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French sculpture has been an original and influential component of world art since the Middle Ages. The first known French sculptures date to the Upper Paleolithic age. French sculpture originally copied ancient Roman models, then found its own original form in the decoration of Gothic architecture. French sculptors produced important works of Baroque sculpture for the decoration of the Palace of Versailles. In the 19th century, the sculptors Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas created a more personal and non-realistic style, which led the way to modernism in the 20th century, and the sculpture of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp and Jean Arp.
Two of the largest prehistoric sculptures can be found at the Tuc d'Audobert caves in France, where around 12–17,000 years ago a sculptor used a spatula-like stone tool and fingers to model a pair of large bison in clay against a limestone rock.
Human forms and animals were common in the early sculpture, often in the form of bas-relief. Figures expressed emotion, and were often distorted; the forms of women were often strangely obese. The Venus of Laussel is one of the earliest examples.Jeancolas, Sculpture Française, pg. 1 With the beginning of the Mesolithic the amount of figurative sculpture diminished, and animals predominated, expressing mobility and vigor. In the later Mesolithic period, the sculpture became less realistic and turned toward abstract, ornamental deocrative forms, which continued through the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The arrival of the Celts, Ligures and Iberian peoples did not radically change the style. Human forms were usually carves simply as stylized silhouettes. On the coast of the Mediterranean, sculptors made friezes of warriors and various deities seated with their legs crossed.
Gallic sculpture showed the influence not only of Roman sculpture, but also of Hellenic sculpture, from workshops in central Italy. One characteristic example is the statue of Medea in the Museum of Arles, from the 1st century.Georges and Daval, Jean-Luc, La Sculpture de l'Antiquité au XXe Siècle (2013), p. 220
The invasion of Roman Gaul by the Burgundians, Celtes, Visigoths slowed the development of sculpture beyond traditional decorative designs. The age of Charlemagne restored a certain prestige to the arts, but the sculpture was not original or skilled, and after the death of Charlemagne little important sculpture appeared until the reign of the Capetian dynasty (987–1328)
The earliest sculptural decorations on altars and the interior surfaces of churches, on lintels, over doorways and particularly on the capitals of columns, which were commonly adorned with images of biblical figures and real or mythical animals. Most of the work was almost flat with little attempt at realism. Some of the earliest Romanesque sculpture in France is found at Saint-Génis-des-Fontaines Abbey (1019–1020) in the eastern Pyrenees. A lintel over a doorway portrays Christ on a throne, in a frame supported by two angels, and flanked by the apostles, The forms of the apostles are defined by the shapes of the arches into which they are squeezed. This "Christ in Majesty" design over the central doorway became a common feature for churches and Cathedrals across France in the Romanesqua dn Gothic period.
In the later Romanesque period, sculpture was often used to at the most important points, such as the facades, to emphasize the lines of the structure. It often used geometric designs (circles, squares, triangles). Spaces were crowded with figures, which were often contorted so they seemed to be dancing. The sculpture was most profuse on the capitals of columns and on the portals, where it was used to present very complex and extended biblical stories. Sculptors also depicted a large number of animals, both real and imaginary, including chimeras, sirens, lions, and a wide range of monsters. Imagination usually prevailed over realism.
The southwest of France, around Toulouse, had a particular style, more vivid and active than the north. A remarkable group of Romanesque sculpture is found in the decoration of the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse in Toulouse, dating to the late 11th and early 12th century. The figures are much more realistic, and make skillful use of shadows and light to bring out the details. One of the most distinctive works is the altar table, signed by its sculptor, Bernardus Geldvinus. He also made the seven sculptural reliefs found in the ambulatory of the cathedral.
Other remarkable examples of Romaesque sculpture are found on the tympanum and the capitals of the columns of the cloister of Moissac Abbey in Mossac, Tarne-et-Garonne, and the columns of the abbey church of Saint-Marie in Souillac in the Lot Department. Sculptors in Burgundy also produced distinctive works for the decoration of the churches there, particularly for Saint-Philibert de Tournus Abbey (about 1100). The Typanum of Vézelay Abbey, a pilgrimage church dedicated by the Pope in 1132, shows the state of the art of Romanessque sculpture at the end of the Romanesque and beginning of the Gothic period.
