How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

3. Classic Period. Henri IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV (1589-1715).

4. Rococo. The Regency and Louis XI (1715-1774).

By the middle of the fifteenth century commercial relations with Italy and the number of Italian ecclesiastics holding benefices in France, had caused a steady influx of Italian influence, which became intensified by the military interferences of Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I in the politics of Italy. The practical issue of these otherwise disastrous expeditions was the invasion of Italian culture into France.

Italian Culture.—It produced a new era of intellectual activity and fostered a new refinement of taste and social conditions. Its earliest results are typified in the career of Francis I. No French king before his time had received so liberal an education. Under the enlightened care of his mother, Louise of Savoy, he was early trained in Latin, Italian, and Spanish, sharing the studies with his gifted sister, Margaret, afterward Queen of Navarre, a patroness of literature and herself the author of the “Heptameron,” a collection of stories, supposed to extend over seven days in the telling and modelled on the style of Boccaccio’s “Decameron.” Francis also played the rôle of patron, surrounding himself with men of letters and artists; but while he encouraged the visits of Italian artists he was no less eager to encourage native talent. His patronage of Clement Marot, the first great poet of the French Renaissance, is a case in point and, corresponding with this amour propre regarding native talent notwithstanding his love for things Italian, was his employment of French architects, the services of foreign artists being used chiefly in the way of sculptural and painted decorations.

By the middle of the fifteenth century the great era of church building had been exhausted. The needs of the population for places of worship were fully satisfied; the profession of architect passed from the clerics to laymen, who, so far as ecclesiastical work was concerned, were busy embellishing existing churches with altar-furnishings, screens, pulpits, fonts, tombs, and so forth, in which the novel skill of the Italian craftsman was freely used.

School of Tours.—Thus, in consequence of Italian influence, a new school of French sculpture grew up, which centered in Tours, a city at this period specially favoured by the kings of France. The genius of this “School of Tours” was Michel Colombe, whose art represented a blend of Italian refinement and Gothic vigour; and it was precisely this mingled quality that characterised the architecture of the Early French Renaissance. It, too, was centered in Tours, and blossomed forth throughout the Province of Touraine. For it was a distinction of the French Court life of the period that it avoided cramped conditions of city environment and spread itself luxuriantly in the pleasures of country life. Accordingly, the architectural memorials of the Early French Renaissance are mainly the royal and noble châteaux that stud Touraine, especially along the banks of the rivers Loire and Cher.

Châteaux.—The conditions being so local and essentially an expression of the French idea of living, the model of the Italian palace—a product primarily of the needs and conditions of city life—could not be directly applied, while the logic of the French genius, working at that time freely, eschewed the attempt to make a compromise with imitation. So the châteaux of the Early French Renaissance retain the structural character of the Gothic Feudal castle but modify it in the way of Italian refinements, passing from military offensive and defensive purpose to that of elegant and luxurious living. Hence a distinction of these French châteaux is their picturesqueness and the degree to which they participate in the natural picture.

Instead of the unity of effect presented by an Italian palace, completely enclosing its cortile, they retained the Gothic characteristic of variety in unity; their extensive and differing façades being grouped around a spacious courtyard, and composed so as to furnish a variety of effects from different view-points of the landscape.

One side of the court was occupied by a windowless screen wall along which, upon the inside, ran a colonnade, while the centre was pierced by a large covered gateway that afforded a porte-cochère. The sides of the courtyard were flanked by buildings, devoted to the servants’ quarters and the various offices connected with the home-life and the outdoor pastimes, while on the fourth side, facing the entrance, extended the main edifice, designed for the occupation of the family and the entertainment of guests. The chief architectural distinction of this main part was reserved for its outer façade, where it abutted on a terrace, which communicated with the alleys, parterres, and fish-ponds of the formally laid out gardens and commanded views of the surrounding park.

In this adaptation of the plan of a Gothic fortress to the conveniences and pleasures of a country palace, some of the old architectural features were preserved but modified to decorative purposes. Thus the gateway was square and massive, recalling distantly the appearance of a donjon keep; the more so that round towers, built, however, with squared walls in the interior, projected from the angles. The angles also of the outer façades were embellished with similar towers, that preserved a picturesque contrast to the straight lines of the intervening masonry as well as presenting from their windows a variety of views of the surroundings. The actual machicolations that previously overhung the walls were now reduced to a decorative motive of little arches upon corbels, and the battlements gave way to balustrades. Further, the great hall was replaced by state apartments which, as in an Italian palace, occupied the second floor or bel étage.