School of Fontainebleau (Masters of Graphic Art)

Term that encompasses work in a wide variety of media, including painting, sculpture, stuccowork and printmaking, produced from the 1530s to the first decade of the 17th century in France. It evokes an unreal and poetic world of elegant, elongated figures, often in mythological settings, as well as incorporating rich, intricate ornamentation with a characteristic type of strapwork. The phrase was first used by Adam von Bartsch in Le Peintre-graveur (21 vols, Vienna, 1803 – 21 ), referring to a group of etchings and engravings, some of which were undoubtedly made at Fontainebleau.

More generally, it designates the art made to decorate the château of Fontainebleau, built from 1528 by Francis I and his successors, and by extension it covers all works that reflect the art of Fontainebleau. The principal artists of the school were Rosso fiorentino , francesco Primaticcio , nicolò dell’Abate , antonio Fantuzzi , antoine Caron and, later, toussaint Dubreuil , ambroise Dubois and martin Fréminet . With the re-evaluation of Mannerism in the 20th century, the popularity of the Fontainebleau school increased hugely. There has also been an accompanying increase in the difficulty of defining the term precisely.

When Francis I returned from his imprisonment in Madrid ( 1525 – 7 ) by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, he chose to live in and near Paris rather than in the Loire Valley as he had done in the first part of his reign. For that purpose he embarked on a large campaign of building residences in the Ile-de-France, beginning in 1527 . His favourite residence soon became Fontainebleau, approximately 65 km south-east of Paris, where he owned a ruined medieval castle in the middle of excellent hunting grounds. The structure was rapidly rebuilt and expanded without great architectural distinction; however, for the interior the King decided on an ambitious programme of painted decoration to be executed in the Italian manner. Earlier in his reign he had attempted to attract well-known Italian artists to his court but had been turned down by both Raphael ( 1483 – 1520 ) and Michelangelo ( 1475 – 1564 ). Leonardo da Vinci had accepted his invitation in 1516 , but, no longer able to paint, he died in 1519 near Amboise. In 1518 Andrea del Sarto ( 1486 – 1530 ) was brought to France, but he returned to Florence the following year. The King was more successful with a younger generation of artists. It was probably partly on the advice of Pietro Aretino ( 1492 – 1556 ) that he invited Rosso Fiorentino, who arrived in 1530 and worked for him until his suicide in 1540 . In 1532 Primaticcio arrived, a younger and still unproven artist sent from Mantua by Giulio Romano (? 1499 – 1546 ), who was too preoccupied with work to come himself. In 1553 Nicolò dell’Abate joined Primaticcio at Fontainebleau, where they were both active until their deaths in the early 1570s. After this time artistic activity was much reduced at Fontainebleau because of political instability and the Wars of Religion ( 1562 – 98 ). However, from 1595 activity resumed under Henry IV (reg 1589 – 1610 ) with a new group of artists who constituted what is sometimes called the second Fontainebleau school.

Work of Rosso and Primaticcio.
The first phase of work, which ended with Rosso’s death in 1540 , was the most innovative and complex. For practical reasons, the first projects executed were for the living-quarters of the King and his queen Eleanor and were entrusted not to Rosso but to Primaticcio. Initially this seems surprising, as Rosso was a much better-known artist and had arrived before Primaticcio. However, it is generally accepted that the reason for this apparent anomaly lay with Primaticcio’s having brought with him a project for the Chambre du Roi that had been established by Giulio Romano in Mantua. Giulio was not only Raphael’s heir—and therefore more authoritative than Rosso—but was also much more experienced in executing monumental decorations. Rosso and Primaticcio are often thought of as strongly contrasting artistic personalities, but in the 19th century critics frequently confused their works. This is significant if one is to understand the kind of currency that the term ‘Fontainebleau school’ has acquired. Indeed, at Fontainebleau the two artists were in close contact, and the younger Primaticcio perhaps learnt more from Rosso than is generally assumed. Although Primaticcio worked independently of Rosso, and each had a team of assistants from France and other countries, they worked closely together and collaborated on the decorative scheme for the Pavillon de Pomone (destr.) and the Galerie François I ( 1532 – 9 ; see fig.1). This complicates an assessment of their respective contributions to the most striking innovation of the 1530s at Fontainebleau: a type of decoration in which a combination of painting and stucco relief is placed above a high wainscoting.