The first major French sculptor of the Renaissance was Jean Goujon (1510–1565), also a noted graphic illustrator, whose work in bas-relief perfectly captured and refined the Italian style. He arrived in Paris in 1544 and worked closely with the architect Pierre Lescot on the decoration of the Louvre, the Fontaine des Innocents, several figures for the facade of the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, and a group of bas reliefs of the Four Seasons, made for the courtyard façade of the hôtel of Jacques de Ligeris, now in the Musee Carnavalet in Paris. Goujon was a Protestant, and in 1562, when the French Wars of Religion began, he left France for Italy, where he is believed to have died in 1563.
Other notable sculptors of the French Renaissance included Pierre Bontemps (1505–1568), collaborator with architect Philibert Delorme. He was the principal creator of the sculpture of the tomb of Francis I, which displayed his precise knowledge of anatomy and his ability to vividly portray a multitude of battles, scenes and personalities, in fifty-four separate bas-reliefs around the base of the tomb.
Germain Pilon (1535–1590) was another major figure. He was a pupil of Bontemps, a fierce proponent of the Catholic side in the Wars of Religion and Counter-Reform. He was also an excellent portraitist and student of anatomy and detail. His major works included a monument for the heart of Henry II, based on a drawing of Francesco Primaticcio, the tombs of Henry II and Catherine de Medicis, and a variety of other religious works.
French sculpture at the end of the 16th century was based largely on ancient Roman models. Bartélémy Prieur was a student of Pilon and royal sculptor of Henry IV, and Jacques Sarrazin was court sculptor for Louis XIII. They studied in Rome and copied Roman models. The two brothers François Angiers and Michel Angiers were also longtime students in Rome. Their work was highly refined and came close to perfection in execution, but lacked originality, emotion or drama. The major stylistic innovation in French sculpture was the introduction of the equestrian statue of the King on horseback, designed for placement in central city squares. The first example was the bronze equestrian statue of Henry IV, with the horse by Jean de Boulougne, a French sculptor employed in Florence by the Medicis, and the King by Ferdinando Tacca, his student. The statue was destroyed during the French Revolution.Jeancolas, Sculpture Française (1992), pg. 7
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
File:Basilica di saint Denis urna di francesco I.JPG|Funeral urn for the heart of Francis I, by Pierre Bontemps Basilica of Saint Denis
File:Tombeau de Charles de Maigny (Louvre MR1729).jpg|Figure from the tomb of Charles de Maigny by Pierre Bontemps, The Louvre
File:Monument du coeur d'Henri II.jpg|Monument containing the heart of Henry II of France by Germain Pilon
File:Henri II et Catherine de Médicis.JPG|Tomb of Henry II of France and Catherine de Medicis, at the Basilica of Saint-Denis, by Germain Pilon
File:Augustins - Dame Tholose - 1550 - Jean Rancy.jpg| Lady Tholose by Jean Rancy, is a bronze designed to be an allegory of the city of Toulouse (1550).
The major sculptors who decorated the gardens included François Girardon (1628-1715), Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720) and Jean-Baptiste Tuby (1635-1700). Coyseyvox, besides making fountains, produced very fine portrait busts of the King and his chief ministers. He also created sculptures portraying members of the Court or nobility in mythological costume, such as Duchesse of Burgundy represented as the Goddess of the hunt, Diane. Nearly all the major sculptors of the period, including Coysevox, Girardon, Jean-Louis Lemoyne (1665-1755), and Edmé Bouchardon (1698-1762) also made monumental equestrian statues of the King for royal squares in the large cities, including Place Vendôme and Place des Victoires in Paris.
In the later years of the reign of Louis XIV, wars drained the treasury and large sculptural commissions became scarce. The King turned his attention to the decoration of his Château de Marly, built as a quieter retreat from Versailles. Statues there included works by Coysevox and his students, including Nicolas Coustou and, shortly after his reign, a famous pair of horses by Guillaume Coustou (1739–45), whose replicas now decorate the beginning of the Champs-Elysees.
