Granet, Francois Marius

The son of a bricklayer , he received his initial art education at the municipal school of drawing in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence . Then he met with Count Forben , who gave him the opportunity to enter the workshop of David , where, however, he did not stay long. For some time he traveled with Forben in Italy and, returning to Paris, began to work in the Louvre .

His first independent work was “The View of the Monastery of Felyantintsy ”. Everyone was delighted with the beautiful color and brilliant chiaroscuro of this picture.

In Italy, where Granet again left, he studied mainly the Florentine and Venetian schools, but he perceived from them only the purity of style and some symmetry of composition. There he wrote The Inside of the Church of San-Martino-in-Monte, and Crypt in Ara-Coeli. The works of Granet, written in Italy, also include the remarkable painting “Stella in the Capitol Prison” (1810; before the October Revolution, it was in the gallery of the Dukes of Leuchtenberg, in St. Petersburg; now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow). She was a huge success in Rome and was sent to Paris, where she made an impression in the same way. The painting “The Capuchin Choir of Piazza Barberini” (1808), written before this, is considered to be the most excellent work of Granet, who reproduced it several times.

Appointed in 1824 as a conservative of the French royal museums, he was later elected to the institute and appointed king Louis Philippe to the conservatives of the Versailles Museum . Having lost this place in 1848 , Granet settled in Aix-en-Provence and founded a museum there, bearing his name since 1949 ( fr: Musée Granet ).

Granet was called the French Rembrandt . The dominant feature of his talent was the perfect harmony between the actors of his works and the environment in which he placed them. Caring mainly for lighting effects, Granet sometimes rose to the style and severity of historical painting due to the choice of plots, terrain and personality of figures.

From his works should also be mentioned:

• " St. Louis Releasing French Prisoners in Damiette,"
• “ Poussin , parted before death by Cardinal Massimo” (1834, Villa Demidova , Tuscany ).
• In the Hermitage - “Inside the Capuchin Monastery in Rome” - a painting by Granet, which the artist brought as a gift to Emperor Alexander I in 1821 .

•  

  Harvest of pumpkins at the cottage Malvatar (1796), Aix-en-Provence , Granet Museum .

•  

  Capuchin Capella Choir in Rome (1808), Grenoble Museum .

•  

  Trinité de Mont and Villa Medici in Rome (1808), Paris , Louvre Museum .

•  

  Stella en prison (1810), Moscou , musée Pouchkine .

•  

  View of the monastery , Baltimore , Walters Art Museum .

•  

  Self portrait , musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon .

• French painting

• Granet, Francois-Marius // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.