CULTURE OF FRANCE

The culture of France has been shaped by geography, by historical events, and by

foreign and internal forces and groups. France, and in particular Paris, has played an
important role as a center of high culture since the 17th century and from the 19th
century on, worldwide. From the late 19th century, France has also played an
important role in cinema, fashion, cuisine, literature, technology, the social sciences,
and mathematics. The importance of French culture has waxed and waned over the
centuries, depending on its economic, political and military importance. French
culture today is marked both by great regional and socioeconomic differences and
strong unifying tendencies.

French culture is most commonly associated with Paris, which is a center of fashion, cuisine,
art and architecture, but life outside of the City of Lights is very different and varies by
region.

France doesn't just have culture; the word "culture" is actually French. "'Culture' derives from
the same French term, which in turn derives from the Latin 'colere,' meaning to tend to the
earth and grow, cultivate and nurture," Cristina De Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and
Southgate College in London, told Live Science.

Historically, French culture was influenced by Celtic and Gallo-Roman cultures as well as the
Franks, a Germanic tribe. France was initially defined as the western area of Germany known
as Rhineland but it later came to refer to a territory that was known as Gaul during the Iron
Age and Ancient Roman era.

In the centuries that followed it was the home of some of the most powerful royal families of
the medieval and early modern period and went on to be the center of the Enlightenment with
the French Revolution. The rise of Napoleon saw French influence spread through Europe
and beyond, becoming one of the major world powers through the 19th and 20th centuries, at
the heart of the First and Second World Wars, all of which has shaped the France we know
today
Religions in France
France guarantees freedom of religion as a constitutional right, and the government generally
respects this right in practice. A long history of violent conflict between groups led the state to
break its ties to the established Catholic Church early in the last century, which previously had
been the state religion. The government adopted a strong commitment to maintaining a totally
secular public sector.[7]

Catholicism

Long the established state religion, the Catholic Church has historically played a

significant role in French culture and in French life. Kings were prominent members
as well as head of the state and social order. Most French people are Catholics;
[8]
 however, many of them are secular but still place high value on Catholicism.[9]
The Catholic faith is no longer considered the state religion, as it was before
the 1789 Revolution and throughout the various, non-republican regimes of the 19th
century (the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire). The
institutional split of the Catholic Church and French State ("Séparation de l'Eglise et
de l'Etat") was imposed by the latter in 1905 and represented the crest of a wave of
the laicist and anti-clericalist movement among French Radical Republicans in this
period.
At the beginning of the 20th century, France was a largely rural country with
conservative Catholic mores, but in the hundred years since then, the countryside
has become depopulated as people have become urbanized. The urban populations
have become more secular. A December 2006 poll by Harris Interactive, published
in The Financial Times, found that 32% of the French population described
themselves as agnostic, some 32% as atheist, and only 27% believed in any type of
God or supreme being.[10] according to the French Market research Ipsos, Catholics
today constitute 57.5% of the French population.[11]
Food and alcohol

.
Traditional French culture places a high priority on the enjoyment of food.[29] French cuisine was
codified in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier to become the modern version
of haute cuisine. Escoffier's major work, however, left out much of the regional character to be
found in the provinces of France. Gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to bring people
to the countryside during the 20th century and beyond, to sample this
rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of France. Basque cuisine has also been a great influence
over the cuisine in the southwest of France.
Ingredients and dishes vary by region (see: Regional cuisine). There are many significant
regional dishes that have become both national and regional. Many dishes that were once
regional, however, have proliferated in different variations across the country in the present day.
Cheese (see: List of French cheeses) and wine (see: French wine) are also a major part of the
cuisine, playing different roles both regionally and nationally with their many variations
and Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) (regulated appellation) laws, (lentils from Le Puy-en-
Velay also have an AOC status). Another French product of special note is the Charolais cattle.

