|
|
| © Musée du Louvre/A. Dequier |
|
|
 |
| Author(s) |
|
| Brigitte Koroleff, conférencière R.M.N |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Opening days: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Duration: 1 hr. 30 mins.
 
While the great European powers battled for control of Italy, Italian fifteenth- and sixteenth-century artists broadened the field of Western painting.
The arts developed in a specific political context. Italy was not a united country, and each prince or each family that governed a town wanted to display their splendor and might. The works and vast building sites - all involving commissions - served to demonstrate the magnificence of their patrons. Though Tuscan artists were used as models, from the fourteenth century onwards, each artistic center had its own specialty, and pronounced regional differences persisted throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Florentine painting gave priority to draftsmanship; Venetian painting valued color above all; while, in the early sixteenth century, papal and princely patronage made Rome an increasingly important artistic hub. The presence of Italian artists at Fontainebleau turned the French sovereign's castle into a hotbed of forms and a European crossroads for the spread of Italian art.
The Renaissance artist was an all-round artist, frequently a painter and goldsmith, sculptor and architect, theorist and poet, in the manner of Leonardo da Vinci, Verrocchio and Michelangelo. The artist was also a scholar, who wrote or applied theoretical treatises, understood the rules of perspective, and schooled himself in human anatomy by undertaking dissections, observing and experimenting. In the course of the fifteenth century, as the intellectual purport of the works created was recognized to the same degree as their manual dimension, the artist's status in society evolved. Painting entered the ranks of the Liberal Arts.
|
|
Starting from the Pyramid, head toward the Denon wing. Turn left and go through the pre-Classical Greek gallery, then head toward the Daru staircase (with the Winged Victory at the top). Turn right on the landing, go through Rooms 1 and 2 and into the Salon Carré (Room 3). Giotto's altarpiece stands to the right of the entrance, facing that of his master Cimabue.
|
|
|
