In the passage leading into the next room are a truncated statue of St. Denis, from his Basilica (to be visited later), and, beyond it, a group of Hell from the same church. Notice the usual realistic jaws of death, vomiting flame and swallowing the wicked. Observe also that souls are always represented as nude. Opposite this, a mutilated fragment of St. Denis bearing his head, and accompanied by his two deacons, St. Rusticus and St. Eleutherius. I have not hitherto called attention to these two attendant deacons, but you will find them present in almost all representations of St. Denis. (Look for them among the paintings.) Try to build up your knowledge in this way, by adding point to point as you proceed, and afterwards returning to works earlier visited, which will gain fresh light by comparison with those seen during your more recent investigations.
Enter Room II: Salle du Moyen Age. Notice, first, the fragments by the window; those numbered 19 to 22 are good typical examples of the rude work of the Romanesque period (10th to 12th cents.). 23, beside them, shows the improvement which came in with the Gothic epoch, as well as the distinctive Gothic tone in execution,—softer, and rounder, with just a touch of foolish infantile simplicity or inanity. Observe all the other heads here, and compare their dates, as shown on the labels. Two beautiful angels, from the tomb of the brother of St. Louis, will indicate this gradual advance in execution, wholly anterior to any Renaissance influence. On the R side of the window, notice particularly an admirable head of the Virgin, 76, and another near it, from the cathedral of Sées. On the pillar, St. Denis bearing his head. Every one of these capitals and heads should be closely noted, with reference to the dates shown on the label. In the little Madonna on the L hand window, observe a nascent attempt to introduce an element of playfulness which is characteristically French. This increases later. It develops into the grace—the somewhat meretricious grace—of more recent French sculpture.
Now turn to the body of the room. R wall, 53, an excellent angel. Beyond it, the Preaching of St. Denis; observe that he is here attended by his two faithful deacons; the gateway indicates that he preaches at Paris. Such little side-indications are common in early art: look out for them. Above it, Christ in Hades, redeeming Adam and Eve, as the first fruits of the souls, from Limbo; the devil bound in chains on the ground beneath them; you saw several similar works at Cluny. Further on, another Madonna and Child, with the same attempt at playfulness; notice here Our Lady’s slight simper, a very French feature; the Child carries a goldfinch, which you will frequently find, if you look for it, in other representations, both French and Italian. The coloured relief of Pilate recalls those in the ambulatory at Notre-Dame. (Read in every case the date and place whence brought here.) Beneath it are the Flagellation, Bearing of the Cross, Crucifixion, and Entombment, which may be profitably compared with other examples.
(If, after observing the French type of Madonna in these rooms, and the few Burgundian works they contain, you have time to revisit the Mediæval Sculpture at Cluny—Room VI, ground floor—as I strongly advise you to do, you will find that Burgundian art in the Middle Ages was quite distinct from French, and had types of its own, approximating to the Flemish, and still more to the German. This is well seen in the Burgundian Madonna and St. Catherine at Cluny. For study of the style, it is a good plan to stop at Dijon on your way to or from Switzerland.)
The end of the room is occupied by a Gothic doorway from a house in Valencia (Spain), which may be contrasted with the scarcely later Renaissance example from the Palazzo Stanga. On its top is an Annunciation, representations of which are frequent in similar situations; we saw one on the façade of St. Étienne du Mont; in such cases, the Madonna is almost always separated by some form of wall, door, or ornament from the angel Gabriel; here, the finial represents the usual pot of lilies. Below it, a very characteristic French Madonna, again slightly smirking, and with the Child bearing the goldfinch. Note once more the royal air, the affected ladylike manner, given to the Madonna in early French sculpture and painting. To its L, a similar regal painted Madonna. To the R, gorgeous coloured statue of King Childebert, of the 13th cent.: this once stood at the entrance to the beautiful refectory of the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés (see later) which Childebert founded, and where the king was buried. L wall, fragment of a coloured stone relief, Judas receiving payment: of the same type as those in Notre-Dame. Further on, a similar Kiss of Judas. (Compare this with several specimens at Cluny.) The mutilated state of many of these fragments is in several instances due to the Revolution. All the other statues and fragments in this compartment should be carefully examined, including the strange scene from a Hell, and the stiff wooden Madonna, on pedestals in the centre. By the doorway, painted Virgin and Child,—the Madonna under a little canopy, and very typical of French conceptions.
Room III, Salle de Michel Colombe, represents the advance made in French plastic art during the last half of the 15th cent., and the beginning of the 16th cent., in some cases independently of the Italian Renaissance. The bust of François Ier, in bronze, on a pedestal near the door, may be compared, both for spirit and likeness, with the (very wooden) contemporary portraits of the same king in the French School upstairs. It has all the stiffness and archaic fidelity of early portraiture, with the usual lack of artistic finish. Note such little points as that the king wears the collar of his order, with the St. Michael of France as a pendant. Near the window, fragments of work displaying Renaissance influence. One, a relief of the Return of the Master, from the Château de Gaillon (built by Cardinal d’Amboise, minister of Louis XII, and one of the great patrons of the Renaissance in France), exhibits the beginning of a taste for secular, domestic, and rustic subjects, which later became general. (Early work is all sacred—then comes mythical—lastly, human and contemporary.) Note on the opposite side, the fine bronze of Henri Blondel de Rocquencourt, under Henri II. The Apollo and Marsyas is strongly Renaissance—a mythic subject (see the Perugino upstairs). The Massacre of the Innocents exhibits Renaissance treatment of a scriptural scene. The centre of the room is occupied by fine bronzes of the school of Giovanni da Bologna, a Frenchman who worked in Italy and forms a link between the art of the two countries. Observe the decorative French slenderness and coquetry of form, combined with the influence of the Italian Renaissance. The Mercury—light and airy—is a replica of Giovanni da Bologna’s own famous statue in the Bargello at Florence. The Mercury and Psyché beside it is a splendid example of Giovanni da Bologna’s school, by Adrian de Vries. Notice the French tinge in the voluptuous treatment of the nude, and the slenderness and grace of the limbs. The bronze statue of Fame, from the tomb of the Duc d’Epernon, exhibits in a less degree the same characteristics. It is obviously suggested by Giovanni’s Mercury.
