Marion Boudon-Machuel, Pascale Charron
University of Tours — Centre des Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, France
Many researches have recently reconsidered Renaissance French Art. A general methodological tendency has quickly emerged. It is aimed to focus on the concept of “foyer”, i.e. artistic centers and their particularities (Troyes, Nancy, Lyon). On that direction, an exhibition and a symposium Tours 1500, that took place in 2012 (Tours, CESR), reconsidered art in the Loire Valley, birthplace of the French Renaissance, and defined new problems.
At the very beginning of the 16th century, Loire Valley was a French royal court residence and then a center of high level artistic production (painting, sculpture, jewelry, tapestry, illuminated manuscripts). Around 1900, the young discipline of art history focused on this “regional school of artistic production” and defined specific ways for studying it. Such fundamental studies as that of Paul Vitry on Michel Colombe (Paris, 1901), and the 1904 exhibition on French Primitives, as well as many subsequent studies determined two main prospects for study: firstly, monographic analysis of the works of important artists such as Jean Fouquet, Michel Colombe or Jean Bourdichon; secondly, the definition of notions like “school of Loire Valley” or “art de la détente”. Recent historiography has reconsidered the subject and proposed new lines of reflexion. The more dynamic and opened notion of “foyer” has replaced the notion of “regional artistic school” and the anonymous corpus or those of the major Masters have been reevaluated (Michel Colombe, Jean Poyer, Master of Claude of France — Eloi
Tassart?).
The Centre des Études Supérieures de la Renaissance is an actual actor of this revival through two programs of research. ARVIVA inventories, analyses and evaluates figurative arts in the Loire Valley in a large period from 1470 to 1600. Sculpture 3D proposes to reconsider key masterpieces with the help of augmented reality in order to place new digital tools in service of scientific analysis. The first results of these programs are manifold. The enlarged period of study allows us to better understand the evolution of the artistic production. Moreover, deeper archival researches reveal relationship of artists and patrons, and draw interactive social network in Tours around 1500.
In this respect, the paper focuses on particular examples: Tours as capital of luxury, parishes as the center of microhistory of the social network, and recently discovered works of art and masterpieces lately reconsidered.