Renaissance
Quite early in the sixteenth century the influence of the new style of the Italian Renaissance began to appear. Coupled with the persistence of Gothic traditions and the necessity of steep roofs and tall chimneys in the French climate, it appears immediately "Frenchified" rather than in its pure imported form. The chateaux of kings and courtiers in the area round Paris and in the Loire valley, such as Blois, Chambord, Chenonceau and Fontainebleau , exemplify this style, with their wholly un-Italian concentration of interest on the skyline and an elaboration of detail in the facades at the expense of the clear modelling of form. With the passing of time, however, the style became more purely classical. The Louvre in Paris and the Chateau de Blois are notable examples of the developing classicism . The wing of the Chateau de Blois containing the famous staircase designed for Francois I in 1515 shows the beginning of an emphasis on horizontal lines and an overlay of Italian motifs on a basically Gothic form. The elevations, designed by Mansart in 1635, though distinctively French, are just as typically classical. The Louvre even more embodies the whole history of the classical style in France, having been worked over by all the grand names of French architecture from Lescot in the early sixteenth century, via Francois Mansart and Claude Perrault in the seventeenth, to the later years of the nineteenth century. It is unfortunate that the Renaissance style in France is chiefly seen in such structures as the Louvre and Versailles, which because of their scale can scarcely be experienced as buildings. That this is the case is largely due to the developing despotism and concentration of power under Louis XIII and Louis XIV. But there was a lighter side to this. Francois Mansart, at Blois and Maisons Lafitte (1640), shows a certain suavity and elegance, which appears again in the eighteenth century in the town houses of the Rococo period, the generally reticent exteriors of which belie the vivacity and charm of the private life within. On the other hand, Claude Perrault (1613-88), who designed the great colonnaded east front of the Louvre, gives an austere face to the official architecture of despotism, magnificent but far too imperial to be much enjoyed by common mortals. The high-pitched roofs, which had been almost universal until then, are replaced here by the classical balustrade and pediment, the style grand but cold and supremely secular. Art and architecture were at the time organized by boards and academies, and in the latter style and employment were strictly controlled by royal direction. Between 1643 and 1774 France was governed by two monarchs who both ruled by the same maxim - absolute power. With such a limitation of ideas at the source of patronage, it is hardly surprising that there was a certain dullness to the era, at least in the acknowledged monuments of French architecture.
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