Other sculptors of note during the period include Pierre Puget, from Marseille, one finest sculptors of the French Baroque style. He had studied and worked in Rome, and his works displayed movement and strong emotion, and used the figure serpentine, the upward spiral arrangement which suggested movement and lightness, which was characteristic of Italian Baroque sculpture. Seome examples, including Perseus and Andromeda 1684) and Milo of Crotone (1682) were placed in Gardens of Versailles, and are now in the Louvre.Lagrange, Léon, Pierre Puget - Peintre - Sculpteur - Décorateur de Vaisseaux Didier et Cie, Paris (1868) (in French)
Portrait busts became extremely popular. Jean-Antoine Houdon (1714-1785) was a student of Pigalle, and specialized in busts, traveling throughout Europe and to the United States, where he made accurate busts of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. He measured the faces of his subjects for accuracy, particularly working on the details of the eyes to assure realism and a vivid expression. Augustin Pajou made five different busts of Madame Du Barry,Jeancolas, Sculpture Française (1992), pg. 10-11
The reign of Louis XV and the patronage of Madame de Pompadour brought a turn toward neoclassicism. Major royal commissions usually went to the two established official royal sculptors, Jean-Louis Lemoyne (1665-1755), and his son, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, who was one of the finest portraitists of the period, and to Augustin Pajou, but Madame Pompadour gave commissions to a new generation of sculptors, including Étienne Maurice Falconet and Jacques Caffieri. Falconet achieved international renown; he was invited by the Russian Empress, Catherine the Great, to make a monumental statue of Peter the Great on horseback, known as The Bronze Horseman, and to Prussia to make statuary for the gardens of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci Park in Potsdam.
By the late 18th century, the cliente for sculpture had changed. The rising class of bankers, merchants and other wealthy professionals sought sculpture for their homes. Sculptors worked in a variety of mediums, including glazed porcelain from the Sevres Manufactory, which could be made in a series, and made smaller-scale bronze pieces in multiple castings. Major sculptors, including Pigalle and Falconet, made series castings for the Sevres manufactory. The theatrical rococo style was common and the themes of the small works were usually pastoral, romantic and mythological scenes, with cupids, shepherdesses and satyrs, often exuding charm and mild sensuality. Claude Michel, also known as Clodion, was a master of this genre, working mostly in terra-cotta. He composed numerous sculptures of intertwined nymphs, satyrs, and bacchantes in terra-cotta.Duby, Georges and Daval, Jean-Luc, La Sculpture de l'Antiquité au XXe Siècle, (2013) pp. 821-22
The French Revolution led to the destruction of sculpture on a large scale; the equestrian statues of the Kings and the sculpted facades of Gothic Cathedrals were pulled down or defaced. A few sculptors appeared during the reign of Napoleon, including Chinaud, Chaudet, and Cartellier, but their work was entirely overshadowed by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova in the same period. Napoleon invited Canova to Paris, where Canova made a semi-nude statue of the Emperor as Mars, but he soon returned to Rome and a more appreciative audience
The sculptor Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) occupied a unique place in 19th century sculpture, with a series of sculptures of portraits of members of the French Parliament that mercilessly caricatured and satirized them.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1865) was the most eminent French sculptor during the reign of Napoleon III, capturing the spirit of the Second Empire. He studied first with Rude, where he learned precision and naturalism, then, at Rude's suggestion, in the more traditional Academy, where he was a student of Barye, he learned the Renaissance style of Michelangelo and won the Prix de Rome. His statue Ugolin, the thinker caused a scandal, which made him famous. With his friend architect Charles Garnier, he made his most famous work of sculptural decoration of the facade of the Opera Garnier in Paris, The Genius of the Dance, full of passion and energy, which shocked more conservative Parisians. He also made a celebrated work of Flore for the facade of the Louvre, and the statuary for the Fontaine de l'Observatoire, to the south of the Luxembourg Gardens.