The French typically eat only a simple breakfast ("petit déjeuner") which consists of coffee, tea
or hot chocolate with milk, served traditionally in a large handleless "bol" (bowl) and bread or
breakfast pastries (croissants). Lunch ("déjeuner") and dinner ("dîner") are the main meals of the
day. Formal four course meals consist of a starter course ("entrée"), a salad, a main course ("plat
principal"), and finally a cheese or dessert course. While French cuisine is often associated with
rich desserts, in most homes dessert consists of only fruit or yogurt.
Food shopping in France was formerly done almost daily in small local shops and markets, but
the arrival of the supermarket and the even larger "hypermarchés" (large-surface distributors) in
France have disrupted this tradition. With depopulation of the countryside, many towns have
been forced to close shops and markets.

Rates of obesity and heart disease in France have traditionally been lower than in other north-
western European countries. This is sometimes called the French paradox (see, for
example, Mireille Guiliano's 2006 book French Women Don't Get Fat). French cuisine and eating
habits have however come under great pressure in recent years from modern fast food, such as
American products and the new global agricultural industry. While French youth culture has
gravitated toward fast food and American eating habits (with an attendant rise in obesity), the
French in general have remained committed to preserving certain elements of their food culture
through such activities as including programs of taste acquisition in their public schools, by the
use of the appellation d'origine contrôlée laws, and by state and European subsidies to the
French agricultural industry. Emblematic of these tensions is the work of José Bové, who
founded in 1987, the Confédération Paysanne, an agricultural union that places its highest
political values on humans and the environment, promotes organic farming and opposes
genetically modified organisms; Bové's most famous protest was the dismantling of
a McDonald's franchise in Millau (Aveyron), in 1999.

In France, cutlery is used in the continental manner (with the fork in the left hand, prongs facing
down and the knife in the right hand). French etiquette prohibits the placing of hands below the
table and the placing of elbows on it.
The legal drinking age is officially 18 (see: Legal drinking age).
France is one of the oldest wine producing regions of Europe. France now produces the most
wine by value in the world (although Italy rivals it by volume and Spain has more land under
cultivation for wine grapes). Bordeaux wine, Bourgogne wine and Champagne are important
agricultural products.

Tobacco and drugs

The cigarette smoking age is 18 years. According to a widespread cliché, smoking has been part
of French culture – actually figures indicate that in terms of consumption per capita, France is
only the 60th country out of 121.
France, from 1 February 2007, tightened the existing ban on smoking in public places found in
the 1991 Évin law: Law n°91-32 of 10 January 1991, containing a variety of measures against
alcoholism and tobacco consumption.
Smoking is now banned in all public places (stations, museums, etc.); an exception exists for
special smoking rooms fulfilling drastic conditions, see below. A special exemption was made for
cafés and restaurants, clubs, casinos, bars, etc. which ended, 1 January 2008.[30] Opinion polls
suggest 70% of people support the ban.[31] Previously, under the former implementation rules of
the 1991 Évin law, restaurants, cafés etc. just had to provide smoking and non-smoking sections,
which in practice were often not well separated.
Under the new regulations, smoking rooms are allowed, but are subjected to very strict
conditions: they may occupy at most 20% of the total floor space of the establishment and their
size may not be more than 35 m²; they need to be equipped with separate ventilation which
replaces the full volume of air ten times per hour; the air pressure of the smoking room must
constantly be lower than the pressure in the contiguous rooms; they have doors that close
automatically; no service can be provided in the smoking rooms; cleaning and maintenance
personnel may enter the room only one hour after it was last used for smoking.
Popular French cigarette brands include Gauloises and Marlboro.
The possession, sale and use of cannabis (predominantly Moroccan hashish) is illegal in France.
Since 1 March 1994, the penalties for cannabis use are from two months to a year and/or a fine,
while possession, cultivation or trafficking of the drug can be punished much more severely, up
to ten years. According to a 1992 survey by SOFRES, 4.7 million French people ages 12–44
have smoked cannabis at least once in their lives.[32]

