DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0097
THE ARTISTS OF THE RENAISSANCE
67
times, his “gisant”, or naked figure, to show him in death
as the upper figure shows him in life. Margaret’s tomb is
smaller, but no less regal. Above, she lies with queenly
robe and diadem; below, with the face of a statesman,
masculine, almost rugged—her figure covered from head to
foot by the glory of her hair; and her resting-place is
crowned by a canopy of richly wrought niches, each of
them filled by courtly saints or long-haired Virgins,
who seem, like maids of honour, to wait for her last
waking.
The work was finished in 1471, when Michel Colombo
must have been near eighty; it was his last creation—the
last creation also of the earlier and purer Renaissance. Rich
yet austere, simple yet fantastic, it stands as an epitome
of contemporary sculpture, and as such it is fitting to be
dwelt upon.
There were other big sculptors at Tours beside Michel
Colombe and his School. Jean Juste and his son were
famous enough in their day. Jean made the poetic tomb
of Charles VIII’s boy and girl in the Cathedral of Tours;
and that of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne, which were
carried to Saint Denis: works more naif, perhaps more
touching, than those of Michel Colombe, but not so typical
of the full splendoui’ of the Renaissance.
Of the painters of this period we know little more than
of the sculptors. Tours, the town of spires, the city of
St. Martin and the Painters, “the heart of the garden of
France” (as Rabelais called Touraine), was in these earlier
days the centre of art. It was also the place of royal
residence, and its glory only waned when, later in his reign,
67
times, his “gisant”, or naked figure, to show him in death
as the upper figure shows him in life. Margaret’s tomb is
smaller, but no less regal. Above, she lies with queenly
robe and diadem; below, with the face of a statesman,
masculine, almost rugged—her figure covered from head to
foot by the glory of her hair; and her resting-place is
crowned by a canopy of richly wrought niches, each of
them filled by courtly saints or long-haired Virgins,
who seem, like maids of honour, to wait for her last
waking.
The work was finished in 1471, when Michel Colombo
must have been near eighty; it was his last creation—the
last creation also of the earlier and purer Renaissance. Rich
yet austere, simple yet fantastic, it stands as an epitome
of contemporary sculpture, and as such it is fitting to be
dwelt upon.
There were other big sculptors at Tours beside Michel
Colombe and his School. Jean Juste and his son were
famous enough in their day. Jean made the poetic tomb
of Charles VIII’s boy and girl in the Cathedral of Tours;
and that of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne, which were
carried to Saint Denis: works more naif, perhaps more
touching, than those of Michel Colombe, but not so typical
of the full splendoui’ of the Renaissance.
Of the painters of this period we know little more than
of the sculptors. Tours, the town of spires, the city of
St. Martin and the Painters, “the heart of the garden of
France” (as Rabelais called Touraine), was in these earlier
days the centre of art. It was also the place of royal
residence, and its glory only waned when, later in his reign,