François Marius Granet
Place Born
Aix-en ProvencePlace Died
Aix-en ProvenceBio
Granet, the son of a mason, spent his youth in Aix-en-Provence where he exhibited a precocious talent. He studied first at the École Gratuite de Dessin under Constantin and began a lifelong friendship with the aristocratic Auguste de Forbin, his junior by two years, a noted amateur painter and a friend and patron of Ingres. Forbin, who later attained the important position of Director of the Royal Museums, remained Granet’s protector and continually helped advance his career.
While a student Granet’s many watercolor sketches evinced an early interest in ruins, cloisters, churches and the gothic. After a brief stay in Toulon during the siege of 1793, where he was employed as a draftsman by the authorities, he journeyed to Paris to join Forbin, entering Jacques-Louis David’s studio. In Paris he developed his personal genre of the architectural interior and was given the nickname “the monk”, a reference to his depictions of ecclesiastical life, church interiors, monasteries and cloisters. He studied in the cloister of the Capuchins in the Rue Saint-Honoré along with Ingres, Bartolini and Girodet. He also copied old master paintings in the Louvre, concentrating on the Flemish and Dutch masters who would strongly influence his approach to architectural compositions and lighting. One of the first works he exhibited at the Paris Salon was an Interior of a Cloister shown in 1799 and this type of picture would become his specialty when along with Forbin he moved to Rome in 1802. First patronized by M. Cacault, the French chargé des affaires, and later by Cardinal Fesch (step-uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte), he was received as a member of the Roman Academy of San Luca in 1813. While there he cemented his friendship with Ingres, who painted his portrait standing before the forum (this portrait is now in Aix-en-Provence, Musée Granet). Granet remained in Rome with intermittent visits to Paris between 1819 and 1824 when he returned to France permanently.
In 1819 he presented his famous Choir of the Capuchins at the Paris, Salon (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage), a painting known from the many replicas. Three years later he followed this with The Convent of Saint Francis of Assisi (Paris, Louvre), earning himself the distinction of knighthood in the Order of Saint Michel (the Cordon Noir). Forbin had Granet appointed adjunct curator of paintings at the Royal Museums in 1824, then full curator two years later, giving him a well-appointed studio in the Louvre. Much admired by Louis-Philippe, he was appointed Curator of the Historical Museum of Versailles in 1833, a post he retained until 1848.
Rather than paint traditional religious subjects, which had been in disfavor since the beginning of the Revolution, Granet expressed his own deep religious sentiments by depicting places of spiritual significance and the practice of religious rituals. Despite their accuracy of detail these compositions are not entirely neutral; the mysterious quality of these scenes, achieved primarily through dramatic lighting and complex perspectives made Granet an important precursor of the romantics. A reviewer of the 1806 Salon wrote of Granet: “We owe well-deserved praise and much encouragement to an artist who creates his own genre, who has created his own talent, who walks in no-one’s footsteps, and who does not follow the style of any particular school.”