Sports and hobbies

Football (French: Le Foot) is the most popular sport in France. Other popular sports played in
France are rugby union, cycling, tennis, handball, basketball and sailing. France is notable for
holding and winning the FIFA World Cup in 1998 and 2018, and holding the annual cycling
race Tour de France, and the tennis Grand Slam tournament the French Open. Sport is
encouraged in school, and local sports clubs receive financial support from the local
governments. While football is definitely the most popular, rugby union and rugby league takes
dominance in the southwest, especially around the city of Toulouse (see: Rugby union in
France and Rugby league in France).
The modern Olympics was invented in France, in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin.
Professional sailing in France is centred on singlehanded and shorthanded ocean racing with the
pinnacle of this branch of the sport being the Vendée Globe singlehanded around the world race
which starts every 4 years from the French Atlantic coast. Other significant events include the
Solitaire du Figaro, Mini Transat 6.50, Tour de France a Voile and Route du Rhum transatlantic
race. France has been a regular competitor in the America's Cup since the 1970s.
Other important sports include:

 24 Hours of Le Mans – The world's oldest sports car race.

 Skiing – France has an extensive number of ski resorts in the French alps such
as Tignes. Ski resorts are also located in the Pyrénées and Vosges mountain chains.
 Pétanque – The international federation is recognized by the IOC.
 Fencing – Fencing leads the list of sports for which gold medals were won for France
at the Summer Olympics (see: France at the Olympics).
 Parkour – Developed in France, Parkour is a training discipline with similarities
to self-defense or martial arts.
 Babyfoot (table football) – A very popular pastime in bars and homes in France, and
the French are the predominant winners of worldwide table football competitions.
 Kitesurfing
 Bullfighting – Spanish style bullfighting is still popular in the southern part of France.
Like other cultural areas in France, sport is overseen by a government ministry, the Minister of
Youth Affairs and Sports (France) which is in charge of national and public sport associations,
youth affairs, public sports centers and national stadia (like the Stade de France).
Fashion
Along with Milan, London and New York, Paris is center of an important number of fashion
shows. Some of the world's biggest fashion houses (ex: Chanel) have their headquarters in
France.
The association of France with fashion (la mode) dates largely to the reign of Louis XIV[33] when
the luxury goods industries in France came increasingly under royal control and the French royal
court became, arguably, the arbiter of taste and style in Europe.
France renewed its dominance of the high fashion (couture or haute couture) industry in the
years 1860–1960 through the establishing of the great couturier houses, the fashion press
(Vogue was founded in 1892; Elle was founded in 1945) and fashion shows. The first modern
Parisian couturier house is generally considered the work of the Englishman Charles Frederick
Worth who dominated the industry from 1858 to 1895.[34] In the early twentieth century, the
industry expanded through such Parisian fashion houses as the house of Chanel (which first
came to prominence in 1925) and Balenciaga (founded by a Spaniard in 1937). In the post war
year, fashion returned to prominence through Christian Dior's famous "new look" in 1947, and
through the houses of Pierre Balmain and Hubert de Givenchy (opened in 1952). In the 1960s,
"high fashion" came under criticism from France's youth culture while designers like Yves Saint
Laurent broke with established high fashion norms by launching prêt-à-porter ("ready to wear")
lines and expanding French fashion into mass manufacturing and marketing.[35] Further
innovations were carried out by Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin. With a greater focus on
marketing and manufacturing, new trends were established in the 70s and 80s by Sonia
Rykiel, Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix. The 1990s
saw a conglomeration of many French couture houses under luxury giants and multinationals
such as LVMH.
Since the 1960s, France's fashion industry has come under increasing competition from London,
New York, Milan and Tokyo, and the French have increasingly adopted foreign (particularly
American) fashions (such as jeans, tennis shoes). Nevertheless, many foreign designers still
seek to make their careers in France.
The cultural influence of fashion in France
With a worldwide reputation, French fashion has for more than three centuries been
the vehicle of an exceptional image linked to luxury and artisanal creation. A special
relationship links the French to fashion: our language and our national territory are
deeply imbued by it.

