The mature mastery of accomplished French sculptor…
April 1547 CE
The mature mastery of accomplished French sculptor Jean Goujon, whose earliest recorded work as an architectural sculptor dates from 1540 at Rouen—the Corinthian columns of the organ loft in the Church of Saint Maclou—is first reflected in a rood screen relief depicting the deposition of Christ from the cross (1544–45; Louvre).
Created for the Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, Paris, this work marks the beginning of his collaboration with the architect Lescot and exemplifies his personal version of Mannerism.
The screen’s central panel, a Pietá, exemplifies Goujon's mature style, which—although indebted to the Italian Mannerist-derived school of Fontainebleau and to the Mannerist painter Parmigianino—remains an entirely personal synthesis of classical Renaissance motifs.
Goujon begins work in 1547 on the fine sculptures for the Fontaine des Innocents, which are figures carved in shallow relief within an architectural framework, commissioned as part of the decoration of the city to commemorate the solemn royal entry of King Henry II into Paris.
Goujon also comments on sculptural ornament in an appendix to an edition of the work of the classical Roman architect Vitruvius, published in 1547, for which he also executes woodcut illustrations.
Images
Jean Goujon? The Four Seasons (c.1547) Musée Carnavalet, Paris
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West Europe
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