History, Part 10
The guitar in France
While it is true that many of the guitarists thus far mentioned were members of court orchestra, it was in France that the guitar attained the status of instrument par excellence for the nobility. Here, the tendency to associate the guitar with elegance in sound became especially marked and was subsequently reflected in the many charming works of art which picture the instrument. The most celebrated are the paintings of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) in which young men and women stroll about in sweeping pastoral settings and are shown playing the guitar. Other French artists who pictured the guitar were Jean Baptiste Pater and Ollivier.
The French also produced art work on their guitars. They continued to develop their art following the same methods of construction used earlier and represented by the sixteenth century René Voboam instrument (see fig.8). The continuity is demonstrated by a number of eighteenth century instruments.
An example of the eighteenth century six-string guitar is an instrument made by Francisco Lupot, it is dated 1773. The Salomon guitar is another example. It was build by Salomon in Paris around 1760 (fig.11).
A more unusual variety of guitar seems to have been developed at this time: the bass guitar. This instrument had a series of extra strings off the neck attached to a separate tuning box. A bass guitar, made by Gérard J. Deleplanque, in 1782, has six single strings on the neck and four bass strings outside the neck. This type of ten-string guitar was later to become extremely popular in the second half of the nineteenth century when it became known as the chitarra decachorda. It survived to the early part of the twentieth century.
The French revolution of 1789 forced into exil many nobles but fortunately did not lead to obscurity for the instrument. On the contrary, in time it climbed to a higher level of popularity as a result of its adoption by the masses. Of course, the instrument could hardly have attained the degree of favor it enjoyed before and after the revolution without the efforts and accomplishments of the musicians-performers and composers.
