There was indeed something in the native French taste naturally akin to
that Italian finesse. The characteristic of French work had always been
a certain nicety, a remarkable daintiness of hand, une nettete
remarquable d'execution. In the paintings of Francois Clouet, for
example, or rather of the Clouets--for there was a whole family of
them--painters remarkable for their resistance to Italian influences,
there is a silveriness of colour and a clearness of expression which
distinguish them very definitely from their Flemish neighbours, Hemling
or the Van Eycks. And this nicety is not less characteristic of old
French poetry. A light, aerial delicacy, a simple elegance--une nettete
remarquable d'execution:--these are essential characteristics alike of
Villon's poetry, and of the Hours of Anne of Brittany. They are
characteristic too of a hundred French Gothic carvings and traceries.
Alike in the old Gothic cathedrals, and in their counterpart, the old
Gothic chansons de geste, the rough and ponderous mass becomes, as if by
passing for a moment into happier conditions, or through a more gracious
stratum of air, graceful and refined, like the carved ferneries on the
granite church at Folgoat, or the lines which describe the fair priestly
hands of Archbishop Turpin, in the song of Roland; although below both
alike there is a fund of mere Gothic strength, or heaviness.
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