COMMUNICATION DE JO AN EVANS

Foreign critics, mindful of their debt to the décorative art of France, are apt to describe it as symmetrical, classical, garlanded with acanthus and olive rather than with the flowers of the field. No one, French or foreign bom, can permit himself to forget the classical architectural éléments of french décoration : but in the crannies of the architecture flourish many brilliant flowers. The crochets of gothic stone-work — le style français — are wreathed with the bryony and brambles of the Ile-de-France ; the illuminated borders of french and flemish manuscripts of the late xv‘i» century glow with roses and carnations, pansies, columbines, strawberries and vetch. Such décoration, like the flowers that adomed it, was indigenous. The Renaissance on the other hand taught new rhythms to the vemacxilar of art, and the patterns of detail which the engravers of the early sixteenth century drew for their fellowcraftsmen show a change. The german “ Little Masters ” held the field of omament, and though their scrolls and arabesques might foUow the curves of natural growth, natural flowers themselves are hardly to be found.

In one province of décoration alone did they linger ; in the

712 ACTES DU CONGRÈS D’HISTOIRE DE l’ART

field of symbolic omament. Symbolism that is based on an established System of religions belief is apt to find expression in a formai treatment of figure subjects. But symbolism that is not connected with such a System finds its sphere in the kingdom of inanimate nature and a naturalistic mode of expression foUows. The marvellously elaborate mediæval System of Christian symbolism— perhaps the finest expression that weknow of the structural architecture of France in the realm of the spirit — had reached the point of disintegration by the beginning of the sixteenth century ; the desire that beautiful forms should hold some content of hidden meaning none the less remained. Personal de vices, emblems and imprese fulfilled the need, and in these the naturalism that no longer dominated other fields of décoration continued to rule. Devices which had been conventionalized in the great âge of symbolism were treated naturally, and a symbolic meaning was rediscovered for the charges of heraldry in their naturalistic forms.

This clearly appears in such works as the minature case with the lilies of France and the roses of England, inscribed Grâce dedans le lys ha now in the Louvre.

The same spirit gradually invaded the province of conventional omament. The engravers, who by their pattern-books influenced the design of ail the minor arts, allowed their scroUing patterns to burst into bud and blossom. The arabesques which the craftsmen of the Renaissance had inherited from the metalworkers of the East gradually developped into conventional foliation. In France there was thus originated the genre cosse de pois, or pea pod style, in its two foims — the one symmetrical and clear eut, such as can be found in the patterns of Le Mersier published in 1626 and in some of the work of Toutin of Chateaudun — and one of more flowing outline and freer form, such as occurs in the patterns of Pierre Firens. The other great décorative style of the middle years of the Renaissance — foliated scrolls — underwent a similar transformation. In the patterns of Daniel Mignot, a Frenchman who

worked at Augsburg from 1590 to 1616, design that though conventional is definitely floral, reappears. It was effectively treated in the chased and enamelled frets used for the backs of watcbes and miniatures about 1605.

In the meantime men were leaming to examine the beauties of flowers with a new curiosity. The fashion for emblematic needlework had caused the embroiderers to study their models with fresh attention. An intelligent gardener, Jean Robin, set himself to meet the demand by opening a garden with hot-houses where rare plants could be cultivated to serve as models. His scheme met with great success ; in a few year Henry IV bought the establishment and as the Jardin du Roi (after 1626 the Jardin des Plantes) it continued to be a focus of interest in rare and beautiful blossoms. Two other developments of french social life had also a marked influence upon the taste for flowers — first, the building of country houçes surrounded by spacious gardens, and second, the re-establishment of trade with the Levant, which led to the importation of many plants from the East. The Crown Impérial and the Fritillary, then called the guineahen flower or chequered daffodil, were introduced into Europe in the sixteenth century : and Gesner saw the first tulip in flower in Councillor John Henry Herwarts garden at Augsburg in 1559, and published the first picture of it in 1561. It is not till 1611 that the first tulips are recorded to hâve flowered in France, in the garden of Fabri de Peiresc conseiller du Parlement de Provence. By 1634 the mania for cultivating tulips had reached such a height that at Haarlem merchants gave up their business to devote their whole time to them and were willing to exchange lands and treasures for a new bulb. You will remember La Bruyère ’s description of the man who has adopted tulip growing as his hobby ^ ;

Le fleuriste a un jardin dans un faubourg ; il y court au lever du soleil, et il en revient à son coucher. Vous le voyez planté, et qui a pris racine