Art and culture

The Norse, a people long considered barbaric, were in fact masters of wood-carving and metalworking, as their sophisticated domestic implements and fine jewellery testify. Over the centuries, their descendants produced the great Norman and Gothic religious architecture of the 11C to 13C, and later proved great innovators in the decorative arts, music (Saint-Saëns, Honegger, Satie), literature (Corneille, de Toqueville, de Maupassant, Flaubert, Maurois), painting (the 19C Impressionists) and, most recently, the cinema.