Louis Dimier, in Le Primatice (Paris, 1900 ), proposed that the initiatives came from Rosso and that the Galerie François I was the one decisive work. The exuberant and original decoration of this extremely long and narrow room is still fairly well-preserved. The Chambre du Roi ( 1533 – 5 ), however, has been destroyed. Its decoration was carried out on the basis of a project designed by Giulio and apparently brought to France by Primaticcio; the walls were wainscoted up to about 2 m, and frescoes above depicted the History of Psyche encased in a rich framework of gilt stucco with subsidiary pictures. Here, the main elements of the characteristic Fontainebleau scheme were already in place. There is, of course, a long way between drawings for the project and the final execution. The placement over high wainscoting, for instance, was certainly a decision made in relation to French habits, and it would not be clear from the drawing that the framework was to be in full stucco relief. Nor should one exaggerate the importance of this priority because the Galerie François I was surely already being planned while the Chambre du Roi was being decorated. Rosso may have been consulted about final decisions for the Chambre, and Primaticcio’s expertise in stuccowork could have helped in planning the very complex scheme of the Galerie. Rather than individual responsibilities, what is important is that the work done at Fontainebleau, by transplanted Italian masters assisted by French, Italian and Flemish artists and craftsmen catering to French patrons, has a different appearance from comparable decorations in Italy. It is this new ‘look’—hard as it may be to define—and the contacts between many artists of various nationalities gathered in a somewhat isolated place that are the basis of what can be called the Fontainebleau school.

The death of Rosso in 1540 marked a new phase in the art of Fontainebleau. Rosso’s art was most often characterized by an extremely unconventional, bizarre and almost extravagant fantasy and a taste for the rare and unexpected that affected both his subject-matter and treatment of figures. Primaticcio, who had been trained in the discipline of Raphael transmitted through Giulio Romano, produced much more classicizing work. He became the uncontested leader of court art during the last years of Francis I’s reign ( 1540 – 47 ), and when Rosso died he was in fact in Rome collecting antique sculptures for the King and making moulds of some of the best-known Classical works to have them cast in bronze at Fontainebleau. For this task he brought back with him the young Jacopo Vignola as a technical assistant. Other new arrivals from Italy, among them the Florentine goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini and the Bolognese architect and theorist Sebastiano Serlio, could only reinforce Primaticcio’s classicizing tendencies. Cellini crafted the salt of Francis I ( 1540 – 43 ; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.; see Cellini, benvenuto , colour pl.) and secured his reputation as a significant bronze sculptor with the Nymph of Fontainebleau (?1543; Paris, Louvre; for illustration see Cellini, benvenuto ) planned for the entrance gate of the château. He was set up in Paris rather than at Fontainebleau and had troubled relations with the French. It is difficult to say how much of an impact his rather unsuccessful stay made in France beyond the production of a handful of masterpieces.

For Primaticcio, these years were a time of astounding productivity. As well as the arduous task of supervising the making of casts (Fontainebleau, Château) of such antique sculptures as the Laokoon (Rome, Vatican, Mus. Pio-Clementino) and Sleeping Ariadne, he executed frescoes (early 1540s; part destr.) for the vestibule of the Porte Dorée, decorated the bedchamber of the Duchesse d’Etampes ( 1541 – 4 ) and much of the Galerie d’Ulysse (late 1540s; destr. 1738 ), the latter his largest and most complex painted decoration. The most spectacular commission must have been a suite of baths known as the Appartement des Bains ( 1544 – 7 ; destr.), a series of six rooms for bathing and relaxation set up beneath the Galerie François I. In these rooms such masterpieces of the King’s collection as Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks (commissioned 1483 ; Paris, Louvre) and Andrea del Sarto’s Charity ( 1518 ; Paris, Louvre) were displayed, encased in stucco frameworks. The central room, with a small pool in the middle, was decorated with the story of Jupiter and Callisto, and apparently several murals had explicitly erotic content. This extraordinary ensemble can be understood as the synthesis of a strongly vernacular and medieval tradition of having public and princely baths on the one hand and a humanistic tradition of ancient Roman baths on the other. Although the rooms were destroyed, we have some records of the decoration through drawings and prints. While the subject-matter was partly playful, the style was in a grand antique manner.

