Francastel's initial period of study was in literature, at the
Sorbonne. He worked in building conservation at
Versailles while undertaking research toward his doctoral degree, which was on the sculpture of Versailles, and in 1928 he published a monograph, including a critical catalogue, on the seventeenth-century French sculptor
François Girardon. In 1930, he was appointed director of the
Warsaw Institut français, and in 1936 he was appointed professor at the University in
Strasbourg. In 1948, he was created inaugural Professor of the Sociology of Art at the
École pratique des hautes études in Paris. Francastel's research interests varied between the French seventeenth century and the nineteenth century, but his sociological methodology, strongly influenced by the work of
Émile Durkheim, remained the intellectual basis upon which his scholarly thought and corpus were organised. Francastel is also noted for his promotion of spatial concerns, both physical and conceptual, prefiguring the "spatial turn" of later scholars such as
Henri Lefebvre. Two of his key works, that emphasise Francastel's view of art as a system both embedded within and productive of social relations, are his
Art et Sociologie (1948) and
Peinture et Société (1951). ==Works==