Fig. 255.—“The Tribute Money.” Picture by Caravaggio (Sixteenth Century), in the Florence Gallery.
We have as yet done little more than hint at the presence of Rosso, or Maître Roux, at the court of France. He came in 1530, at the invitation of Francis I., to decorate the Palace of Fontainebleau. “His engraved work,” says M. Michiels, “shows him to be a feeble and pretentious man, devoid both of taste and inspiration, who exhibited laboured refinement in the place of vigour, mistaking want of proportion for grandeur, and absence of truth for originality. Being nominated by the king as Canon of the Sainte-Chapelle, he had as his assistants Leonard, a Fleming, the Frenchmen Michel Samson and Louis Dubreuil, and the Italians Lucca Penni, Bartolommeo Miniati, &c. But in 1531, Primaticcio arrived from Mantua, and a contest arose henceforth between them.... Le Rosso having ended his days by suicide, Primaticcio remained master of the field. His most talented pupil decorated under his direction the magnificent ball-room. Primaticcio painted with less exaggeration and more delicacy and elegance than Rosso; but still he formed one of that troop of awkward and affected copyists who exaggerated the errors of Caravaggio.... His empire of forty years’ duration, in the midst of a foreign population, was, however, an undisturbed one. Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX., and Catherine de Medicis, showed him no less favour than Francis I. He died in 1570, loaded with honours and riches.
“The number of French artists who allowed themselves to be influenced by the Italian method was considerable. At last a man of more vigorous character arose who would not permit false taste to rule him, and adopted all the improvements of modern art, without following in the footsteps of court favourites. His talents inaugurated a new period in the history of French painting. We are speaking of Jean Cousin, who was born at Soucy, about 1530; he adorned with his compositions both glass and canvas, and was, in addition, a skilful sculptor. His famous picture of the “Last Judgment,” in the Louvre, suggests a high opinion of him. The colouring is harsh and monotonous, but the drawing of the figures and the arrangement of the piece prove that he had the habit of thought and also of reckoning on his own powers and of seeking out novel dispositions, producing effects hitherto unknown.”
The beautiful composition we introduce here ([Fig. 256]) is taken from M. A. Firmin Didot’s “Notice sur Jean Cousin,” in which a large number of other subjects are reproduced; some of them may have been
Fig. 256.—Composition by Jean Cousin. First Sketch of his “Last Judgment,” from a Wood-Engraving in the Romance of “Gérard d’Euphrate.” Paris, 1549. (Cabinet of M. A. F. Didot.)
engraved by the painter himself. Like Albert Dürer and Holbein, Jean Cousin did not disdain to apply his talents to the ornamentation of books.
Jean Cousin is generally looked upon as the real chief of the French school. After him, and by his side, we must place the Janets,[39] who although of Flemish origin, are actually French in their style and the character of their pictures. The most celebrated of them, François Clouet, portrayed, with a realism full of elegance and distinction, the nobles and beautiful ladies of the court of Valois.