortable means of tackling the post-war housing crisis,” both of which were consistent with the Purist ideas.
After Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) constructed the Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau (Pavillion of the New Spirit) in 1925 for the International Exposition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, he and Ozenfant went their own ways. In spite of this, Le Corbusier (as he was now called) would go on to become a prominent role in the development of the International Style of architecture, which is popular in many industrialised nations.
The majority of International Style architects were educated at the German Bauhaus (the likes of Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ernst May, and Mies van der Rohe). On the other hand, Le Corbusier’s suburban Paris home, Villa Savoye (1931), is often regarded as the quintessential example of the International Style (and now owned by the State).
Dada was a response against the values of bourgeois art and society in general, and its art was often incongruous, irrational, and ludicrous. Many different Dada movements emerged in countries including France, Germany, and the United States, exploring various mediums like painting, collage, sculpture, poetry, and performance art. The most famous Dada piece was actually made by a Frenchman who was living and working in the United States at the time.
Although he never officially joined a school of thought, in 1917 Marcel Duchamp showed his Dadaist sculpture Fountain to New York’s Society of Independent Artists. Duchamp’s “readymade,” an inverted urinal with the signature “R. Mutt,” was instantly rejected by the Society for its “immorality” (“R” for Richard, which was “moneybags” in French slang, and “Mutt” after “Mott”, the company that manufactured the urinal).
Duchamp’s status as an iconoclast was solidified by the uproar that ensued after his work was rejected. According to the Met Museum, Duchamp’s “biggest contribution to the history of art laid in his ability to question, admonish, criticise, and playfully ridicule existing standards in order to transcend the status quo” through his use of sarcasm, puns, alliteration, and contradiction in his works.
Meanwhile, André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Phillipe Soupault, bound by their experiences in World War One, returned to Paris and established their Dadaist credentials by founding the magazine Littérature, which ran from March 1919 until August 1921.
(Breton revived it the following year, renaming it Littérature: New Series; it lasted until June 1924 before finally folding for good.) Francis Picabia, Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara, and Jean Arp were just few of the famous people who passed through the Paris Dada school during its time in operation.
By 1923, however, internal strife had weakened the Paris Dada group to the point where it would eventually dissolve into the Surrealist movement, which is generally regarded as the final of the great French modernist groups.
Surrealism, like Dada, was an anti-establishment movement that was interested in the illogical and spontaneous aspects of art, and it gave its name to a wide variety of creative endeavours, including but not limited to visual art, poetry, theatre, film, and photography.
But it stuck closer to a coherent intellectual line than its forerunner had, incorporating elements of both psychoanalysis and Marxism. The term “Surrealist” was first used by the Italian/French poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire in a 1917 production of his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tirésias), where it bore the subtitle Drame surréaliste and was billed as a new style of drama. Breton published the first Surrealist Manifesto in 1924.
It is only natural, after all, that they maintain pace with scientific and industrial advancement, and so it is reasonable to anticipate that Surrealism will bring about major changes in our arts and manners through universal joyfulness, as Apollinaire put it.
The term “Surrealism” was coined by André Breton, who defined it in his manifesto as “psychological automatism in its pure state, by which one attempts to express — verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other fashion — the actual working of thinking.”
That is to say, Surrealism was intended to be an artistic movement that rejected rational thought in favour of methods like automatism. The surrealist movement sought to tap into the subconscious, which, according to Sigmund Freud’s theories, was the source of all meaningful insight and could be accessed only through dreaming (the “royal road” to the unconscious as Freud famously called them).
The Surrealist “Exquisite Corpse” experiment was developed by Breton, Éluard, Valentine Hugo, and Nusch Éluard. Critics may have written off the Surrealist practise of “blind assemblage” (in which each participant “blindly” completes a section of a piecemeal image) as a childish parlour game, but Breton defended the practise as a means to “escape self-criticism and fully release the minds of metaphorical activity,” and it ultimately became a defining aspect of Surrealist art.
“Surrealism marks possibly the most cosmopolitan moment in the whole history of French art,” observed historian Edward Lucie-Smith, “and it significantly influenced the whole worldview of the Parisian avant-garde.” Indeed, the Parisian Surrealists comprised not one but two Spaniards in Salvador Dal and Luis Buuel, as well as a German in Max Ernst.
Realizing the atrocities of World War One, many French artists followed their European counterparts in rejecting the “self-indulgences” of the avant-garde and instead advocating a return to the classical styles and motifs of the Greeks and Romans (this was not an unprecedented feature in French art, as the Baroque and Neoclassical periods bear witness).
The Interwar Classical movement, sometimes known as the “retour à l’ordre” (or “return to order”), felt that the modernists’ emphasis on innovation and advancement was out of place following the genocide of 20 million people.
According to the Guggenheim, “Artists tried to reclaim and accurately portray the flesh in its whole as a reaction to the horrors of the new machine age of combat.
