GOUJON, gtio'zhoN/, JEAN (1520 ?-72 ? ) . The greatest sculptor of the Renaissance in France. He was also an architect, although, as he always worked in conjunction with great architects, it is not possible now to determine how much of the architecture of his works belongs to him. The leading quality of his work is its archi tectonic quality—the absolute harmony which prevails between it and the architecture which it decorates. Goujon's figures show a peculiar flavor of preciosity characteristic of the period and his personality.
Goujon's origin is entirely unknown. A con tract for two columns supporting the organ of the Church of Saint-Maclon, at Rouen, dated August 9, 1541, bears his name, and points to Normandy as his native country. In the porch of this church are two carved wooden doors of great beauty, which are definitely in the style of Goujon, although there is no proof that they were made by him. A record of 1542 ascribes to him the statue of the Archbishop Georges II. d'Amboise, on the monument of the Cardinal Georges I. d'Amboise, in the Cathedral of Rouen. When the Archbishop became cardinal this statue was replaced by the present one. It has been conjectured that Goujon was employed on the monument to Louis de Bitze in the cathedral.
Goujon's long association with the great archi tect Pierre Lescot begins about 1541, when they accomplished together the restoration of the Church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, in Paris. Two of the bas-reliefs have been preserved in the Museum of the Louvre. Goujon was em ployed in 1545-46 by the Constable de Mont morency in the decoration of his château at Ecouen. The bas-reliefs of the 116tel Carnavalet are ascribed to the year 1547. Goujon erected an extraordinary loggia with fountains at the corner of the old Cemetery of the Innocents, in the Rue aux Fers, Paris. When the cemetery
was discontinued (June 19, 1786), this charm ing work, bas-reliefs of the nymphs of the French rivers, was rearranged" in a public square, and is still called the Fountain of the Innocents. Probably about 1550 to 1553 Goujon was em ployed at the chateau of Arra, under Philibert de l'Orme. The fine group of Diana and a stag which decorated one of the courts of this château is now in the Museum of the Louvre. From 1546 until the end of his life Goujon was asso ciated with Pierre Lescot in the construction and decoration of that portion of the Louvre which was built by Henry II. at the southwestern angle of the old Louvre quadrangle. The figures on the sided of the round windows are notable. The most beautiful and important part of his work on the Louvre is the gallery for musicians, which stands in the hall now occupied by a part of the Museum of Antiquities. The four cary atides which support this gallery may be com pared with the caryatides of the Erechtheion at Athens. The date of the last one is September 6, 1562. Goujon, like most of the great artists of his day, was a Huguenot. There is a tradition that he was killed in the massacre of Saint Bar tholomew (August 24, 1572).
Consult: Gonse, La sculpture frangaise depuis le XIVeme siecle (Paris, 1895) ; Palustre, La renaissance en France, vol. ii. (ib., 1881) ; Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de Pee°le frangaise (ib., 1898) ; Pattison, The Renaissance of Art in France, vol. i. (London, 1879) ; Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique et critique des architectes frangais (Paris, 1887) ; and Mon taiglon, "Jean Goujon et la write sur la date de sa mort," in Gazette des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1895).