Role of printmaking
The production of prints is one of the most original aspects of the Fontainebleau school, although it is not known exactly when or how it started. According to Vasari, engravings of Rosso’s work were made in France while he was still alive. This seemed unlikely, although recent evidence appears to confirm it. Pierre Milan, possibly an Italian immigrant, was certainly making engravings in Paris by 1540 . Rosso was in Rome before the city was sacked in 1527 and was deeply involved in printmaking, drawing compositions specifically to be engraved by Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio. In France he may have decided to renew this practice by collaborating with craftsmen in Paris. Etchings probably began to be made at Fontainebleau in 1542 , a time when frenetic decorative activity was taking place. Antonio Fantuzzi , a painter from Bologna and one of Primaticcio’s principal assistants, may have had the initiating role and was certainly the most productive, along with Léon Davent, a professional printmaker, and Jean Mignon, a French painter employed at Fontainebleau. Prints executed there have a characteristic appearance: they are quickly made, experimental and apparently uncommercial in intention. Most reproduce compositions by Rosso, Primaticcio and Giulio Romano. Primaticcio himself, whatever his degree of involvement, must have at least tolerated this activity, since he surely controlled most of the drawings that were reproduced. Other artists at Fontainebleau, notably Geoffroy Dumonstier and Domenico del Barbiere, produced prints of their own compositions. Printmaking at Fontainebleau seems to have lasted for only a few years. After 1545 , when Fantuzzi produced fewer etchings, the character of the production changed, becoming more careful and commercial, and Luca Penni became the main provider of compositions. Eventually, the whole activity seems to have moved to Paris, possibly when Francis I died in 1547 . Meanwhile, the production of burin engravings in Paris continued in the workshop of Pierre Milan, who employed René Boyvin, the plates made by the two being indistinguishable at this time. Later, Boyvin signed his prints and continued to produce them at least until 1580 . Most of the designs engraved by the Milan–Boyvin workshop were by Rosso; by Léonard Thiry, Rosso’s Flemish assistant at Fontainebleau, who worked in his master’s style (e.g. the Livre de la conqueste de la toison d’or, probably done in the 1540s but not published by Boyvin until 1563 ; see fig. 2); and by Penni, who apprenticed his son Lorenzo Penni ( fl c. 1557 ) to Boyvin. Printmaking made a major contribution to the Fontainebleau school. To a certain extent, the production of prints balanced the stylistically diverse contributions to 16th-century French court art, giving it greater homogeneity than it would otherwise have had. More significantly, perhaps, prints—especially Fantuzzi’s—were an important factor in the conversion of Rosso’s monumental decorations into an ornamental style that could be applied to all kinds of works, from architecture to jewellery.

Dispersion of artists from Fontainebleau.
Fontainebleau also functioned as a school in the more literal sense, in that it was the training-ground for many artists. Pierre Bontemps, a sculptor who worked at Fontainebleau in the late 1530s and probably finished his training there, was later employed on royal projects for many years. The marble Monument for the Heart of Francis I ( 1550 – 56 ; ex-Abbey of Les Hautes-Bruyères; Paris, Saint-Denis Abbey) is a characteristic example of the Fontainebleau school, having strapwork ornament derived from Rosso and relief compositions with elongated, pliant and sensuous figures reminiscent of Primaticcio. It is unclear to what extent Bontemps himself was responsible for the figures, the architectural design in all likelihood being by Philibert de L’Orme. Even artists who arrived as fully trained professionals altered their manner when in contact with Rosso or Primaticcio. This must have been the case with Luca Penni, who worked with his brother-in-law Perino del Vaga ( 1501 – 47 ) in Genoa before coming to France. Although Penni first worked with Rosso, he was much more affected by Primaticcio, whose manner he adapted to his more ponderously Roman taste. The Justice of Otto (Paris, Louvre), the only painting generally accepted as by his hand, was thought in the 18th century to be by Primaticcio. Léonard Thiry, however, adopted Rosso’s stylistic peculiarities and continued to produce many compositions in his manner for a decade after the master’s death.

