Reconsidering the Renaissance in France: New Approaches to Figurative Arts in the Loire Valley

International audienceMany researches have recently reconsidered Renaissance French Art (H. Zerner (dir.), ¿ Renaissance en France, renaissance française ?, Paris, 2008 ; France 1500, exhibition Paris-Chicago, 2011). A main methodological tendency has quickly emerged. Its aim is to focus on the concept of “foyer”, i.e. artistic centers and their particularities (Troyes, Nancy, Lyon…). On that direction, an exhibition and a symposium Tours 1500, that took place in 2012 (Tours, CESR), reconsidered art in the Loire Valley, birthplace of the French Renaissance, and defined new problematics.At the very beginning of the XVIth century, Loire Valley was the French royal court residence and then a center of high level of artistic production (painting, sculpture, jewelry, tapestry, illuminated manuscripts …). Around 1900, the young discipline of Art History has focused on this “regional school of artistic production” and defined specific tools for studying it. Such fundamental studies as that of Paul Vitry on Michel Colombe (Paris, 1901), and the 1904 exhibition on French Primitives, as so many subsequent studies determined two main ways of study: firstly, monographic analysis of the production of important artists such as Jean Fouquet, Michel Colombe or Jean Bourdichon; secondly, the definition of notions like “school of Loire Valley” or “art de la détente”. Recent historiography has reconsidered the subject and proposed new lines of reflexion. The more dynamic and opened notion of “foyer” has replaced the notion of “regional artistic school“ and the anonymous corpus or those of the major Masters have been reevaluated (Michel Colombe, Jean Poyer, Master of Claude of France – Eloi Tassart ?).The Centre des Études Supérieures de la Renaissance is an actual actor of this revival through two programs of research. ARVIVA inventories, analyses and evaluates figurative arts in the Loire Valley in a large period from 1470 to 1600. Sculpture 3D proposes to reconsider key masterpieces with the help of augmented reality in order to place new digital tools in service of scientific analysis. The first results of these programs are manifold. The enlarged period of study allows to better understand the evolution of the artistic production. Moreover, deeper archives researches enlighten relationships of the artists and the donors, and draw interactive social network in Tours around 1500.On that base, this paper will focus on particular examples: Tours as capital of luxury, parishes as center of microhistory of the social network, and recently discovered works of art and new considering on masterpieces