Themes

The themes, people and works running through the visit documents and blog of François Vidit, tourism guide based in Paris.

  • Mythology

    The figures of Greco-Roman mythology — Apollo, Latona, Flora, Perseus… — as staged by the painters and sculptors of the French châteaux.

  • Court painting

    Painting in the service of the French courts, from the School of Fontainebleau to the decors of Versailles and Marly.

  • Christianity

    Founding texts, saints and places of Christianity: the Book of Revelation, the Archangel Michael, Saint Remigius, Saint Ursula…

  • Renaissance

    The Renaissance north and south: the Flemish Primitives of Bruges, Leonardo da Vinci, the School of Fontainebleau.

  • Flemish Primitives

    The masters of fifteenth-century Flemish painting, preserved at Saint John's Hospital in Bruges.

  • Philosophy

    From Plato to Laozi and the scholars of Edo: philosophical texts presented and translated.

  • Neo-Confucianism

    Confucianism rethought in the Edo period, enriched with Buddhist and Taoist elements: the schools of Zhu Xi (shushigaku) and Wang Yangming.

  • French literature

    Fontenelle, Marivaux, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Gautier: pages of French literature presented and translated.

  • French Revolution

    The French Revolution as an event: from the Estates General to the Marseillaise.

  • Japan

    Japan and Franco-Japanese relations: thought, language and history.

  • Ovid

    Ovid, poet of the Metamorphoses and the Fasti — the ancient source of the mythological decors of Versailles and the Loire châteaux.

  • Hans Memling

    Hans Memling, master of the Flemish Primitives, of whom Saint John's Hospital in Bruges holds one of the world's largest collections.

  • Louis XIV

    Louis XIV, the Sun King: Versailles, Marly, the Place Vendôme and the image of the sovereign.

  • René-Antoine Houasse

    René-Antoine Houasse, painter to Louis XIV, author of the mythological canvases of the Grand Trianon.

  • Leonardo da Vinci

    Leonardo da Vinci and the French fortune of his work, from Fontainebleau to the Louvre.

  • Jean Mosnier

    Jean Mosnier, seventeenth-century painter from Blois, decorator of the Château de Cheverny.

  • Plato

    Plato in extracts: the Phaedrus and the Symposium, presented and translated.

  • Saint John the Evangelist

    Saint John the Evangelist — the Gospel, the Book of Revelation and the Bruges triptych.

  • The Golden Legend

    The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, medieval source of the lives of the saints — Ursula, Remigius, Michael.

  • Mona Lisa

    The Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci, as read by Vasari and Gautier.