Along the wall to the L, the most noticeable work is the splendid **marble relief of St. George, by the great French sculptor Michel Colombe, produced for the chapel of the Château de Gaillon; recollect all these Gaillon objects, and their connection with one another: the château was erected under Louis XII, at the dawn of the French Renaissance, and much of its work, like this fine relief, shows a considerable surviving Gothic feeling. You will see the façade of the château later at the École des Beaux-Arts. It is interesting to compare this splendid piece of sculpture with the little Della Robbia in the Italian rooms, and the painting by Raphael upstairs: the dragon here is a fearsome and very mediæval monster; but the St. George and his horse are full of life and spirit; and the fleeing Princess in the background is delicately French in attitude and conception. The dragon is biting the saint’s lance, which accounts for its broken condition in the Raphael and the Mantegna. Comparison of the various St. Georges in this collection, indeed, will give you an admirable idea of the way in which a single conventional theme, embracing always the very same elements, is modified by national character and by the individuality of the artist. To understand this is to have grasped art-history. (Note that the legend of St. George itself is in one aspect a Christianisation of the myth of Perseus and Andromeda.)
Beneath the St. George stands a fine Dead Christ, also exhibiting characteristic French treatment. The somewhat insipid but otherwise excellent Madonna and Child, on a pedestal close by, is admirable as exemplifying the transformation of the smirking Madonnas of the Middle Ages into the type of the Renaissance. The Death of the Virgin, near it, from St. Jacques-de-la-Boucherie (of which only the tower now remains), suggests to one’s mind the riches which must once have belonged to the demolished churches of Paris,—mostly, alas! destroyed at the great Revolution. Observe in this work the figures of the attendant apostles, the Renaissance architecture of the background, and the soul of the Madonna ascending above, escorted by angels, to heaven. More naïve, and somewhat in the earlier style, is the Nativity above it, flanked by the two St. Johns, the Baptist and the Evangelist. The tomb of Philippe de Commynes also illustrates the older feeling, as yet little influenced by the Italian irruption. Note that the works which betray the greatest Italian influence are chiefly connected with the royal châteaux and palaces of François Ier and his Italianate successors, or their wives and mistresses; the nation as yet is little touched by the new models.
The bronze tomb of Alberto Pio of Savoy, by Ponzio, on the other hand, exhibits strongly the Italian tendency, and should be compared with the earlier recumbent tombs, behind in Room I, as showing the survival of the mediæval type, transmuted and completely revivified. The same may be said of the tomb of Philippe de Chabot, which, however, is more distinctively French and much less markedly Italian. See how the early prostrate effigies become here recumbent: the figure, as it were, is trying to raise itself. In comparing the various works in this room, endeavour to note these interlacing points of resemblance and difference. The beautiful Genii above are parts of the same tomb, and are exquisite examples of the minor work of the French Renaissance. Passing the Italian Tacca’s admirable bust of Giovanni da Bologna, we come to an excellent Entombment, of the French School, from St. Eustache, which should be compared with earlier specimens in the adjacent rooms. Beneath it, a fine fragment by Jean Cousin. Still lower, a Passage of the Red Sea, beginning to display that confused composition and lack of unity or simplicity which spoiled the art of the later 16th and 17th centuries. The fine Madonna and Child close by should be compared with the very similar example opposite, as well as with its predecessors in other centuries. (Comparison of varying versions of the same theme is always more instructive than that of different subjects.) The tomb of Abbot Jean de Cromois, with its Renaissance framework, shows a survival of earlier tendencies; as does also that of Roberte Legendre, though the figures of Faith and Hope (Charity is missing) are distinctly more recent in type than the recumbent effigy. Those who have time to notice and hunt up the coats of arms on the various tombs will often find they shed interesting light on their subjects. Observe also the churches from which these various monuments have been removed, a point which will fit in with your previous or subsequent knowledge of the buildings in many cases.
The last window contains a few works of the German School, which it is interesting to compare with their French contemporaries. Thus, the shrewd, pragmatical, diplomatic head of Frederick the Pacific, a coarse, cunning self-seeker, is excellently contrasted with the French portrait-busts. The little scene of the Holy Family, after Dürer, which should be closely studied, is essentially German in the domestic character of its carpenter’s shop, in the broad peasant faces of its Madonna and attendant angels, in the playful touches of the irreverent cherubs, and in the figure of the Almighty appearing in clouds at the summit of the composition. The Kiss of Judas, opposite it, is also characteristically German; notice the brutal soldiers, whose like we have seen in woodwork at Cluny: the bluff St. Peter with the sword is equally noteworthy; in the background are separate episodes, such as the Agony in the Garden; though officially ascribed to the French School, this is surely the work of a deft but unideal German artist. Do not neglect the many beautiful decorative fragments collected in this room, nor the fine busts, mostly of a somewhat later period.