In many cases, artists who were of considerable repute then are little known today, for example Lorenzo Naldini, a Florentine sculptor who had considerable success in France, and the sculptor and painter Simon Le Roy ( fl 1534 – 42 ), who had moved to Paris by 1542 . When an actual work is identified, it can be disconcerting. The Deposition (originally Orléans Chapel at the Celestins; now Paris, Ste Marguerite) had long been attributed to Francesco Salviati ( 1510 – 63 ; another Florentine painter who came to France, although little is known of his activity there) but has since been identified as a work by Charles Dorigny, a painter active at Fontainebleau under Primaticcio. Generally Florentine in character, with distant echoes of the work of Andrea del Sarto, it has little to do with what is generally thought of as characteristic of the Fontainebleau school. One cannot therefore assume that all those who worked at Fontainebleau practised what would be recognized as art of the Fontainebleau school; nevertheless, the great numbers of artists who participated in the programmes of decoration there undoubtedly played an important part in spreading the style. In the 1540s in particular there was a veritable diaspora of artists who had worked there. After Rosso’s death several sculptors probably left because there was much less work for them. More dramatic changes were brought about by the death of Francis I in 1547 . Henry II (reg 1547 – 59 ), his successor, was much less attached to Fontainebleau, and artistic activity there during his reign was drastically reduced, with the result that a number of artists sought work elsewhere. The centre of gravity of artistic life moved to Paris. In addition, Henry was much less interested in painted decorations of the Italian type and rather more attracted to architecture and to sculptural decoration; he was also more inclined to patronize French artists.

Influence
The strong classicizing tendency of the 1540s was the dominant trend, although the more playful and fantastic art of Rosso was not forgotten. Jean Cousin le père, who moved from Sens to Paris probably shortly before 1540 , was influenced by Fontainebleau. His production of the 1520s and 1530s is unknown, but works of the 1540s, especially his cartoons for tapestries depicting the Life of St Mamas (Langres Cathedral; Paris, Louvre), clearly echo the new classicizing style. Significantly, several etchings from his designs of the mid-1540s have long been considered as products of the Fontainebleau school. This would probably also have happened to Eva Prima Pandora if its attribution to Cousin had not always been perpetuated by his distant relatives who owned it until it entered the Musée du Louvre. François Clouet, whose court portraits betray his southern Netherlandish ancestry, also painted pictures in the Fontainebleau manner: for example, the Bath of Diana (Rouen, Mus. B.-A.; for illustration see Clouet , (2)) and the Lady in her Bath (?Marie Touchet) ( c. 1570 ; Washington, DC, N.G.A.). Such anonymous paintings as the Toilet of Venus (Paris, Louvre) combine borrowings from Rosso and Primaticcio almost as a deliberate demonstration of their compatibility and their validity as works of the Fontainebleau school. The few monumental painted decorations commissioned show the success of Fontainebleau: several rooms at the château of Ancy-le-Franc (Yonne) attributed to Primaticcio and dell’Abate; the 12 painted overmantels at the château of Ecouen (Val d’Oise) done for Anne, Duc de Montmorency; and the paintings of episodes from Virgil’s Aeneid in the gallery of the north wing of the Grand Ecuyer of Claude Gouffier’s château of Oiron (Deux-Sèvres) by Noël Jallier, an otherwise entirely unknown painter who was clearly aware of Fontainebleau but also, it seems, of recent developments in Rome.

