In a just impression of that, is the
essential truth, the vraie verite concerning him.
1877.
JOACHIM DU BELLAY
In the middle of the sixteenth century, when the spirit of the
Renaissance was everywhere, and people had begun to look back with
distaste on the works of the middle age, the old Gothic manner had still
one chance more, in borrowing something from the rival which was about
to supplant it. In this way there was produced, chiefly in France, a new
and peculiar phase of taste with qualities and a charm of its own,
blending the somewhat attenuated grace of Italian ornament with the
general outlines of Northern design. It produced the Chateau de Gaillon,
as you may still see it in the delicate engravings of Israel
Silvestre--a Gothic donjon veiled faintly by a surface of dainty Italian
traceries--Chenonceaux, Blois, Chambord, and the church of Brou. In
painting, there came from Italy workmen like Maitre Roux and the masters
of the school of Fontainebleau, to have their later Italian
voluptuousness attempered by the naive and silvery qualities of the
native style; and it was characteristic of these painters that they were
most successful in painting on glass, an art so essentially medieval.
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