Fontainebleau: The Changing Image of Kingship

When Francis I decided to convert the royal hunting lodge at Fontainebleau into a sumptuous palace, he invited artists such as Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio to France to decorate it. These two were among the greatest Italian Mannerists of the time. Mannerism was a self-consciously artificial, `mannered' style that placed the importance of subjective inner vision above the authority of classicism or naturalism. The influence of the Mannerist style - particularly on the stucco reliefs and mural paintings in the Galerie François II, the rooms of Madame d'Etampes, and the ballroom built later by Henry II - spread throughout northern Europe. And as court life changed under Francis I and his successors, the palace's architecture evolved with it.

© 1998-2008 The Roland Collection & Pira Intl.