In spite of these examples, painted murals of the type prominent in Italy did not become popular in France. During the reign of Henry II the authority of Primaticcio was reduced, and the French architects Philibert de L’Orme and Pierre Lescot controlled most royal patronage; they preferred sculpted decoration, which was more traditional in France. The impact of Fontainebleau was nevertheless considerable. The exuberant decoration of Lescot’s façade of the Cour Carrée of the Palais du Louvre, with its exquisite figures in relief ( 1547 – 50 ) carved by Jean Goujon , would be unthinkable without the example of Primaticcio. The fact that much of the sculptural decoration at Diane de Poitiers’s château of Anet (Eure-et-Loire) was attributed to Jean Goujon points to a similar source of inspiration, even if the attribution itself is discredited. Indeed, the well-known statue of Diana with a Stag (ex-château of Anet; Paris, Louvre), sometimes attributed to Goujon, with its graceful curves and tapering limbs, is the epitome of the Fontainebleau style. Domenico del Barbiere, who had worked at Fontainebleau, established a practice in Troyes and strongly inflected the great local sculptural tradition of Champagne towards the new court style.

Later developments
The later works of Primaticcio have a slightly new character due partly to personal evolution and continued contacts with developments in Italy but also probably to the arrival in France in 1552 of Nicolò dell’Abate, a skilled painter from Modena who had already established his reputation in Italy. A virtuoso draughtsman and an original colourist, dell’Abate’s Emilian training in the tradition of Correggio (? 1489 – 1534 ) and Parmigianino ( 1503 – 40 ) prepared him for his new position as Primaticcio’s almost exclusive executant for painting. Primaticcio’s works of this time display bolder decorative schemes with complex perspective effects and a warmer, more lively and less classicizing manner, as in the decorations ( 1552 – 6 ) for the Galerie Henri II (Salle de Bal) at Fontainebleau. Being less favoured by Henry II, he was able to work for others, especially the Guise family. For the residence of François de Lorraine, 2nd Duc de Guise ( 1519 – 63 ), in Paris (now Hôtel de Soubise) he decorated the chapel with a spectacular Adoration of the Magi (destr.) that filled the walls of the choir. Such paintings had limited impact outside immediate court circles, in part because they were not reproduced by printmakers. However, the charming but weak Birth of Cupid (New York, Met.), one of a group of paintings by anonymous masters, is in the style of the Fontainebleau school and is indebted to both Primaticcio and dell’Abate. The master of Flora , often considered to be the artist, is the result of an assemblage of works, the common authorship of which seems difficult to sustain. Dell’Abate himself produced independent paintings in France (e.g. the Rape of Proserpina; Paris, Louvre) that show that he was not impervious to Primaticcio’s example, thus reinforcing the coherence of the Fontainebleau school. In paintings such as these and in destroyed decorations for Fontainebleau he also developed an original landscape style. Antoine Caron is—with the exception of contemporary portrait painters—the first French artist with a substantial body of easel paintings. His tiny figures, gesticulating in a balletic manner, are reminiscent of dell’Abate’s, but his art—especially his strange sense of colour—is his own, and he is the most typical artist working in the last decades of the reign of the Valois kings.

Catherine de’ Medici assumed much power after the death of her husband Henry II in 1559 , and Primaticcio once again became a favourite, succeeding de L’Orme as surveyor of the royal works. In this capacity he controlled not only buildings and their painted decoration but also the work of sculptors, notably those working on royal tombs. It was within this framework that Germain Pilon formed his mature style under Primaticcio’s direct guidance, continuing the full impact of the art of Fontainebleau until 1590 .

General character
The term ‘Fontainebleau school’ has been applied so loosely, referring to any 16th-century Italianate work with elongated forms, especially within a market-place eager to give a more precise appellation to mediocre anonymous products, that it can appear meaningless. Nevertheless, used more prudently it points to an important phenomenon: the creation of an original kind of court art in France under Francis I and its partial transformation and diffusion over the next 40 years. While its components may seem disparate to the scholar of Italian art, it must be remembered that for the French, who had come from a tradition of late Flamboyant work and millefleurs tapestries, this must have seemed very new and highly classical in style. As has been noted, there were also such homogenizing factors as the production of prints and the training of artists at Fontainebleau. Other artists were instrumental in giving currency to the art of the court, principally the architect and engraver Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau I and the goldsmith and engraver Etienne Delaune. Through various channels, the art of Fontainebleau affected all areas of visual production, from monumental buildings to the design of jewellery. The decorative arts had always had an important tradition in France, and this continued, though with the adoption of the new style from Fontainebleau. While the Italian artists at court were occasionally occupied with the decorative arts, Jean Cousin I—although always designated as a painter—was in fact mostly occupied with projects for tapestries, stained-glass windows, Limoges enamels, luxury vessels and armoury for execution by various craftsmen. Thus, the ‘Fontainebleau school’ affected the whole visual environment of upper-class society.

