. Art in France. nois.—Popular Inspiration in the Arts ofImagery. In the thirteenth century, an Intense artistic activity took possessionof all the great communes which desired to build a cathedral, andthen to people it with statues and adorn it with coloured glasswindows. Art had already become the work of laymen, but. asyet, it only existed for religion, and like religion, it had spreadabroad in the world. As the century advanced, artists worked lessexclusively for the requirements of worship; there is a charm in theplastic arts which kings and great nobles soon desired to enjoy andto reckon
. Art in France. nois.—Popular Inspiration in the Arts ofImagery. In the thirteenth century, an Intense artistic activity took possessionof all the great communes which desired to build a cathedral, andthen to people it with statues and adorn it with coloured glasswindows. Art had already become the work of laymen, but. asyet, it only existed for religion, and like religion, it had spreadabroad in the world. As the century advanced, artists worked lessexclusively for the requirements of worship; there is a charm in theplastic arts which kings and great nobles soon desired to enjoy andto reckon among the accessories of their wealth. Now the art ofluxury cannot be so widely disseminated as religious art. It requireswealth, and a certain intellectual culture; there must be prosperoustowns to form skilful workmen and rich citizens or the court of aprince to pay them. Under these conditions, the artistic energiesof a country tend to concentrate in certain places. It was in the 84 FEUDAL ART AND CIVIC ART. FIG. 167.—CHATEAU-GAILLARD. fourteenth century that the destinies of French art began to inter-mingle with those of the great men of the kmgdom, of kmgs andthose who aspired to rivalthem. To survey the activitiesof the most distinguishedamong these patrons ofthe arts is to pass in re-view the principal worksof art of the second halfof the fourteenth, as wellas those of the succeedingcentury. First in orderare the kings: the firstValois, frivolous and mag-nificent; John the Good,who took musicians with him to his captivity in England; a painterhas left us his portrait, the earliest of French pictures (Fig. 243),a brutal head painted in languid colours. Then Charles V., thewise king who built Vincennes, the Bastille, and the Louvre, aquadrangular fortress which combined many architectonic amenitieswith a huge donjon, dating from the time of Philip Augustus; thelearned king who loved beautiful manuscripts, and wrote on themThis book belongs to me, Charles; the collecto
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishernew, booksubjectart
