Jean Perréal, also called Jean de Paris, French painter, architect, and sculptor. He was the most important portraitGLOSSARYThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). painter in France at the beginning of the 16th century.
Perréal was a court painter to the Bourbons and later worked for Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I of France. He traveled to Italy several times between 1492 and 1530 and in 1514 visited London, where he painted a portrait of the princess Mary TudorGLOSSARYAn obscure Welsh family, first recorded in 1232, that seized the English throne in 1485 by defeating the Yorkist king Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Lancastrian Henry VII was its first crowned representative, marrying Richard's niece Elizabeth of York and thus symbolically ending the dynastic wars of the Roses. The Tudor dynasty lasted until 1603 (death of Elizabeth I). Tudor is also the name of a transitional Late Gothic building style during the reigns of the two Henrys. It incorporates Renaissance features.. Perréal designed tombs, medalsGLOSSARYThe medal came to artistic maturity within a remarkably short time of its introduction in 15th century Italy. This was partly because ancient Roman coins, which were beginning to be reverently collected, suggested (on a smaller scale) its form: profile portrait bust on the obverse, a different design on the reverse, an inscription running round the rim. Like the finest Imperial coins, the medal's purpose was commemorative. Without monetary value, and of non-precious metal (bronze or lead), it was a way of circulating a likeness to a chosen few; it anticipated the use of miniatures and was indeed frequently worn round the neck. And while the reverse could record a historical event or make a propaganda point related to its subject's career, more commonly it bore a design that purported to convey the 'essence', as it were, of the person portrayed on the other side. Given the admiration for the men and artefacts of ancient Rome, the stress on individual character, the desire for fame and the penchant for summing up temperament in symbols and images, it is easy to understand how quickly the fashion for commissioning medals spread. Its pioneer executant was Pisanello. The precedents before he began to cast medals in 1438-39 had been few and excessively coin-like. Within 10 years he had established the form the medal was to retain until the influence was registered of the reverseless, hollow-cast and wafer-thin medals of the 1560s and 70s made by Bombarda (Andrea Cambi). Pisanello's approach was first echoed by the Veronese Matteo de' Pasti (d. 1467-688). It was, perhaps oddly, not until the works from 1485 of Niccolò Fiorentino (Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli, 1430-1514) that Florence produced a medallist of the highest calibre. Other specialists in the medium included Sperandio (Sperandio Savelli, c. 1425-1504), L'Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, c. 1460-1528), Caradosso (Cristoforo Caradosso Foppa, 1452-1526/27). The work of these men, and of the many, often anonymous, who reflected them, is still coveted because it avoided the two medallistic errors: making a medal look like either an enlarged piece of money or a small sculptured plaque., and public ceremonials. A painting of Charles VIII of France and a miniature, Pierre Sala, are probably the most important works now attributed to him. Perréal was a superb craftsman who in his portraits grafted a French elegance of design and presentation onto conventional Flemish realismGLOSSARYRealism (with an upper case "R"), also known as the Realist school, denotes a mid-nineteenth century art movement and style in which artists discarded the formulas of Neoclassicism and the theatrical drama of Romanticism to paint familiar scenes and events as they actually looked. Typically it involved some sort of sociopolitical or moral message, in the depiction of ugly or commonplace subjects. One of the main representatives and spokesmen was the painter Gustave Courbet. In the dispute about ways to represent reality, Realism rebelled against the idealistic and classicist tendencies in painting..
He was an accomplished designer of tombs, medals, theater scenery and ceremonies, including the marriage of King Louis XII and his second wife Mary Tudor. Working in a glazed paint pigmentGLOSSARYcoloured powder mixed with binding agents such as oil, glue, or resin to make paint. on glass, he also crafted a unique portrait of Louis XII, entitled Louis XII of France in Prayer (Walters Art Museum). As a sculptural designer, Perréal sketched the design for the tomb of Francis II, Duke of Brittany, which was executed by the French sculptor Michel Colombe, and is now in the cathedralGLOSSARYThe principal church of a province or diocese, where the throne of the bishop is placed. For reasons lost to time and tradition, a cathedral always faces west - toward the setting sun. The altar is placed at the east end. The main body, or nave, of the cathedral is usually divided into one main and two side aisles. These lead up to the north and south transepts, or arms of the cross, the shape in which a cathedral is usually formed. of Nantes.
