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Antoine Caron
(c.1520-c.1600)
Caron, Antoine (c.1520-c.1600). French Mannerist painter.
He is one of the few French painters of his time with a distinctive
artistic personality, and his work reflects the refined but unstable atmosphere
of the Valois court during the Wars of Religion (1560-98). He worked at
Fontainebleau under Primaticcio in the 1540s and later became court painter
to Catherine de Médicis, wife of Henry II of France. His few surviving
works include historical and allegorical subjects in the manner of court
ceremonies, scenes of magic and prediction, and massacres, as in Massacres
under the Triumvirate (1566) in the Louvre, his only signed and dated
painting. His style is characterized most obviously by extremely elongated,
precious-looking figures set in open spaces that seem too large for them.
He had a penchant for gaudy colors and bizarre architectural forms. Some
of the works attributed to him may be by other hands, however, for French
painting of his period is such an obscure area that Caron's name is liable
to be attached to anything similar to his known oeuvre.
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