Jules Dalou (1838-1902) a pupil of Carpeaux, followed him as an important monumental sculptor, Triumph of the Republic, (1889) marking the centenary of the French Revolution, in the Place de la Nation.
Edgar Degas used sculpture as a tool for his painting. When he died some one hundred fifty terra cotta and wax sculptures of dancers, women at their dressing table, and other subjects were found in his studio. He apparently used these sculptures and models, to study the effects of light. His sculptures, often delicately colored and with fabric skirts, captured grace, movement, and character of the dancers as finely as his paintings.Jeancolas, Sculpture Française (1992), pg.13
The most famous French sculptor of the 19th century, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), wished to be a pupil of Carpeaux, but did not succeed, though he later borrowed one of Carpeaux's subjects, Ugolin, the Thinker. He did become a student of Barye, who was his drawing instructor. His extraordinary abilities of careful observation combined with an ability use light, and to express emotions, very quickly made him famous, though it also quickly brought him criticism. all his major public works were attacked. His most famous works included The Thinker, The Burghers of Calais, and Balzac. By the time of the 1900 Paris Exposition, he had so many commands that he served principally as a modeler, employing a large studio of assistants to actually make the statues. He conceived his famous statue, The Thinker, in 1881-1882, and displayed a full-size model in 1904 at the Salon des Beaux-Arts. Twenty-eight castings of the statue were eventually made. Toward the end of his life, he made an even more influential work, a sculptural portrait of Honoré de Balzac. Rodin was selected for the commission by the writer Emile Zola Rodin experimented with many different versions costumes and poses, beginning in 1891, and finally decided to portray not the physical appearance, but the sprit and thoughts of Balzac, through an exaggeration of his features. The work caused a scandal when it was presented in 1898, and it was rejected by the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts. A subscription covered the cost of the model, which was put up on Avenue Friedland in 1902. Rodin never saw the final bronze version, which was placed at the intersection of Avenues Raspail and Montparnasse in 1939.Duby, Georges and Daval, Jean-Luc, La Sculpture de l'Antiquité au XXe Siècle, pp. 944-946
The students of Rodin modified and created new variations, many expressing the sense of movement, speed and change felt at the end of the century. These sculptors included Rodin's student and lover Camille Claudel (1864-1943).
François Pompon, who had worked in the studio of Rodin, inherited the role of animal sculptor that Bayre had occupied, though unlike Bayrle he had no interest in realism. He simplified and purified the forms, seeking just the essence of the animal.
Many of the major modernist painters of the early 20th century also experimented with sculpture; these included Henri Matisse, André Derain, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, and others. They had no formal training or experience as sculptors, and followed none of the traditional rules, with greater or lesser success.
The use of new and unusual materials was a common feature in much 20th century sculpture. Henri-Georges Adam made very large abstract works of concrete, such as his 22-meter long Signal at the Museum of Fine Arts in Le Havre.Duby, Georges and Daval, Jean-Luc, La Sculpture de l'Antiquité au XXe Siècle (2013), p. 1046
The most celebrated and controversial work in the 20th century was probably Fountain a work entered into the 1917 Exhibition of Independent Artists in New York by French artist Marcel Duchamp. It was an ordinary urinal purchased by DuChamp, and proposed by DuChamp as a work of art. It was reluctantly accepted by the show organizers, since any sculptor who paid the fee could show his work, but it was never put on display, and created an enormous scandal in the art world, as Duchamp intended.
Gaston Lachaise also seemed to mock the traditions of classical sculpture, by his inflated nudes.Jeancolas, Sculpture Française (1992), pg.11-14
César Baldaccini (1921-1998) was a notable figure of French sculpture in the second half of the 20th century. César was at the forefront of the Nouveau Réalisme movement with his radical compressions (compacted automobiles, discarded metal, or rubbish), expansions (polyurethane foam sculptures), and fantastic representations of animals and insects.
Other prominent sculptors who worked in Paris in the 20th century included the Romanian Constantin Brâncuși, the Italian Amedeo Modigliani, Jean Arp, the Swiss Jean Tinguily, and Niki de Saint Phalle,
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