World Travel Guide Search for a City   Destination Guides > Europe & Russia > Europe > France France •  France •  Where To Go And When •  Getting There •  Red Tape And Visas •  Costs, Money And Banks •  Health And Insurance •  Disabled Visitors •  The People •  Getting Around •  Eating And Drinking •  Communications And The Media •  Music, Cinema, Theater And Dance •  Trouble And The Police •  Gay And Lesbian France •  Work And Study •  History •  Language •  Best Of •  Information And Maps •  Opening Hours And Public Holidays •  Festivals •  Sport And Outdoor Activities •  Directory •  Books •  Art •  Architecture •  Explore France FRANCE - ART France    view all cities Top travel cities in France •  Aix-en-Provence •  Angers •  Avignon •  Dijon •  Lille •  Lyon •  Marseille •  Nice •  Paris •  Strasbourg •  Toulouse •  Tours From the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, France has held - with occasional gaps - a leading position in the history of European painting, with Paris, above all, attracting artists from the whole continent. The story of French painting is one of richness and complexity, partly due to this influx of foreign painters and partly due to the capital's stability as an artistic center.   Beginnings In the late Middle Ages, the itinerant life of the nobles led them to prefer small and transportable works of art; splendidly illuminated manuscripts were much praised and the best painters, usually trained in Paris, continued to work on a... read more >> Mannerism and Italian influence At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the French invasion of Italy brought both artists and patrons into closer contact with the Italian Renaissance. The most famous of the artists who were lured to France was ... read more >> The seventeenth century In the seventeenth century , Italy continued to be a source of inspiration for French artists, most of whom were drawn to Rome - at that time the most exciting artistic centre in Europe. There, two Italian artists, especially, dominated the... read more >> The early eighteenth century The semi-official art encouraged by the foundation of the Academy became more frivolous and light-hearted in the eighteenth century . The court at Versailles lost its attractions, and many patrons now were to be found among the hedonistic... read more >> Neoclassicism This new seriousness became more severe with the rise of Neoclassicism , a movement for which purity and simplicity were essential components of the systematic depiction of edifying stories from the classical authors. Roman history and legends... read more >> Romanticism Completely opposed to the stress on drawing advocated by Ingres, two artists created, through their emphasis on colour, form and composition, pictures that look forward to the later part of the nineteenth century and the Impressionists. Théodore... read more >> The nineteenth century Some painters of the first part of the nineteenth century were fascinated by other themes. Nature, in its true state, unadorned by conventions, became a subject for study, and running parallel to this was the realization that painting could be... read more >> Impressionism Like Courbet, Edouard Manet (1832-83) was strongly influenced by Spanish painters, whose works had become more easily accessible to artists when a large collection belonging to the Orléans family was confiscated by the state in 1848. Unlike... read more >> Post-Impressionism Though a rather vague term, as it's difficult to date exactly when the backlash against Impressionism took place, Post-Impressionism represents in many ways a return to more formal concepts of painting - in composition, in attitudes to... read more >> The twentieth century The twentieth century kicked off to a colourful start with the Fauvist exhibition of 1905, an appropriately anarchic beginning to a century which, in France above all, was to see radical changes in attitudes towards painting. ... read more >>