The Triumph of the City


 

The High Renaissance
 
&

Mannerism
 
 

(Renaissance  Art Map)








 

  


School of Fontainebleau



Jean Cousin the Elder


Ambroise Dubois


 

Fontainebleau school

[Fr. Ecole de Fontainebleau].

Term that encompasses work in a wide variety of media, including painting, sculpture, stuccowork and printmaking, produced from the 1530s to the first decade of the 17th century in France. It evokes an unreal and poetic world of elegant, elongated figures, often in mythological settings, as well as incorporating rich, intricate ornamentation with a characteristic type of strapwork. The phrase was first used by Adam von Bartsch in Le Peintre-graveur (21 vols, Vienna, 1803–21), referring to a group of etchings and engravings, some of which were undoubtedly made at Fontainebleau in France. More generally, it designates the art made to decorate the château of Fontainebleau, built from 1528 by Francis I and his successors, and by extension it covers all works that reflect the art of Fontainebleau.  With the re-evaluation of MANNERISM in the 20th century, the popularity of the Fontainebleau school has increased hugely. There has also been an accompanying increase in the difficulty of defining the term precisely. 

 

Jean Cousin the Elder

(b ?Souci, nr Sens, c. 1500; d ?Paris c. 1560).

He was from the region of Sens and started his career in that city. He is first documented in 1526 doing a land survey and again in 1530 designing fortifications for a village, fixing a clock and repairing and painting a statue for Sens Cathedral. By the later 1530s he must have been well established and affluent, since he was buying property. Before 1540 he moved to Paris, where he was employed at the end of 1539 on the decorations for the visit of Charles V. He was active there until his death but retained close ties with Sens, where he owned property and where he still worked periodically, as would his son. 

Eva Prima Pandora
c. 1550
Wood, 97,5 x 150 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris


 

The Rape of Europa
c. 1550
Oil on wood, 88 x 140 cm
Musee du Chateau, Blois


 

St Mammes and Duke Alexander
1541
Tapestry, 440 x 450 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris


 

The Drowning of Britomartis
1547–59
 

Ambroise Dubois

(1543-1614)
Flemish born

L'Art de peinture et de sculpture

 

Embarquement de Chariclee
1615