Goujon, Jean

(1510-ca. 1566)

   sculptor, engraver, architect

   An important artist of the French Renaissance, Jean Goujon was probably of Norman origin, and most likely spent time in italy, where he studied ancient and contemporary italian works. Recognized too as an art theorist, he produced a series of engravings for the French translation of Vitruve, by Jean Martin (1547). in 1540, Goujon worked in Rouen on the organ gallery of the church of Saint-Maclou and, becoming sculptor to the king (1547), worked also at Écouen for the duke of montmorency.In Paris (1544), he sculpted, with pierre lescot, the bas-reliefs of the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxer-rois, then those of the Quatre Saisons in the Ligneris mansion (today the Carnavalet Museum), and the six Nymphes at the fountain of the Innocents (1549). Additionally, he did allegorical figures for the courtyard of the louvre (1550). His mythological inspiration and the sensuousness and sensitivity of his figures reveal a mannerist aesthetic to which he gives a personal inflection directly linked to the classical, especially the Hellenic, spirit (clinging drapery, etc). The purity also of Goujon's technique and the delicacy of his modeling make him one of the major figures of French Renaissance sculpture.