The works of French playwrights have enjoyed international acclaim for centuries, from the 17th-century comic theatre of Molière to the 19th-century cabaret productions known as Grand Guignol. In theatre in the 20th and 21st centuries three important currents can be discerned. Traditional playwriting was carried on largely by Jean Anouilh, Claudel, Jean Giraudoux, Henry de Montherlant, and Camus, but experimentation with both form and content also developed. Before World War II, Jean Cocteau in particular made his mark (as did to a lesser degree Claudel), but innovation came with Fernando Arrabal, Arthur Adamov, Beckett, Jean Genet, and the Romanian exile Eugène Ionesco. Since the 1950s producers have also made an important contribution to theatre; Roger Planchon, Jean-Louis Barrault, Peter Brook, Marcel Maréchal, and Ariane Mnouchkine in particular have shared in both creating new works and revitalizing traditional ones.
Philosophy and criticism have always played a central part in French intellectual and cultural life. The Surrealist movement, led by André Breton, among others, flourished in the 1920s and ’30s. Existentialism in both Christian and atheist forms was a powerful force in the mid-20th century and was championed by Sartre, Étienne Gilson, Gabriel Marcel, and Camus (though he rejected the label). More broadly, Roman Catholicism and Marxism in orthodox or revised forms have influenced a large number of creative writers, including the Roman Catholic Georges Bernanos and Sartre, who was a Marxist of a sort. Since the 1950s, new criticism, which began with structuralism—itself largely inspired by the anthropological work of Claude Lévi-Strauss in Mythologiques, 4 vol. (1964–71), and Tristes Tropiques (1955)—has challenged the monopoly of the historical approach to works of art and especially literature. Not limited to literary criticism, structuralism was an important component of philosophy among proponents such as Louis Althusser. The most popular expression of this approach was perhaps the work of Roland Barthes, including Mythologies (1957), but his work fragmented into various branches—linguistic, genetic, psychobiographical, sociocultural—each with its exponents and disciples increasingly embroiled in academic, and often abstruse, debate. Following on the heels of structuralism, poststructuralism was associated with such figures as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Giles Deleuze, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Jean-François Lyotard. Other philosophers of recent note include André Glucksmann, Bernard Henri-Lévy, and Michel Serres. (For further discussion, see French literature.) The fine arts
French traditions in the fine arts are deep and rich, and painting, sculpture, music, dance, architecture, photography, and film all flourish under state support. Painting and sculpture
In painting there was a long tradition from the Middle Ages and Renaissance that, while perhaps not matching those of Italy or the Low Countries, produced a number of religious subjects and court portraits. By the 17th century, paintings of peasants by Louis Le Nain, of allegories and Classical myths by Nicolas Poussin, and of formally pastoral scenes by Claude Lorrain began to give French art its own characteristics.
Within the next hundred years, styles became even more wide-ranging: mildly erotic works by François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard; enigmatic scenes such as Pierrot, or Gilles (c. 1718–19), by Antoine Watteau; interiors by Jean-Siméon Chardin that were often tinged with violence, as in La Raie (c. 1725–26; “The Ray”); emotive portraits by Jean-Baptiste Greuze; and rigorous Neoclassical works by Jacques-Louis David.
Much as the Académie Franƈaise regulated literature, painting up to this time was subject to rules and conventions established by the Academy of Fine Arts. In the 19th century some artists, notably J.-A.-D. Ingres, followed these rules. Others reacted against academic conventions, making Paris, as the century progressed, a centre of the Western avant-garde. Beginning in the 1820s, the bold eroticism and “Orientalism” of the works of Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix angered the academy, while at midcentury the gritty Realism of the art of Gustave Courbet and Honoré Daumier was viewed as scandalous.
Perhaps the greatest break from academic conventions came about through the Impressionists, who, inspired in part by the daring work of Édouard Manet, brought on a revolution in painting beginning in the late 1860s. Some artists from this movement whose work became internationally celebrated include Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Edgar Degas. Important Post-Impressionists include Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Georges Seurat.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste: Dance at Le Moulin de la GaletteDance at Le Moulin de la Galette, oil on canvas by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876; in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.Giraudon/Art Resource, New York
French sculpture progressed from the straight-lined Romanesque style through various periods to reach its height in the work of Auguste Rodin, who was a contemporary of the Impressionists and whose sculpture reflected Impressionist principles. Another from this time, Aristide Maillol, produced figures in a more Classical style.
Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential forces in 20th-century art, was born in Spain but spent most of his artistic life in France. His oeuvre encompasses several genres, including sculpture, but he is best known for the Cubist paintings he created together with French artist Georges Braque at the beginning of the century. One of Picasso’s greatest rivals was French painter Henri Matisse, whose lyrical work, like Picasso’s, spanned the first half of the century. In the period between the World Wars, Paris remained a major centre of avant-garde activity, and branches of prominent international movements such as Dada and Surrealism were active there.
Matisse, Henri: Decorative Figure on an Ornamental BackgroundDecorative Figure on an Ornamental Background, oil painting by Henri Matisse, 1925–26; in the National Museum of Modern Art, Paris.S.P.A.D.E.M., Paris/V.A.G.A., New York City, 1985; photograph, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
By midcentury, however, Paris’s dominance waned, and the focus of contemporary art shifted to New York City. Prominent artists working in France have included Jean Dubuffet, Yves Klein, Swiss-born Jean Tinguely, Hungarian-born Victor Vasarely, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Bulgarian-born Christo, Daniel Buren, and César.
Major art exhibits are held regularly, mainly in Paris, and training for aspiring artists is provided not only at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts (“School of Fine Arts”) in Paris but also at a number of provincial colleges. Courses for art historians and restorators are available at the School of the Louvre. Building on their country’s rich history as a leader in furniture design and cabinetry, French craftsmen of all sorts today study at the National Advanced School of Decorative Arts and other institutions. (For further discussion, see Western painting and Western sculpture.) Music
The growth of classical music parallels that of painting. Despite work from earlier periods by Louis Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Baptiste Lully, for example, French music gained a broad international following only in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Such composers as Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and the Polish-born Frédéric Chopin created a distinctively French style, further developed in the 20th century by composers such as Pierre Boulez, Darius Milhaud, and Erik Satie. In the late 20th century much experimentation occurred with electronic music and acoustics. The Institute for Experimentation and Research in Music and Acoustics (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), in Paris, remains devoted to musical innovation. A new generation of French musicians includes the pianists Hélène Mercier and Brigitte Engerer.