Support for the Arts: There is a great deal of support for the arts in France at the state and municipal levels. The French Ministry of Culture funds artists as well as restoration projects and museums.
Literature: Oral traditions and folktales predominated in pre modern France. Up until the mid twentieth century, rural communities held veillees, in which neighbors gathered in someone's home around the hearth to trade stories and tales. French written literature is considered one of the greatest world traditions. The first works of literature in French were the Chansons de Geste of the eleventh century, a series of epic poems. During the Renaissance, France's great national literature flourished with works by François Rabelais, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, and Pierre de Ronsard. Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu and Jean Jacques Rousseau helped to shape a national consciousness during this time. Nineteenth century writers took up themes of struggles between social classes, clerical and anticlerical forces, and conservatives and liberals. They also developed a form of realist writing that charted the various regional differences, and urban rural splits, in France. Francois Auguste Rene de Chateaubriand, Madame de Stael, Stendhal, Honorede Balzac, and Gustave Flaubert were the great novelists of this period. Poets included Charles Pierre Baudelaire, Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat Lamartine, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, and Stephane Mallarme. Earlier twentieth century writers include Marcel Proust, Anatole France, Jules Romains, Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, Louis Ferdinand Celine and Andre Georges Malraux. French existentialism during the postwar period is associated with writers Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. The so called new novel came to the fore in the 1950s and its representatives include Nathalie Sarraute and Alain Robbe Grillet.
France gives several literary prizes each year. These include the Goncourt, the Medicis, and the Femina.
Graphic Arts: France's most important graphic art forms are painting and architecture. The prehistory of French art is also important, including the famous cave paintings in southwestern France. The nineteenth century period of Romanticism in painting is associated with Eugène Delacroix and Jean Auguste Ingres. Paintings of peasant life flourished during this century, particularly in the work of Jean Courbet and Jean François Millet. Impressionism, in which color and light became important, is associated with Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas and Morissette. Postimpressionism followed later in the century, with works by Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, and Pierre Bonnard. Great twentieth century painters include Georges Braque, and Jean Dubuffet. The most famous French sculptor is Auguste Rodin.
Performance Arts: Theater and dance have a strong tradition in France, both in the classical sense and in the realm of folklife. As in most of France's cultural life, Paris dominates the grand traditions of theater. France's great dramatists include Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Alexandre Dumas pere and fils and Jean Genet. The Comédie Française in Paris still presents the classic works of Molière and Racine. Opera is also popular in France, cutting across social class. Street theater and regional theatrical productions flourish in the provinces. The city of Toulouse is particularly well known for its performance arts. French cinema is subsidized more highly by the state than other European movie industries, and the French have access to more nationally produced films than their neighbors. Many French cities hold movie festivals during the year, the most famous being that in Cannes in early summer.
Comments
Post a Comment