In contrast to the pre-war emphasis on innovation at all costs, the post-war period saw a return to order, synthesis, organisation, and enduring values known as classicism “.
Classical art and architecture of the interwar period had broad appeal, regardless of the viewer’s political leanings, and hence serves as a catchall word for this aesthetic movement.
While some French artists, like Léger, merged classical and modernist styles, others, like Aristide Maillol, on the more traditional end of the spectrum, advocated for more realistic and classically modelled human figures.
Some art historians date the commencement of the movement’s sculptural component to 1900, but Maillol had already been working in this form by then. Rather than the contemporary notion of the garçonne (new woman), the women in Maillol’s works reflected the Greco-Roman ideal of the young and chaste.
Although it flourished in the 1930s, the roots of Street Photography can be traced back to the turn of the century, when Eugène Atget took to the streets and alleyways of Paris in an effort to capture and preserve the city’s “forgotten and unremarkable” aspects before they were lost to the city’s massive modernization efforts. Artists like Matisse, Picasso, and Man Ray, all of whom were based in Paris in the early 20th century, appreciated Atget for the spare beauty of his images.
However, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassa, and André Kertész—three photographers who emerged in the 1930s—and the city of Paris are the ones most commonly identified with the birth of street photography. Although there is some overlap with documentary and architectural photography, Street Photography gained its name because it is connected with the photographer’s ability to capture the transient and ephemeral nature of modern city life, or the “decisive moment,” as Cartier-Bresson put it.
Thus, the street photographer is sometimes compared to the flâneur, a literary character most closely identified with the works of Charles Baudelaire, for the way in which both hide in plain sight among the masses to observe and document the lives of the city’s inhabitants.
By the end of World War II, New York had surpassed Paris as the cultural capital of the world. The mid- to late-20th century saw important contributions from French artists. Art in France, according to Lucie-Smith, was already on the “Art Informel, which translates to “art without form,” was the movement’s own mellower take on Abstract Expressionism.
By the middle of the 1950s, this transformation had been finalised, and painters like Pierre Soulages and Georges Mathieu were on the cutting edge of style “.
Indeed, it was French art critic Michel Tapié who first used the name Art Informel, arguing that it was not a movement at all but rather a collection of “genuine Individuals” from all over the world who were linked in their demands for peace and charity.
Mathieu established a uniquely French type of abstraction called Lyrical Abstraction, which places an emphasis on colour and the speed with which the paint is applied to the canvas, in contrast to Soulages’s predominantly dark colour pallet and enormous canvases with thick patches of colour.
Psychiatric studies conducted at the turn of the twentieth century gave rise to the concept that there are modes of artistic expression “beyond” the canons of art history. In 1922, Dr. Hans Prinzhorn presented artworks created by patients in his book titled Bildernerei der Geisteskranken (Art of the Mentally Ill).
The Surrealists saw it as a seminal piece, and Jean Dubuffet and André Breton used it as inspiration to launch their Compagnie de l’Art Brut in 1948. Their goal was to assemble and exhibit works by “artists” who had neither professional training nor an understanding of art history.
Dubuffet coined the term “Art Brut” (raw, or “uncooked,” or “uninhibited”) after gathering a vast trove of pieces from a wide variety of artists and cultures that had nothing to do with modern art but nonetheless carried a potent aesthetic punch. In 1972, Roger Cardinal coined the term “Outsider Art” for the title of a book that was meant to serve as a literal English translation of Dubuffet’s concept (although it encompassed Art Brut and a related category he called, Neuve Invention).
The birth of Nouveau Roman (New Fiction) and La Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) in literature and film coincided with the emergence of Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism) as an artistic movement within the new progressive French culture.
Its founder, Pierre Restany, termed it a “poetic recycling of urban, industrial, and advertising realities” when he described how the group, which formed in Paris in the ’50s and ’60s, connected with urban life through the use of trash, print advertisements, and basic domestic utilities.
The movement was compared to the Dadaists and American Pop Artists because of its “readymade” aesthetic. In 1961, after the success of its initial “Manifesto of New Realism,” the group released its second manifesto, “40° above Dada” (40° au-dessus de Dada).
In 1960, Restany coined the term “Nouveau Realistes” in a catalogue article for a group show at the Apollinaire Gallery in Milan. Even though their styles were very different, the artists of the Nouveau Réalisme movement—which included Yves Klein, Raymond Hains, Pierre Restany, Omiros, Arman, François Dufrêne, Jean Tinguely, and Jacques Villeglé—shared a commitment to levelling the playing field between different artistic disciplines.
The movement’s most well-known proponent, Klein, accomplished this by favouring a blue colour palette and elevating performance components to the same status as the works’ final forms. In fact, Klein objected to the term “new realism,” preferring the terminology “réalisme d’aujourd’hui” (“today’s realism”), and began to distance himself from the movement in 1961 (the year before his untimely death) on grounds of its Dadaist leanings.
