Lazare Bruandet - Animated Landscape Near A Ruin

Lazare BRUANDET Paris, 1755 – Paris, 1804 Oil on canvas 24.5 x 32 cm (35.5 x 44 cm with the frame) Signed lower left “Bruandet” Beautiful old frame from the 19th century Lazare Bruandet was a rich and endearing and a nature lover. His adventurous life and his fiery character also made him a romantic artist. According to testimonies from the time, he lived in the forest of Fontainebleau, hidden in the ruins of the former Notre-Dame de Franchard priory, after having been sentenced to death for having defenestrated his concubine whom he suspected of infidelity. . Through his Nordic training – he was a student of the German painter Rœser – he has the style of the realistic and meticulous landscape painters of Northern Europe. And by working with the painters Taunay and Swebach for the small figures, he gave his compositions a picturesque side. Furthermore, through his practice of outdoor painting in the forests surrounding Paris, with artists like Georges Michel and Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines, he is one of the precursors of Barbizon painting.