To see this phenomenon as mere fashion belittles its importance. It has deep ideological implications. Through its origins and associations, what might be called the ‘classicizing Mannerism’ of the Fontainebleau school was very much a royal style. As such, it made royal power manifest and thereby reinforced it, contributing to a sense of national identity at a particularly important time in the history of France, when there was great instability. In that sense the phenomenon of the Fontainebleau school is an active element in the complex establishment of the modern or ‘absolute’ monarchy. On the other hand, display was a prime method of establishing prestige on the European stage, making luxury a necessity.

3. Second Fontainebleau school.
The Wars of Religion and the dynastic crisis caused by the death in 1589 of Henry III, last king of the Valois line, marked a caesura in French life. Once peace was restored by the new Bourbon king Henry IV, a deliberate effort was made to re-establish continuity as a marker of legitimacy. Painters had never entirely abandoned Fontainebleau; Henry IV undertook its vigorous rejuvenation, as well as that of a few others such as the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Palais du Louvre. An artist of great talent, Toussaint Dubreuil ensured real continuity by collaborating with Ruggiero de Ruggieri ( fl 1557 – 97 ), one of Primaticcio’s Italian assistants, who had become Premier Peintre to the King. Dubreuil’s references to Primaticcio and the art of the great reigns of Francis I and Henry II are clear and deliberate. Cybele Awakening Morpheus (Fontainebleau, Château), for example, is a paraphrase of Primaticcio’s composition in the vestibule of the Porte Dorée. However, Dubreuil was a fertile and elegant composer in his own right who, like Primaticcio, did not execute the paintings himself. His decorative projects have all been destroyed, but his drawings and descriptions of them (Paris, Louvre and Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) show that he was inventive and original. Unfortunately, this heir to Primaticcio died prematurely in 1602 . Concurrently with Dubreuil, Ambroise Dubois from Antwerp produced fluent, if less original, work. He is supposed to have arrived in France fully trained, but his art shows that he may have had close contact with the earlier Fontainebleau style. However, this may have been because Fontainebleau and Paris were requisite stops for northern European artists on their training journeys to Rome. Some did not feel it necessary to go further south. After Dubreuil’s death Henry IV recalled Martin Fréminet from Italy, where he had spent several years. In Rome he had been particularly attentive to Michelangelo and had formed a vehement style with highly pliable figures that also recalls the art of such northern European artists as Bartholomäus Spranger, although it is difficult to know whether this was due to direct contacts or to an independent synthesis of similar elements. Fréminet’s decoration ( 1606 – 19 ) of the chapel of the Trinity at Fontainebleau is the most important decorative ensemble surviving from the period. His death in 1619 , a few years before the execution of the cycle of paintings of the Life of Marie de’ Medici (Paris, Louvre) by Peter Paul Rubens ( 1577 – 1640 ) for the Palais du Luxembourg, marked the end of an era.

During Henry IV’s reign the deliberate return to the art of the earlier Fontainebleau school is strikingly felt in a series of erotic pictures, the most famous of which is Gabrielle d’Estrées and her Sister, the Duchesse de Villars (Paris, Louvre; see colour pl. 1:XIV, fig. 3), where the anonymous artist combined two earlier prototypes, François Clouet’s Lady in her Bath and Lady at her Dressing-table (Worcester, MA, A. Mus.), for Henry’s mistress. In this case, the sense of a second Fontainebleau school seems proclaimed in an almost programmatic way.

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