French Contemporary Art
Artists working in France during the turn of the 2000 produced works that probed multiple movements at simultaneously, including identity and gender politics, unconventional materials, performance and text, conceptualism and more.
In contrast to artists like Pierre Huyghe, whose large-scale installations and video pieces make statements about the world and the place of humans in that world, artists like Louise Bourgeois, with her sculptures, and the photography of Bettina Rheims make works that focus on issues of femininity and gender, both on a personal and a more general level.
Recent trends in French art have also modernised the age-old motif of the figure in sculpture. French sculptors since the nineteenth century have helped define what modern sculpture should look like, from Rodin’s more humanised and reflecting male forms to Gaston Lachaise’s rethinking of the modern feminine form.
Contemporary artists like Niki de Saint Phalle and Xavier Veilhan carry on this tradition by creating figures that are larger than life and more cerebral than their early modernist forebears. Even among today’s French artists, there’s a defiant streak that hearkens back to the avant-garde spirit of the early modernists. Artists like Jef Aérosol, Blek le Rat, and JR have taken graffiti to new heights by introducing it to the mainstream of modern art.
Key Art in French Art
Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux
by Jean Pucelle
1325-28
Many works of French Gothic art were created as books. The books of hours and other little prayer books were illuminated with intricate scenes from the Christian liturgy. Other Gothic manuscripts were larger in size (able to fit the four books of the gospel) and were produced primarily for convents, monasteries, and churches; these were typically commissioned by affluent individuals for private devotion.
Many of the illustrators’ identities have been lost to history, but some, like Jean Fouquet, Master Honoré, and Jean Pucelle, have become widely renowned for their contributions.
The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, compiled by Pucelle for the French queen, are widely regarded as one of the finest examples of a mediaeval book of hours. It includes prayers that should be done at specific times throughout the day. This tiny (less than four inches tall) illuminated manuscript contains twenty-nine pages of text and twenty-five pages of drawings.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art claims that Pucelle’s intricate works such as “scenes from Christ’s birth and death, as well as those from the life of Saint Louis, the patron saint of France and ancestor of the reigning monarch. Nearly 700 paintings populate the margins, depicting everything from the bishops, beggars, street dancers, maidens, and musicians of mediaeval Paris to apes, bunnies, dogs, and creatures of pure fantasy “.
Pucelle, one of the most renowned mediaeval illuminated manuscript artists and a key figure in the development of the School of Paris. While only the wealthy could afford to commission such books, the fact that this one was prepared for the queen explains why it is so elaborately decorated. Pucelle’s depiction of Christ’s life and death on facing pages is particularly compelling.
For example, on the left page of this spread is a depiction of Christ’s betrayal by Judas, while on the right page an angel appears to Mary and announces that she will bear the Christ child. This visual expression of the central principle of Christianity links Christ’s birth to his sacrificial death as a means of forgiving man’s sins.
Notre Dame de Paris
1163-1345
The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris (or “Our Lady of Paris”) is a masterpiece of French Gothic architecture and one of the most famous buildings in the world. It serves as the seat of the Archbishop of Paris and is the cathedral of the Paris Archdiocese.
The tall cathedral’s walls were thinner and higher than those of preceding Romanesque constructions, but these proved very vulnerable to stress fractures. In order to solve this issue, Notre Dame is credited as being the first building to use flying buttresses (arched exterior supports).
Due of the lengthy construction time, the building’s extensive art exhibits, sculptures, and stained glass showcased new (“post-Gothic”) forms including realism.
Italian Giorgio Vasari, considered the “first” art historian, scoffed at Notre Dame because it was a “barbaric” insult to the austere Romanesque style that came before it.
However, this was not the opinion of the renowned historian E H Gombrich (who lived and worked some 400 years later). The article was written by him “It’s safe to say that the walls of these structures were not as icy and ominous as those of Romanesque era structures. They resembled rubies and emeralds because they were made of stained glass.
Gold leaf was used to decorate the pillars, ribs, and tracery. Anything gloomy, stodgy, or boring has to go. Those who gave themselves over to the wonder of it all felt they were drawing closer to unlocking the secrets of a universe beyond the material world “.
He stated that the majestic façade of Notre Dame “is so lucid and effortless in the arrangement of its porches and windows, so sinuous and delicate the tracery of the gallery, that we forget the weight of this mountain of stone and the whole structure seems to rise up before us like a mirage.”
Portrait of François I as St John the Baptist
By Jean Clouet
1518
King François I of France employed Clouet as his court painter, therefore he was undoubtedly one of the most influential artists of the French Renaissance. Although Clouet painted several generic portraits of the King, this one is particularly intriguing due to his choice to associate the King with such an important biblical figure (John the Baptist is revered in Christianity as Christ’s predecessor because he preached the imminence of God’s Final Judgment).
At this point, instead of his royal robes, the King is wearing a simple gown more akin to those of a shepherd. King holds a lamb and a small wooden cross in an imitation of John’s iconography; a bird watches from a perch in the painting’s shadowy background.
