THE STYLE OF HENRY II. 117 



outset a certain licence absent in the earlier work of the Italian Golden 

 Age. Again climatic and traditional considerations obliged her to 

 perpetuate certain unclassical dispositions. 



SCHOOL OF FONTAINEBLEAU, ITS RISE AND INFLUENCE. When, in 

 1526, Francis I. returned from his Spanish captivity, he devoted himself 

 with renewed ardour to the extension and embellishment of his palaces, 

 and lost no opportunity of attracting artists from beyond the Alps to 

 his Court, whither architects, painters, sculptors, and workers in wood, 

 bronze and the precious metals, in majolica and stucco, continued to 

 arrive in increasing numbers. 



The old castle of Fontainebleau, at that time the centre of the king's 

 interest, was undergoing extensive additions by more or less uneducated 

 native masters. It was upon the decoration of this palace that the new- 

 comers were principally set to work, and thus arose the so-called " School 

 of Fontainebleau," which for half a century held a preponderating place 

 in the artistic life of France, and was in a measure the foundation of 

 modern French art. School indeed it was not, if the term implies a 

 group of artists with common aims and methods. It was rather a 

 fortuitous concourse of men representing the various tendencies of 

 Italian art, often with divergent ideals and eager to eclipse, if not to 

 destroy, each other's work. But collectively they constituted an epitome 

 of their country's art and, as such, a school for the formation of French 

 taste and of the French artists who worked with them. Moreover, what- 

 ever their differences, the artists of Fontainebleau had this in common, 

 they had all been trained in the great Julian age, and were all the 

 spiritual offspring of the masters of the Roman Renaissance. This 

 fact established a great contrast between their work and that of the 

 builders around them, who were still following the lead of the school of 

 Amboise and, whether French or Italian, had been nurtured on the 

 traditions of the Lombard Renaissance. 



The existence and importance of the school of Fontainebleau have 

 been the subject of the most various views. At first the Italians 

 were credited with everything, and the most immature portions of 

 Fontainebleau were fathered upon Serlio, Primaticcio, or Vignola. 

 Then the patriotic critics, who claimed that the few genuine architects 

 among the Italians had no chance of carrying out their designs, 

 while the rest were stuccateurs or fresco-painters, whose influence, 

 such as it was, was regarded as having corrupted the purity of 

 the native genius, and started French art on the downward grade. 

 Systematic research is now putting the facts in a clearer light, and 

 if the extent of each man's work is still uncertain, it can at least be 

 determined what it is possible he may have done. Much of Francis' 

 building in the palace can no longer be laid at the door of his 

 Italian architects, whose reputation decidedly gains by being relieved 



