Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/591

Painting in France. 561 beautiful and elegant romances, such as La Conqueste de la Doulce Merci, and the Mortifiement de Vaine Plaisance, but he loved painting in particular with a passionate love, and was gifted by nature with such an uncommon aptitude for this noble profession that he was famous among the most excellent painters and illuminators of his time, which may be perceived by several masterpieces accom- plished by his divine and royal hand." In the Cluny Museum there is a picture by Rene which, although not worthy of being called a " divine masterpiece " of the period that had produced Fra Angelico and Masaccio, is yet valuable and remarkable. The subject is the Preaching of the Magdalen at Marseilles, where tradition asserts that she was the first to proclaim the gospel. He died in 1480. Jehan Fouquet (1415 — 1483), born at Tours, painted the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV. at Rome, and studied the Italian artists of the time of Masaccio. His works, or at least those of them which remain, are to be found at Munich, Frankfort, and in the large library at Paris ; they consist only of manuscript ornamentation. Jean Clouet, the younger, sometimes called Janet (in cotemporary records he is called Jehan, Jehannot and Jehannet), was a Fleming who settled in France and was made painter and varlet-de-ehambre to Francis I., in or before 1518. He died in 1541. Francois Clouet (ab. 1500 — 15 71-74), usually called Janet, — a cotemporary of those who studied art in Italy, but himself a distant disciple of Van Eyck, through the lessons of his father, — was born at Tours. He was court painter to Francis L, Henri II., Francis II. and Charles IX. His pictures in the Louvre are portraits of Charles IX. and his wife Elizabeth of Austria, which are truthful and of eha o o