Visual delights from Renaissance French courts

Associated media

Kings, Queens and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France

Edited by Martha Wolff

For most casual museum visitors, French art begins with the century of Poussin and Claude and the reign of Louis XIV.  Yet the real consolidation, both culturally and politically, of the nation-state that we recognize as France truly began in the wake of Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War with England, headed by King Charles VII and his successors.  For the most part one must visit Paris – the top floor of the Louvre and the Cluny Museum – to see this formative phase of French culture.

So the dedicated exhibition, held earlier this year, and richly produced accompanying catalogue, expertly supervised for Chicago with a team of mostly European contributors by curator Martha Wolff, provides a surprising blend of instruction and visual delight.  Moreover, the range of media on display did full justice to the period’s output: paintings, of course, but also life-sized sculptures, exquisite manuscript miniatures, stained glass, tapestries, printed books with woodcuts, and metalwork of all sizes and shapes, including coins and medals.   Most of the objects were commissioned by the royal house or by provincial dukes, particularly in Bourges and Moulins, so rich materials and frequent portraits shaped their visual assertion of prestige as well as piety.  The title well represents the main point of this regional art history, led by Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Anne of Brittany.

The art of this period also asserted the individual hands of distinguished, if less familiar, artists. Several new heroes emerged from the works on view.  Jean Fouquet, subject of his own major exhibition and catalogue in Paris (2003) and of a new monograph by Erik Inglis (Yale University Press, 2011), surely remains the best known designer of paintings, illuminated miniatures, and stained glass; he was represented in Chicago by the illuminated private prayer book known as the Hours of Simon de Varie (Getty Museum) and a stained glass roundel.  But other artists, especially from what John Plummer called manuscripts’ ‘final flowering’, left more lasting impressions: Jean Colombe (often known as the artist who completed the celebrated hour-book, Tres Riches Heures); Jean Bourdichon; and his pupil Jean Poyer (d. 1503; also assigned two painted wings from the Jura; nos. 48-49, which appeared somewhat later in date).  Less visible but also notable is court miniaturist Jean Perréal (d. 1530).  In this transitional moment, many artists of miniatures as well as panel paintings still remain unknown ‘Masters’ with distinctive hands.

Among painters, the star of the show was a court painter for the Bourbons in Moulins, Jean Hey (died c. 1505), whose bright colours enlivened the meticulous naturalism he had clearly acquired in the Low Countries.  His saints appear as lifelike as his accurate representations of noble portrait likenesses, led by a panel fragment of St Maurice and a Donor from Glasgow (no. 63).  Also memorable were selected works by Josse Lieferinxe, probably of Flemish origin, highlighted by two segments of his St Sebastian Altarpiece from Marseilles (1497; nos. 84-85), best seen in Philadelphia.

Visitors to the exhibition also benefited from photomurals and slide shows of early chateaux, which helped to establish the physical setting for many of these works, including a concluding suite of Italianate marble works with Renaissance ornament: fountain, sculpted figures, panel reliefs (nos. 99-109).  These objects provided a harbinger, after the turn of the 16th century, of the Italophilia that culminated under the reign of Francis I just beyond the time limits of the exhibition.  A surprise dessert was a very fine version of Leonardo’s lost Madonna of the Yarn-winder (the Lansdowne Madonna), probably a meticulous copy from the da Vinci circle (no. 114; on loan from a private collection).

The intensity of scrutiny required to inspect such luminous miniatures or densely packed tapestries or glowing stained glass or refined panel paintings made this exhibition demanding yet rewarding.  The catalogue complements works on view with images of permanent fixtures still in France, especially architecture and sculpture, as well as comparative imagery.  Clear, informative, and terse essays clarify history, regional centres, and patronage—necessary components of the artistic purposes for works on view.  This instructive compendium thus makes an enriching souvenir for any visitor with curiosity to explore further.  Early Renaissance France did reassemble in Chicago this spring, to be savoured thereafter through a splendid and lastingly enticing catalogue.

Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France edited by Martha Wolff  is published by the Art Institute of Chicago, in association with Yale University Press, 2011. 208 pp. 180 col illus, $60.00. ISBN 978-0-300-17025-2