France very often embodies the country of art de vivre and luxury. France is
perceived as the country of big brands but it is also recognized for the exceptional
quality of its artisans and small creators, their know-how and the quality of their
products.

The Ministry of Culture attaches great importance to the young generation of

creators and family businesses taken over by the youngest. They all embody strong
values: vigilance on the climate impact of their production, interest in second-hand
products and new technologies.

The heritage of French fashion is particularly important. The private collections of

fashion houses and the public collections of museums devoted to fashion,
accessories, clothing and know-how are numerous in the territory.
The arts of France

Literature

Molière
French literature has a long and rich history. Traditionally it is held to have begun in
842 with the Oath of Strasbourg, a political pact between Louis the
German and Charles the Bald, the text of which survives in Old French. The Middle
Ages are noted in particular for epic poems such as La Chanson de
Roland (c. 1100; The Song of Roland), the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de
Troyes, and lyric poetry expressing romantic love. In the 16th century
the Renaissance flourished, and figures such as the poet Pierre de Ronsard, the
satirist and humorist François Rabelais, and the quintessential essayist Michel de
Montaigne, were to become internationally acknowledged. French Neoclassical
drama reached its apotheosis during the next hundred years in the tragedies of Pierre
Corneille and Jean Racine. During the same period, Molière displayed his vast and
varied talents in the theatre, particularly as a writer of comedies; Jean de La
Fontaine produced moralistic verse in his Fables; and Madame de La Fayette created
the classic La Princesse de Clèves (1678), generally considered the first
French psychological novel.
Gustave Flaubert

Voltaire, Denis Diderot, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau dominated the 18th century,

especially with their philosophical writings, though they made major contributions to
all genres, and Voltaire’s novel Candide (1759) is notable for its literary quality and
distillation of Enlightenmentideals. Other authors of the period include
playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, best known for works such
as Le Mariage de Figaro (1784; The Marriage of Figaro), and Pierre Choderlos de
Laclos, remembered for his epistolary novel Les Liaisons
dangereuses (1782; Dangerous Acquaintances). The 19th century witnessed the
emergence of a series of writers who substantially influenced the development of
literature worldwide, including the novelists Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, Gustave
Flaubert, and Émile Zola along with the poets Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane
Mallarmé, and Arthur Rimbaud. Added to these was the Romantic writer Victor
Hugo, whose creative energy expressed itself in all literary forms, as well as in
painting.

French literature in the 20th century both carried on the earlier traditions and
transformed them, and French authors have won a number of Nobel Prizes for
Literature. While the complexity of French poetry continued in the work of Paul
Valéry, Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Claudel (also a major dramatist), Saint-John
Perse, Paul Éluard, Louis Aragon, René Char, and Yves Bonnefoy, the art of the novel
was given new direction by Marcel Proust, in À la recherche du temps perdu (1913–
27; Remembrance of Things Past). The first half of the century also produced such
notable writers as André Gide, François Mauriac, André Malraux, Albert Camus,
and Jean-Paul Sartre, the last arguably the chief exponent of existentialist
philosophy. Their work was followed in the 1950s by the nouveau roman (“new
novel”) and by the emergence of writers such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie
Sarraute, Michel Butor, Claude Mauriac, Marguerite Duras, and Claude Simon,
whose works have entered the canon of literature. Since the 1970s Michel
Tournier, Patrick Modiano, Erik Orsenna, and Georges Perec have become leading
novelists; feminist writers, including Hélène Cixous, Annie Leclerc, Jeanne
Champion, and Marie Cardinal, have also made significant contributions.

The literature of the 20th century was notable for its openness to nonnative writers:
the Irish writer Samuel Beckett, for instance, the Czech expatriate Milan Kundera,
the Russian emigrant Andreï Makine, and Chinese exile Gao Xingjian have all
produced major works in French. Georges Simenon and Marguerite Yourcenar, both
born in Belgium in 1903, were considered French writers, though they often lived
outside France. The postcolonial literature of the late 20th and early 21st centuries
offered insights into the tensions of cross-cultural identity by Francophone writers
from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean.

