1775 -1849 · Romanticism, monastic interiors, Rome and monumental memory

Silent chapels, deep vaults, grazing light and small collected figures make Granet the poetic painter of architecture inhabited by time.

François-Marius Granet was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1775. Son of a master mason, he grew up in concrete contact with stone and architecture. He studied at the Aix drawing school with Jean-Antoine Constantin, whose landscape he learned to observe, then went to Paris in 1796. In the studio of Jacques-Louis David, he met Ingres but quickly turned away from the great heroic figure to explore cloisters, crypts and dimly lit interiors. A first stay in Italy confirmed his vocation. Installed permanently in Rome from 1802, Granet painted churches, convents and monuments under changing lights. The Choir of the Capuchin Church in Rome became one of his most famous compositions and has many variations. Architecture not only serves as a setting: it regulates silence, distance and the progression of light. Monks, visitors or officiants appear on a small scale, absorbed by space. Granet also observes external sites, such as the Trinité-des-Monts and the Villa Medici, where Roman topography mixes with personal memory. Back in France, he was appointed curator at the Louvre in 1826 then participated in the creation of the historic galleries of Versailles from 1830. These responsibilities fueled his interest in the history and presentation of works. The redemption of prisoners in Algiers' prisons develops a more complex narrative, while his late watercolors retain freedom of touch and exceptional attention to atmosphere. Remaining deeply attached to Aix, Granet bequeathed to his city a considerable set of paintings and drawings which would form the core of the museum now bearing his name. He died in 1849. His work links classical landscape, romantic sensitivity and a modern conception of interior space. The "François Marius Granet" selection notably compares the Choir of the Capuchin Church in Rome and the Interior of the Lower Basilica of Assisi. His reading favors the material.

Granet paints the monument less than the time that inhabits it: a ray, a vault and a few silhouettes are enough to make the silence visible.