From the Middle Ages to the twentieth
century, France has held - with
occasional gaps - a leading position in
the history of European painting, with
Paris, above all, attracting artists
from the whole continent. The story of
French painting is one of richness and
complexity, partly due to this influx of
foreign painters and partly due to the
capital's stability as an artistic
centre.
Beginnings
In the late Middle Ages, the itinerant
life of the nobles led them to prefer
small and transportable works of art;
splendidly illuminated manuscripts were
much praised and the best painters,
usually trained in Paris, continued to
work on a...
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Mannerism and Italian influence
At the end of the fifteenth and the
beginning of the sixteenth centuries,
the French invasion of Italy brought
both artists and patrons into closer
contact with the Italian Renaissance.
The most famous of the artists who were
lured to France was ...
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The seventeenth century
In the seventeenth century , Italy
continued to be a source of inspiration
for French artists, most of whom were
drawn to Rome - at that time the most
exciting artistic centre in Europe.
There, two Italian artists, especially,
dominated the...
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The early eighteenth century
The semi-official art encouraged by the
foundation of the Academy became more
frivolous and light-hearted in the
eighteenth century . The court at
Versailles lost its attractions, and
many patrons now were to be found among
the hedonistic...
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Neoclassicism
This new seriousness became more severe
with the rise of Neoclassicism , a
movement for which purity and simplicity
were essential components of the
systematic depiction of edifying stories
from the classical authors. Roman
history and legends...
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Romanticism
Completely opposed to the stress on
drawing advocated by Ingres, two artists
created, through their emphasis on
colour, form and composition, pictures
that look forward to the later part of
the nineteenth century and the
Impressionists. Théodore...
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The nineteenth century
Some painters of the first part of the
nineteenth century were fascinated by
other themes. Nature, in its true state,
unadorned by conventions, became a
subject for study, and running parallel
to this was the realization that
painting could be...
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Impressionism
Like Courbet, Edouard Manet (1832-83)
was strongly influenced by Spanish
painters, whose works had become more
easily accessible to artists when a
large collection belonging to the
Orléans family was confiscated by the
state in 1848. Unlike...
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Post-Impressionism
Though a rather vague term, as it's
difficult to date exactly when the
backlash against Impressionism took
place, Post-Impressionism represents in
many ways a return to more formal
concepts of painting - in composition,
in attitudes to...
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The twentieth century
The twentieth century kicked off to a
colourful start with the Fauvist
exhibition of 1905, an appropriately
anarchic beginning to a century which,
in France above all, was to see radical
changes in attitudes towards painting.
...
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