1755 -1830 · Paris, Italy and Rio de Janeiro

Animated landscapes, military scenes and observation of daily life make Nicolas-Antoine Taunay a mobile witness between France and Brazil.

Nicolas-Antoine Taunay was born in Paris in 1755 and died there in 1830. Landscaper, painter of genre and military scenes, he associates atmospheric light with numerous small figures whose gestures give the site its activity. He worked in France and Italy, received commissions under the Empire then joined the French Artistic Mission in Brazil in 1816. In Rio de Janeiro, vegetation, relief and colonial society renewed his outlook before his return in France in 1821. The Exterior of a Military Hospital, or The French in Italy, painted in 1804 and kept at the Louvre, is a reduction with variations of a painting presented at the Salon of 1798. Wounded soldiers, companions, horses and architecture are distributed in a landscape that avoids heroic celebration to show the human side of the campaign. The Billiard Room reveals another register: interior space, players and spectators compose a social scene where attitudes and distances tell the story of the relationship between the characters. Taunay thus knows how to move from historical panorama to familiar anecdote without losing the precision of light and movement. The "Nicolas-Antoine Taunay" selection puts particularly next to The Outside of a Military Hospital and The Billiard Room. His reading favors the material.

Taunay brings the landscape to life through those who cross it: soldier, traveler or player gives light a story and space a human scale.