As a progressive ruler, King François invited Leonardo da Vinci to live and work in France at his court. Clouet’s rendition of da Vinci’s saint picture is a significant example of the French Renaissance style. Clouet’s version may be an allusion to Christ’s status as the “lamb of God” because, unlike in da Vinci’s painting, John is shown pointing heavenward rather than downward. In keeping with French Renaissance portraiture, the addition of objects and the colourful gown nonetheless adds an air of royal grace to the picture.
This portrait goes further by making a message about authority that may be seen as propaganda. The use of art in political campaigns has long since been established (dating to the art of Ancient Egypt). The implication here is unmistakable: the King’s relationship with God justifies his “right to govern.”
The Abduction of the Sabine Women
1634-35
The fabled account of the abduction and rape of the Sabine women who had attended a wedding at the invitation of the neighbouring Romans is depicted in Nicolas Poussin’s wonderfully detailed painting. Poussin has shown the first moments of the abduction, in which Romulus is seen lifting his scarlet cloak as a signal to attack.
Women in this picture twist their bodies to get away from the Romans who are capturing them as Sabine men try to stop them with swords.
The increased sense of drama in this scenario contributed to the rise of the Baroque in French art. Nonetheless, the mythological subject matter (as evidenced by the figures’ Roman garb and the setting’s Romanesque architecture) confirms Poussin as the master of the French Classical tradition (and led to his being hailed by some in the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture as the “French Raphael”).
Author Valentin Grivet writes that “in contrast to Mannerism and Baroque currents, Poussin represented an orderly style which he reproduced the purity of old ideals” and that “his figures, frozen in their movements seem to have originated from theatre scenes.” Baroque Classicism, a uniquely French style heavily influenced by Poussin’s classical training (he spent a significant portion of his work in Rome), helped to temper the Baroque’s more theatrical tendencies.
Palace of Versailles (Hall of Mirrors)
1623-1715
The Palace of Versailles is an extravagant palace in a Paris suburb to the southwest. Before it became the royal court, the city of Versailles was little more than a little village. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 (during which, somewhat surprisingly, the Palace spared any severe damage), Versailles was one of the most populous cities in France, with a population of over 60,000.
The area’s hunting opportunities initially drew Louis XIII there. At the turn of the century, he began amassing land and constructing a chateau that he used as a home base for hunting expeditions.
The chateau, however, was little more than a hunting lodge, and his heir, Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” as he was lovingly called, was responsible for transforming the property into the centre of French government. He expanded Louis XIII’s chateau into a palace with north and south wings and buildings meant to house ministries, and he ruled for 72 years.
As Tea Gudek Snajdar, an art historian, puts it: “Louis XIV’s ultimate supremacy was the most prominent statement conveyed by the design of Versailles. He is a remote and inaccessible monarch. Additionally, he is the Sun King. The architecture of Versailles is replete with references to the Sun King.
The iconographic programme of the Palace, conceived by the painter Lebrun, had one and only one purpose: to honour the King via paintings, sculptures, and architecture “. The King took great pride in the palace’s large canal, which “was nearly a mile long, was used for naval exercises and featured gondolas, supplied by the Republic of Venice, guided by gondoliers.” The palace’s Baroque gardens are particularly well-known.
Many historians consider Versailles to be the pinnacle of a transitional period between the French Baroque and Rococo styles. Snajdar, however, notes that “it’s completely different from, for example, Italian baroque architecture,” which was an influence on the rest of Europe at the period. She continues, “the King’s attitude of absolutism” and the notion that “he is at the centre of everything” would have been at odds with a French palace modelled by Italian baroque structures.
Also, she says that “Boosting France’s prestige in Europe was a top priority for him, and he intended to do it through both military and artistic accomplishments. For example, high-priced mirrors from Italy were a necessity when constructing the Hall of Mirrors. All the mirrors in the hall were built in France, as Louis XIV was keen on demonstrating that French craftsmanship was on par with that of Italian manufacturers “.
The Swing
By Jean-Honoré Fragonard
1767-68
A nicely dressed woman in a gathered pink gown and bonnet is pictured seated on a swing in a wooded, flower-filled garden. The man pulling the swing with two ropes appears oblivious to the fact that another man is lying in the bushes, in full view of the girl’s exposed legs and left foot as her pink slipper is sent into the air.
The park’s statues and the dog hiding beneath the swing both appear to be observing the action. Two newborn angels watch the scenario with wonder as cupid looks down at the woman with his finger to his lips, a gesture often used to indicate secrecy (and perhaps some embarrassment).
This piece is exemplary of the French Rococo style, which was popular throughout the 18th century and depicted the lavish lifestyles of the country’s aristocracy. Like many Rococo paintings, this one features a slew of shady characters engaging in illicit liaisons and questionable behaviour. It would have been considered rude for a man of high social status (here represented by the people’s clothes) to gaze at a woman in such a way in public.
