It should be noted that the decadence which manifested itself in monumental sculpture was far less rapid in the more intimate art which may be distinguished as imagery. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries all sculptors were image-makers; but towards the close of the latter, and during the fifteenth, the term was specially applied to carvers of images in wood, ivory, etc. Art still flourished in their ateliers in all its beauty, notably that of the goldsmiths, who carved images in high or low relief in precious metals, and who, thanks to the severely paternal regulations of the maîtrise, were enabled to bring French decorative art to the highest degree of perfection. The beautiful carved wooden stalls of Amiens, Auch, and Albi, to name
but the most famous, testify to the vigorous talent of the fourteenth and fifteenth-century image-carvers.
109. WOODEN STATUETTE (HEIGHT 10 IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS
110. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 6⅜ IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS
110A. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 2¾ IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF THE ILE-DE-FRANCE
111. IVORY DIPTYCH (HEIGHT 4¾ IN.) FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF PARIS
Flemish ateliers, which were kept up by the severe rules of the guilds, exercised a salutary influence upon the Burgundian craftsmen. This is more especially true of the great workshops of Antwerp and of Brussels, and perhaps also of those of Southern Germany. Burgundian influences reacted in their turn upon the artists of the Ile-de-France, notably in Paris (that brilliant centre of all artistic activities in the fourteenth century), and stirred them to emulation. The union of these various elements brought about the revival of the fine tradition of the thirteenth century, and towards
the close of the fifteenth century paved the way for a French Renascence, which heralded that more famous movement of the sixteenth, the credit of which is usually given to the Italians, who, however, such was the infatuation of the times, contributed rather to the debasement than to the regeneration of French national art.