The Classical Style Triumphs
The chateau of Fontainebleau is the model of the victory of the classical style in France. Francis adorned its halls with statues and precious objects of art he had bought in Italy, each of which, in its beauty and perfection, repeated the message of classical art. At this time Sebastiano Serlio, who had worked for a while at Fontainebleau, published in Italian a book titled Architecture (1548). In it he confirmed his master Baldassare Peruzzi's adherence to the principles of Vitruvius's classical style. The book was at once translated into French by Jean Martin, who had already translated Vitruvius (1547). From the "School of Fontainebleau" the French artists trained under masters such as Rosso or Primaticcio spread the principles and proportions of the classical manner across France; and these principles, together with the literary forms of the "School of the Pleiade," ruled in that country for several centuries. French painters and sculptors, such as Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Jean Bullant and Delorme, fired by the teachings of Serlio and Vitruvius, traveled to Italy to study the Roman monuments and on their return wrote treatises setting out the principles and aims of ancient Roman style. Like Ronsard and Du Bellay, they called the artistic ways of the Middle Ages barbarous, and resolved to refine the materials of art and give them harmonious forms. Through these men, their works and their writings, the architect came to be recognized as an artist distinct from the master builder or master mason, and gained a lofty place in the social order. French architecture no longer needed Italian artists, for the French now explored ancient Rome more than the Italians did and took their architectural inspiration straight from that source; and as a result they were able, by combining and adapting classical methods to the traditions and climate of their country, to create an excellent synthesis.
The Louvre
In this intellectual and artistic climate the finest civic buildings of France were created. Today a man who looks on the Louvre from the left bank of the Seine, or stands in its splendid courtyards, or spends day after day walking through that treasure-house of the world, is amazed at its grandeur and magnificence. If we were free to keep only one building intact at the destruction of the globe, we should have to choose the Louvre. Philip Augustus (Philip II) first built the original part of the Louvre about 1191, as a fortress to protect Paris from foreign attack, beside the Seine. Charles V added two new wings (1357), with an outer staircase that may have served as the model for the beautiful stair of the chateau of Blois. Francis I found this medieval building, half palace and half prison, unsuited to his life and banquets, and ordered it demolished from the foundations; then he commissioned Pierre Lescot (1546) to raise in its place a palace worthy of a Renaissance king of France. The next year Francis died, and Henry II ordered the work to continue.
Lescot was both a nobleman and a man of the church: that is, lord of the manor of Clagny, abbot of Clermont, canon of Notre-Dame, and also painter, sculptor and architect. He designed the rood loft of the crucified Christ in the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois (demolished in 1745) and the mansion that is now the Hotel Carnavalet; but in both cases he left the decorative sculpture to his friend Jean Goujon, and when the new Louvre had advanced enough he called on Goujon to decorate it. In 1548 Lescot built the west wing of the buildings that now enclose the "Square Court" of the Louvre. Its facade, from ground to roof, followed the rules of the Italian Renaissance style: three rows of rectangular windows, separated horizontally by marble cornices while classical columns divided the windows vertically; three covered entrances held up by plain classical columns; only the steep roof followed the French manner, and even there the moldings had the grace of classical architecture. Had Goujon not adorned the walls of the porticoes with statues, filled the pediments and the space under the horizontal cornice of the roof edge with harmonious reliefs, and set the family emblem of Henry and Diane on top of the central projection, the facade of that building would surely have looked dry and severe. Inside the wing that Lescot built, Goujon created the "Hall of the Caryatids": four women, who with a special dignity, like four columns, carry the musicians' gallery on their heads; and it was he who painted and decorated the vaulted ceiling of the great staircase leading to the bedchamber of the kings of France, from Henry IV to Louis XIV. Building at the Louvre continued under Charles IX, Henry IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Napoleon I and Napoleon III according to the same style and principles of Lescot and Goujon; until today the enlarged building presents itself to us like a condensed record of three hundred and fifty years of a civilization that turned the product of the people's labor into works of art. If the aristocracy had been just and fair, could a building like the Louvre have come to exist?
Philibert Delorme
Philibert Delorme created palaces of heavenly architecture for Henry II and Diane de Poitiers. In youth he had studied and measured the surviving ruins of ancient Rome. Although he loved these works greatly, on returning to France he declared that from then on French architecture must have a French character. His spirit, a blend of worship of the classical idol and love of France, followed exactly the program the poets of the Pleiade set for themselves. He designed the horseshoe staircase in the "Court of Farewells" at Fontainebleau, and the chimneypiece and coffered ceiling of the Hall of Henry II. For Diane at Anet he made a true city of palaces and planned gardens (1548-1553); there Cellini made the relief of the Nymph of Fontainebleau in one of the pediments, and Goujon, by creating the group of Diana and the stag, showed his superiority over the masters of Florentine sculpture. The greater part of this paradise garden is now in ruins, and of all that, only a modest gateway survives, in the courtyard of the "School of Fine Arts of Paris."
Delorme extended and completed the chateau of Chenonceau for the king's fortunate mistress [Diane de Poitiers]. When Catherine de Medici took the chateau from Diane, Delorme went on working on it until he finished his masterpiece. For a time his architectural style, too mathematical, fell out of favor; Delorme withdrew from work and wrote an architectural treatise in the form of an encyclopedia. In his old age Queen Catherine called him back to work and he designed a new building for her, called the Tuileries Palace (1564-1570), which was destroyed in 1871 by order of the Paris Commune. Delorme took large fees from his patrons. Late in life he became a priest and for a time held lucrative posts. He died in 1570, at which time he was canon of Notre-Dame. In his will he left his property to his two illegitimate children.
Jean Bullant
Jean Bullant was the last of the three famous architects who adorned France with their buildings under the husband and sons of Catherine de Medici. At thirty he gained fame at Ecouen by designing, in a style wholly classical, a chateau for Anne de Montmorency. At sixty, as Delorme's successor, he took over the continuation of the Tuileries and remained at it until his death, "learning," in his own words, "a little better each day how to die."
Was Italian Influence a Harm?
It has become customary to treat the influence of Italian styles on French building as harmful, and to say that if the native Gothic had not been turned aside by that influence, it might have grown into an advanced urban architecture whose character would have suited French refinement far better than the rather rigid and rule-bound classical style. But Gothic had run its course, and from old age, or perhaps from excess in its last lace-like "flamboyant" ornament, it lay dying. In that state the classical emphasis on simplicity, economy, repose and clean, clear structural lines was entirely fitting, to protect French art from its natural tendency to overflow and abundance, and to give it order and maturity. It is true that the marvelous quality of medieval architecture was sacrificed; but that too had finished its life, and if the buildings of that age seem spectacular and attractive today, it is because that art has passed away. French Renaissance architecture, by acquiring its national character, that is, by combining dormer windows and sloping roofs [native elements] with columns, capitals and pediments [classical elements], produced in France, over three centuries, works that were the envy of all western Europe; and even now, when that architectural manner has been swept away, we feel it was something beautiful.