The ability to make light, vibrant works which are opposite to the playfully sensual subject matter depicted was something at which Fragonard excelled. The Happy Accidents of the Swing alludes to the subject matter by suggesting that the woman and the man in the bushes may have planned the entire scene (a story that is more likely given that the painting was created for Baron de Saint-Julien who commissioned a work that would feature his mistress being pushed by a duped bishop so he himself could be pictured observing her body).
The Death of Marat
1793
Jean-Paul Marat, a key figure in the French Revolution, is depicted dead in his bathtub by David, his head covered with a turban. His right arm and head are protruding from the bath, and the knife that killed him is lying on the floor next to his arm. He’s holding the letter his killer used to break into his house and kill him. There’s a desk in the foreground, right, where he often writes, and a bath nearby.
This painting, more than any other in David’s oeuvre, exemplifies David’s skill at capturing the emotions of the French people during their revolutionary fight for freedom. The fact that it doesn’t show a battle scene makes this accomplishment that much more remarkable.
David, instead, provides us with a solitary martyred figure, striking a position reminiscent of the dead Christ as he hangs from the cross. The work’s adherence to the Neoclassicism tradition is reinforced by the biblical allusion.
As noted art historian Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette writes: “The Neoclassical era, which spans the years 1760–1800, opens with a sense of anticipation, as if the world were waiting for its Messiah. Denis Diderot, co-author of the Encyclopédie, Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, longed for an artist to rein in the excesses of the Baroque and Rococo, but he did not live to see the work of Jacques-Louis David, the man who delivered the death blow to those dated artistic movements.
Depending on the artist, neoclassicism became a vehicle for conformity or rebellion, for the sensual or the political, going well beyond a mere shift in artistic style or in public preference. It was in the context of massive economic and social shifts, with hints of a’return’ to the roots of European culture in order to construct a new society on the old principles, that this ancient style proved to be so malleable and contradictory. For a new ‘grand’ style to replace the outmoded Baroque and breathe fresh life into history painting, Neoclassicism was a natural fit “.
A Flood Scene
By Anne Louis Girodet 1806
Anne Louis Girodet, a student of David’s, created art that bridges the gap between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. He abandoned classical antiquity for more dramatic and emotive compositions. Girodet was awarded the coveted Prix de Rome and used the money to travel throughout Italy for five years. In 1795, he moved back to Paris, where his Portrait of Madame Lange as Dana (1799) and A Flood Scene (1799) established his fame (1806).
The former was an act of vengeance (Girodet was known as a volatile figure) committed against the well-known actress Madame Lange. Because his first image failed to satisfy her, she refused to pay him and then demanded that it be hidden away.
Girodet, infuriated, created a second satirical image of Danae, a figure from Greek mythology (one of the mortals loved by Zeus). Danae/broken Lange’s mirror symbolises her inability to perceive herself as the true woman (as Girodet viewed her) that she was: vain, unfaithful, and avaricious.
After the success (and criticism) of his portrait of Danae/Lange, Girodet painted what many consider to be his magnum opus, furthering his quest for independence as an artist. Although at first glance it may seem like a biblical story, the author’s “A Flood Scene” was actually the product of his creative imagination.
The painting’s tremendous drama and unsettling imagery produced a stir at the 1806 Salon, where its massive size (441 by 341 cm) made headlines. In contrast to the rationality and order of the artists of the Enlightenment, Girodet was associated with the emerging Romantic movement due to the dramatic subject matter, unique colouring, and intensely emotional approach of his work.
Liberty Leading the People
Artist: Eugène Delacroix
1830
Famous for its depiction of a group of people of varying ages charging over a battlefield littered with dead bodies, this picture is considered Delacroix’s magnum opus. At the middle, a female figure stands bare-breasted, holding a gun in her left hand while the French flag is raised high in her right.
There are two men to her right: one in a white shirt rushing while brandishing a long knife, and another in a black suit and top hat holding a rifle. A little boy is wielding two pistols to the woman’s left, and in the background, beyond the smoke and the ruins of war, you can make out the silhouette of city structures.
Here, we learn about a brief uprising against the French monarchy. Deeply symbolic, this scene depicts the bourgeois battling side by side with the proletariat under the national flag of Liberty.
This painting, which embodies the Romanticism movement of which Delacroix was the leader, is full of dramatic movement and expertly portrays the patriotic spirit of the occasion without detracting from its realism. The critic Jonathan Jones says that “Delacroix captured the ecstatic newfound independence and joy of the revolution in his paintings.
His work has become the most iconic visual symbol of the revolution. Still, it doesn’t have a childlike innocence about it. Death is an integral part of the allure, and illness is at the heart of development.
Contrary to popular belief, Romanticism is not an upbeat artistic movement. Delacroix’s painting may be the best-understood depiction of the allure of revolution, but it also recognises the inherent brutality in the belief in complete transformation and the might of the mob “.
