Saw French art of various colours (6)
I believe the answer is:
espied
'saw' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'french art of various colours' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'french art' could be 'es' ('is' in French - 'art' can mean 'is' eg 'thou art') and 'es' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'pied' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for espied that I've seen before include "Watched" , "Glimpsed" , "observed in literature" , "Saw (archaic)" , "Spotted; saw" .)