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 disciplesincreasingly 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 grittyRealism of the art of Gustave
Courbet and Honoré Daumier was viewed as scandalous.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste: Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette
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.

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.

Henri Matisse: Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background

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 oeuvreencompasses 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.

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, seeWestern painting and Western sculpture.)

Music

Claude Debussy
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.

Training for the musical profession remains traditional. Local conservatoires

throughout the country provide basic grounding; some provincial schools—
at Lyon and Strasbourg, for example—offer more advanced work, but young people
with talent aim for the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, where Nadia
Boulanger taught. Since World War II, Paris has hosted internationally famous
conductors, such as Herbert von Karajan and Daniel Barenboim, who have made
contributions in revitalizing an interest in classical music. Major visiting orchestras
perform at the Châtelet Theatre or the Pleyel Concert Hall, and concerts are given by
smaller groups in many of the churches. There is a network of provincial orchestras.

Although interest in classical music has grown at the amateur level, it is practiced by
a relatively small number. The young tend to be preoccupied with popular music,
especially that imported from the United States and the United Kingdom. The
tradition of the French chanson, the romantic French ballad, has continued,
however, following such legendary stylists as Juliette Gréco, Edith Piaf, Belgian-
born Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, and Georges Brassens. Moreover, France has
produced rock performers such as Johnny Hallyday and the group Téléphone, as well
as chanteuses of the 1960s such as Franƈoise Hardy, known for pop music called yé-
yé (“yeah-yeah”). Other well-known artists of the late 20th century included Julien
Clerc, Jean-Jacques Goldman, and Renaud. However, all were considerably more
popular nationally than internationally. Singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg
achieved global popularity for his sensual music as well as his romantic links to
actresses Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin. Later, Gainsbourg’s daughter Charlotte
emerged as a force in her own right, garnering acclaim for her acting skills as well as
her finely crafted pop songs. Perhaps France’s biggest international musicact of the
21st century was the electronic duo Daft Punk, who brought dance-club beats to
stadium-sized crowds around the world.

The Paris Opéra, established in 1669, prospered under the efforts of Lully,

Rameau, Christoph Gluck, Berlioz, Georges Bizet, and Francis Poulenc. France was
known for the traditions of opéra comique and grand opera, among others. (For
further discussion, seeWestern music.)

Dance of France
France is famous for developing ballet. In 1581 the Ballet comique de la reine was
performed at the French court of Catherine de Médicis. Because it fused the elements
of music, dance, plot, and design into a dramatic whole, it is considered the first
ballet. The ballet comique influenced the development of the 17th-century ballet de
cour (court ballet), an extravagant form of court entertainment.

In 1661 Louis XIV established the Académie Royale de Danse (now the Paris Opéra

Ballet); the company dominated European theatrical dance of the 18th and early 19th
centuries. Pierre Beauchamp, the company’s first director, codified the five basic
ballet positions. Extending the range of dance steps were virtuosos such as Gaétan
Vestris and his son Auguste Vestris and also Marie Camargo, whose rival Marie
Sallé was known for her expressive style.

In his revolutionary treatise, Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets (1760), Jean-

Georges Noverre brought about major reforms in ballet production, stressing the
importance of dramatic motivation, which he called ballet d’action, and decrying
overemphasis on technical virtuosity. In 1832 the Paris Opéra Ballet initiated the era
of Romantic ballet by presenting Italian Filippo Taglioni’s La Sylphide. Jean
Coralli was the Opéra’s ballet master at the time, and the company’s dancers of this
period included Jules Perrot and Arthur Saint-Léon.

In the 20th century ballet was rejuvenated under the leadership of Russian
impresario Sergey Diaghilev, who founded the avant-garde Ballets Russes in Paris in
1909. For the next two decades it was the leading ballet company in the West. The
original company was choreographed by Michel Fokine. Elsewhere in Paris, Serge
Lifar, the Russian-born ballet master of the Paris Opéra, reestablished its reputation
as a premier ballet troupe.