The famous poet Charles Baudelaire was an outspoken advocate for Delacroix, calling him “decidedly the most creative painter of all ages, ancient and modern.” The social criticism in Delacroix’s work captivated Baudelaire, but it was the artist’s use of colour that he found most compelling, believing it to be an example of the “correspondences” between the poet and the painter.
Even while the poet had trouble describing colours, the painter had the same trouble trying to depict intangible feelings and noises. Baudelaire admired Delacroix because, in his mind, he was a master colorist who could transmit intangible emotions through his work.
The Romans during the Decadence
Artist: Thomas Couture
1847
Thomas Couture’s massive History Painting depicts the aftermath of a Roman orgy with a group of men and women shown in various states of undress. It indicates, if in a more subtle manner than Romantic painters like Théodore Géricault or Eugène Delacroix, that academic painting in the mid-19th century could also address itself to divisive political subjects.
The Roman architecture and statues in the background give the impression that the characters are from antiquity. Relying on the viewer’s imagination, renowned Academy history painter Couture depicts a scene after the orgy has taken place. Author Michael Fried says “There is no sign of violence or ecstasy in Couture’s work, and that was on purpose.
The few such occurrences are isolated to the periphery of the main group, with most of the participants showing either at rest or engaged in the most elementary of activities, such as holding a cup, pouring wine, or standing up. This shows that Couture’s choice of moment (in the broadest sense) was influenced, at least in part, by the wish to restrict action and emotion within precise limitations, thereby minimising the obviousness of their unavoidable theatricalization “.
Couture intended this painting, which is situated in Ancient Rome, to be a blatant metaphor for the extravagances and ugliness (as Couture perceived it) at the heart of the French government. Harvard University’s Art Museums state that “Roman literature typically used the excesses of banqueting to bemoan the decline of moral values, contrasting the virtuous past with the corrupt present.
Couture, influenced by the satirist Juvenal (1st-2nd century CE), used the juxtaposition between the orgy in the foreground and the more dignified sculptures in the backdrop to depict the decline of society in his own day “. An additional illustration of the artist as “political statement,” Couture’s painting received tacit approval from the French establishment when it was displayed at the annual Academy salon.
A Burial at Ornans
Artist: Gustave Courbet
1849-50
The funeral of Gustave Courbet’s great-uncle in the French village of Ornans is depicted in the artist’s picture. Perhaps most striking is the author’s claim that the work’s success lies in the realism with which all the characters were depicted in the French countryside “Anyone from Ornans would be able to recognise the locals in Courbet’s paintings because he depicted them exactly as they appeared in life, without any idealisation or masking features to make them anonymous. Courbet’s mother and three sisters are visible (Juliette conceals her mouth, Zoé’s face is obscured altogether, and Zélie is on the far right) “.
Artist of the groundbreaking French Realist movement. Michalska claims that “for many different reasons, critics panned the piece. First, it was enormous, which should have immediately marked it as a historical artwork. Which, according to convention, should focus on a sombre historical or religious topic because only those kind of genre pieces deserved such a big scale.
Courbet, however, depicted regular people attending a funeral, many of whom were lower class. This infuriated the high-class critics and Salon-goers even more, since they could not stomach the ugliness and ordinariness of the characters. Second, because the clergy were portrayed as unattractive, the artwork was initially perceived as anticlerical.
Later, however, it was seen that Christ’s glorification on the cross dwarfs all other interpretations, and that it is He alone who gives us comfort and hope for our salvation. Thirdly, viewers disliked Courbet’s method, finding that the scene was overpowered by the dark tones and densely placed paint. Someone once remarked that Courbet’s paintings looked like a person blacking their boots “.
Courbet remarked, “I aim always to make my living by my work without having ever strayed even a hair’s breadth from my principles, without having lied to my conscience for even a moment, without painting even as much as can be covered by a hand just to satisfy someone or to sell more easily.”
Le Déjeurner sur l’herbe
Artist: Édouard Manet
1863
In Le Déjeurner sur l’herbe, by Édouard Manet, two well-to-do Parisian men are shown sitting in the centre of a forested park. There’s evidence of a picnic in the form of an overturned basket full of fruit, cheese, and bread, and the woman sitting next to the two guys is completely undressed, with her clothes piled behind her. A few yards behind the males, a second naked woman washes in the nearby creek.
Manet’s artwork initially failed to garner much acclaim because of its unfashionable manner. When compared to the formality of the French Academic landscapes that were so popular for so long, these impressionist works with their thick, sweeping brushstrokes and emphasis on light and the outdoors felt rather out of place. Nonetheless, it would go on to influence the first great contemporary art movement in France, Impressionism, and is consequently considered one of the greatest works in French art.
Manet’s artwork was rejected from the Paris Salon in 1863 because of its obscene crudeness. Manet, undeterred, showed it in the now-famous Salon des Refusés alongside other rejected works by artists who would go on to become the first generation of great modern painters in France. What the jury found most offensive was the woman’s lack of shame as she stared directly at them.
