François Marius Granet

François -Marius Granet ( born December 17, 1775 in Aix -en- Provence, † November 21, 1849 in Malvalat / Aix -en- Provence) was a French landscape, genre and history painter of classicism and romanticism. From 1826 to 1846 he worked as a curator at the Louvre.

Life

Childhood and education (1775-1802)

Granet grew up as the son of a master mason on in the southern French town of Aix -en- Provence. There he visited the studio of the landscape painter Jean -Antoine Constantin and learning to paint from nature. In the studio he met the Count Auguste de Forbin know whose friendship was decisive for Granet career and became his patron. 1794 Granet went to Toulon, where he worked for some time as a decorative painter at Arsenal.

1796 brought his friend Forbin to Paris and enabled him to study the Flemish and Dutch masters in the Louvre. Thanks Forbin Granet could also be included in 1798 in the highly sought-after studio of Jacques Louis David, in which he developed a strong sense of well-balanced composition and cohesion of the drawing. He remained there for several months and went through how many landscape painters of his time, a process of simplification that led him from nature to the model. Granet developed a keen sense of color, which he used to loosen up the screen layout. In Paris Granet also learned Jean -Auguste -Dominique Ingres know whose style influenced him greatly. From 1799 to 1801 Granet created quite a stir with various monastic and church interiors, which stood in contrast to the anti-clerical mood of the time.

Stay in Rome (1802-1824)

1802 Granet left Paris and embarked at Marseilles together with Forbin to Italy, where he remained a resident until 1824. In Rome, which became his second home, he made the final breakthrough. From 1806 he -fed the Paris Salon with interiors of Roman churches, monasteries and studios, in which he likes a historical or contemporary Figurenstaffage einfügte ( Sodoma in the hospital, Louvre). Granet managed to integrate themselves socially in Rome with support from important people such as Cardinal Fesch and General Miollis and was appreciated by artists such as Ingres, Antonio Canova or Vincenzo Camuccini. In the following years he undertook many journeys that took him to France, in the vicinity of Rome and Naples ( 1811). From 1813 he was a member of the Roman Academy and Luke 1819 in the Legion of Honor. In 1822 he painted at times in Assisi and returned repeated back to longer stays in Rome.

Between Paris and Versailles (1824-1847)

1824 was his return to Paris, where he exhibited regularly in the Salon, and a museum career began. First as deputy curator of the Royal Museum (1824 ) and the Musée du Luxembourg (1825 ) appointed, one finally appointed him in 1826 to the curator of the Louvre. In 1827 he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and in 1830 with the support of Ingres and David d' Angers member of the French Institute in Berlin. By Louis- Philippe, he received a prestigious contract for the production of 24 historical paintings for the collections at Versailles and the royal private collection. He moved to Versailles over, took over in 1830 the management of the Art Gallery and was hired in 1833 as director of the Musée historique.

The last few years (1848-1849)

After the revolution of 1848/49 to Granet retired to his estate Malvalat at Aix, where he donated the complete inventory of his studio, the Musée Granet.

Work

Granet was known primarily for his history painting in gotisierendem style and by his romantic genre painting. His romantic scenes in sacred architecture made ​​it known early on as " painters of the Capuchins ." His evocative images with silent cathedrals and the rediscovered monastic spirituality were at the start of a new painting of emotions. An example of this is to be inspired by the Church on the Piazza Barberini in Rome Choir of the Capuchin (1814 ), which he exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1819 and about fifteen times copied. Addition, however, he made even landscapes from around Rome, to be compared with those of Jean -Baptiste Camille Corot. Among the best known probably for this purpose include the Church of Subiaco ( Musée Calvet, Avignon ) or the church of Ognissanti (1807, Musée Granet, Aix -en- Provence). The clear composition of cubic elements practiced perhaps from influence on the work of Paul Cézanne.

Granet himself shared his work in " Intérieurs " and " ruins " a. Often he chose monasteries, damp crypts or prisons as interiors which served as a backdrop for stories of famous people, such as in the painter Stella in prison (1810 ), or Montaigne visited Torquato Tasso in prison (1820 ). It is characteristic of this type of images that they are imbued with a mysterious mood and are characterized by light - and-shade contrasts. As the " ruins " designated Granet works with clipping stick representations of Rome from nature, the proposed a novel atmospheric presentation. It is noticeable that he increased the instinctively developed by Pierre -Henri de Valenciennes shorthand representation to the extremes. Granet introduced in his light painting technique of the transition that led to a new perception of space and with which he exercised considerable influence on the development of the monastery interiors and of plein air painting.

In the Louvre Granet is represented by five paintings and 200 drawings and 130 watercolors. He achieved fame in 1913 by the Paris Exhibition David et ses Eleves, when it was set up a separate room and were recognized its importance as air and light painter. Despite its dull and heavy colors he had already anticipated some problems of Impressionism.

His legacy is to be found in the Musée Granet in Aix -en- Provence, which was renamed in 1949 to its 100th anniversary ( inaugurated in 1838 under the name Musée d' Aix ). The collection includes 600 drawings and watercolors, some 200 small-format oil paintings, as well as letters and documents and forms the core of the museum.

Works (selection)

• Aix -en- Provence, Musée Granet

• Angers, Musée de Turpin Crissé

• Dreux, Musée d' art et d' histoire

• Fontainebleau, Musee National du Chateau

• Frascati

• Munich, Neue Pinakothek

• New York, Museum of Modern Art

• Paris, Louvre

• Paris, Petit Palais

• St. Petersburg, Ermitage

• Versailles, Château