Dance entertainments of a lighter kind also were developed in France. In 19th-

century Paris the all-female cancan became the rage. After 1844 it became a feature
of music halls, revues, and operetta. (For further discussion, see ballet.)

Architecture
With a rich and varied architectural heritage (which helped to spawn, among other
styles, Gothic, Beaux Arts, and Art Deco) and an organized and competitive program
of study, France has shown itself to be open to a variety of styles and innovations. For
example, Le Corbusier, much of whose work can be found in France, was Swiss. The
development of architecture has also been sustained by the central government’s
penchant for grands projets, or great projects. The country, however, has not
produced as many designers of international repute in recent years as have other
Western nations. Major achievements such as the Pompidou Centre, the pyramid
entrance to the Louvre, and the Grand Arch have resulted from plans submitted in
open competition by foreign architects. Recent architects of acclaim, of French origin
or working in France, have included Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, Adrien
Fainsilber, Paul Andreu, Swiss-born Bernard Tschumi, and Catalonian Ricardo Boffil
of Spain. Among important contemporary designers are Andrée
Putman and Philippe Starck. (For further discussion, see Western architecture.)

Photography
Eugène Atget: Shop Window: Tailor Dummies
Jacques Daguerre, one of the recognized founders of modern photography in the
early 19th century, began the evolution of an art form that has flourished in France.
In the 20th century the work of such photographers as Eugène Atget, Henri Cartier-
Bresson, and Robert Doisneau ensured that the art had a dimension beyond
journalistic and commercial purposes, which was apparent in the installation art of
later figures such as Christian Boltanski. In 1969 an annual festival was established
at Arles, and in 1976 a national museum was created. The French popularization of
photography through posters and postcards was one of the most remarkable cultural
events of the late 20th century. (For further discussion, see history of photography.)

The cinema of France

Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine in Alphaville
French cinema has occupied an important place in national culture for more than a
hundred years. August and Louis Lumière invented a motion-picture technology in
the late 19th century, and Alice Guy-Blaché and others were industry pioneers. In the
1920s French film became famous for its poetic realist mode, exemplified by the
grand historical epics of Abel Gance and the work in the 1930s and ’40s of Marcel
Pagnol and others. A generation later the nouvelle vague, or New Wave, produced
directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, who “wrote” with the
camera as if, in critic André Bazin’s words, it were a caméra-stylo(“camera-pen”).
This shift was accompanied by an “intellectualization” of the cinema reflected in the
influential review Cahiers du cinéma, in the establishment of several schools
in Paris and the provinces where film could be studied, and in the founding of film
museums such as the Cinémathèque (“Film Library”) in Paris.

Other directors of international stature include Jean Renoir, Jacques Tati, Jean-

Pierre Melville, Alain Resnais, Eric Rohmer, Robert Bresson, and Louis Malle. They
exemplified the auteur theory that a director could so control a film that his or her
direction approximated authorship. Filmmakers such as Agnès Varda, Claude
Chabrol, Jacques Demy, Bertrand Tavernier, and Claude Bérri, as well as Polish-
born Krzystof Kieslowski, extended these traditions to the end of the century, while
directors such as Luc Besson, Patrice Leconte, Laurent Cantet, and Claire Denis
carried on with them in the 21st century.

The leading film stars of the 20th century ranged from Fernandel, Maurice Chevalier,
and Arletty to Brigitte Bardot, Gérard Depardieu, and Catherine Deneuve. Among
those French actors winning accolades in the 21st century were Audrey
Tautou, Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, and Vincent Cassel. One of the world’s
premier film festivals is held annually at Cannes, where the Palme d’Or is awarded to
the best motion picture—most, in recent years, have come from outside France, a
source of consternation to French film devotees. As in television, the French film
industry faces competition from the United States and the United Kingdom. This led
the government in the early 1990s to elicit the support of the European
Commission to protect its native film industry. (For further discussion, see history of
the motion picture.)

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_France
https://www.britannica.com/place/France/The-fine-arts
https://www.livescience.com/39149-french-culture.html

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