This picture brought attention to the “oldest profession” at a period when many people were not yet ready to do so, despite the fact that prostitution was legal in France at the time. The famed French poet Charles Baudelaire was a personal friend of Manet’s. The poet’s ideal of the true painter of modern Parisian life was realised when he encouraged Manet, a kindred spirit who was loathed for his terrible collection Les Fleurs du Mal just as much as Manet was reviled for his paintings.
Impression, Sunrise
Artist: Claude Monet
1872
Although it’s very small in size, the orange sun at sunrise is the focal point of Monet’s picture. The sun’s rays cast an orange glow on the port of Le Havre’s otherwise drab water. There are a number of boats out on the lake, the closest of which being a rowboat with two people in it, located smack in the middle of the foreground.
It is commonly held that this painting was the first to introduce the sceptical French public to modern art when it was shown at an exhibition of Impressionist paintings in Paris in April 1874. According to the author Elena Martinique, “It’s painted with broad, sweeping strokes to imply the scene rather than replicate it.
Very muted tones are used, and the paint is done in light washes. Despite the lack of precision, the artist added depth by layering several shades of grey. Monet gave the painting its title shortly before the show opened, alluding to the impressionistic style in which it was rendered “.
The critics seized on the picture’s title to attack Monet, claiming that his new method of painting just left an “impression” of the subject on the canvas (rather than a realistic depiction). Martinique claims that “although they sought to mock the new style, these detractors instead helped promote Impressionism,” with the result that Monet became the de facto leader of Impressionism.
Woman with a Hat
Artist: Henri Matisse
1905
Henri Matisse’s wife Amelie, dressed formally, takes up the most of the painting. She is seated and has a vacant expression on her face as she glances out at the audience over her right shoulder. Her outfit, hat, and the abstracted background behind her are all quite colourful.
The Fauves were inspired to begin their movement by this painting. Margaux Stockwell, the author claims that “Matisse’s approach evolved from a more controlled classical mode in the direction of his signature expressive mode during the creation of Woman with a Hat. Matisse and his contemporaries’ avant-garde style drew much criticism when it was initially shown at the 1905 Salon d’Automne in Paris, when Woman with a Hat made its debut.
Critics gave Matisse and the other exhibiting artists the name “Les Fauves,” which translates to “the wild animals,” because of the chaotic, uncontrolled use of colour in their paintings “. Matisse and his group, like the Impressionists at the Salon des Refusés some 40 years earlier, refused to be deterred by the criticism and turned the insult into a spur that saw the group continue painting in their distinctive style under the Fauvist flag.
Compotier et verre (fruit dish and glass)
By Georges Braque 1912
Braque’s work, the first of its kind in the Cubist papier collé (a collage produced by glued papers), represented a turning point in the movement away from the obviously complicated (and serious) Analytic Cubism and towards what became known as Synthetic Cubism (reflecting a technique that “synthesised” different materials).
Later, Braque related how he was walking around the nearby city of Avignon when he came across a hardware store with rolls of faux bois (fake wood-grain) wallpaper on show in the window. To begin his exploration, Braque pasted faux bois onto a series of lettered charcoal sketches.
It’s possible to interpret Compotier et verre as a Cubist rebus (a puzzle containing pictures and letters). Within its horizontal and curved forms, we can make out a drawer of a table (represented by the circular doorknob) and some grapes, while the writing obviously refers to a bar serving alcoholic beverages.
However, Braque invites the observer to think about the texture and material of the work just as much as the image’s content by incorporating bits from the material world into the artificial world of the drawing. The work’s shapeless colour stands in sharp contrast to the drawing, which is treated as an independent entity. “Colour came into its own with papiers collés,” Braque said in retrospect. “In these works we he and Picasso succeeded in dissociating colour from form, in establishing it on a footing independent of form, for that was the essence of the matter.”
Fountain
1917 (replica, 1964)
The controversial “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp is a urinal bearing the signature and date “R. Mutt” (1917). The sculpture, which is widely regarded as his magnum opus in the “readymade” genre, was met with much criticism at its initial showing. Author Jon Mann says that “When Marcel Duchamp wanted to show an artwork at the New York salon of the supposedly “unjuried” Society of Independent Artists, he offered an inverted urinal in exchange for the application fee.
The board of the Society, confronted with what must have seemed like a practical joke from an unknown artist, decided to turn down Fountain on the grounds that it was not an original piece of art. Since Duchamp was a part of that board before he quit in protest “.
Despite the uproar it caused at first, the sculpture had a major impact on the growth of modern art and is more proof of France’s influence on the modern art world because it was instrumental in the birth of the Dada art movement. This is what the author Silka P. says: “No one could ever tell the history of art without.
No reference to Marcel Duchamp. The revolutionary artist Marcel Duchamp is often regarded as a major cultural figure. By prioritising the idea or concept over the selection of materials, he came up with the unconventional approach of creating a sculpture out of found objects. This was an opinion shared by Duchamp and his fellow avant-gardists, and is perhaps best demonstrated by his now-iconic readymades.
The abandonment of classical sculpture’s reliance on physical prototyping led to the development of abstract sculpture “. “I was concerned in ideas, not only in visual things,” Duchamp defended his readymades. Duchamp anticipated the development of Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and Pop Art in this regard.
Place de l’Europe
By Henri Cartier-Bresson 1932
This famous photo was taken in the flooded Place de L’Europe near the Saint Lazare metro stop. Photographer Henri Cartier-Besson describes the crucial moment as the “one time at which the elements in motion are in balance,” and this shot captures the precise instant when the prancing man’s reflected image lands on his heels.
Cartier-Bresson drew inspiration from the Surrealists, and this can be seen in his fixation on the idea of the creepy doppelgänger (which is made clear by the man’s reflection). The “floating” ladder the guy appears to have sprung from adds to the mystery of his flight, and the shadowy bystander in the background serves only to emphasise the image’s dissonance.
While a female dancer mimics the main subject’s position on a circus poster displayed beneath the chimney in the upper left of the frame. It’s possible that this level of fine picture detail would emerge thanks to the high quality lenses used in a Leica 35mm camera. Cartier-figurative Bresson’s juxtaposition is set against a hazy background of Saint Lazare, which is significant for the idea of Street Photography as an art form in its own right.
Because artists like Monet and Manet had previously painted these structures, it’s likely that the famed photographer was hoping to evoke comparisons not only with the Surrealists but also with the forefathers of French modernism.
Maman
Artist: Louis Bourgeois
1999, cast 2001
Louise Bourgeois is widely recognised as one of France’s preeminent postwar artists. Her life experiences are the primary inspiration for her varied body of work; she has described her art as “the re-experience of a trauma” and her “sole guarantee of sanity.”
Bourgeois has worked in a wide variety of media, from painting and printmaking to drawing and Performance art, and has explored a wide range of abstract and figurative subjects. She went in and out of style until 1983, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a retrospective of her work. Inspired by the show’s reception, Bourgeois went on to create the pieces for which she is best known today, such as the frightening room-sized Cells and her giant Spider sculptures.
Maman (Mummy) is a sculpture of a spider made of bronze, stainless steel, and marble, and it is 30 feet tall and is 33 feet wide. Maman has a sac with 32 marble eggs attached to its long, wiry legs. It’s one of the largest sculptures ever made, and like most of Bourgeois’s work, it explores the tumultuous connection the artist had as a kid with her parents (including her father’s open infidelity).
The title, “Maman,” alludes to the artist’s mother, who is depicted as the imposing spider guarding her precious offspring with a ribbed bronze torso and abdomen. Maman’s towering stature and massive frame suggest the creature’s strength and prowess, but because Bourgeois has her standing on such frail legs, she also conveys a tangible sense of vulnerability.
Author Silka P summed it up thusly: “Bourgeois’s art represents the female psyche through the use of symbols such as spiders, spirals, cages, and medical instruments, all of which are references to mythological and archetypal imagery. Making sculpture was a form of release for this French artist “.
After ALife Ahead
Artist: Pierre Huyghe
2017
In the 1990s, Pierre Huyghe rose to fame for his “postproduction” technique, in which he repurposed photos from various media outlets (for his 1999 video film, The Third Memory, for instance, he restaged the true-life bank robbery featured in the 1975 movie Dog Day Afternoon).
His films, performances, and public events all dealt with leisure and exploration, but it is his grandiose works that have really caught the eye of the art world. Insects, plants, animals, and even humans frequently play a role in these. These works, he says, serve as “laboratories” in which he and his audience can critically examine and reimagine the ways in which humans engage with the natural environment.
Huyghe rented out a huge disused ice skating rink for After Alife Ahead. Author Emily McDermott describes how Huyghe “put cancer cells, bees, peacocks, and algae within the excavated hangar-like structure, changing into a living entity and animating it via an augmented reality software” in the hangar-like structure.
She goes into detail on how the ice rink’s “concrete surface is split up, with steps and a dirt slope dropping into the muddy, sunken earth” and how the ceiling opens and closes in a cyclical fashion to let in natural light and air (light, wind, rain). An aquarium and “many smaller, yet equally major components at play within the room” are also part of the installation.
As with his other installations, Huyghe uses this one to ponder humanity’s place in nature. According to McDermott, Huyghe wants spectators to wonder “where its processes (and thereby bigger processes within our lives) begin and conclude” rather than being confused by the project’s intricacy.
“I don’t want to exhibit something to someone, but rather the reverse: to expose someone to something,” Huyghe explained to curator Hans Ulrich Obrist about his motivations for creating installations. He said, “When what is made is not necessarily due to the artist as the solitary operator and that instead it is an ensemble of intelligences, of entities biotic or abiotic, beyond human reach it is at that time perhaps the ritual of the exhibition can self-present.”
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