The Moulin De La Roche, François Brillaud (1847-1916)

Oil on canvas depicting the Moulin de la Roche, late nineteenth. Signed lower right F. Brillaud. Dimensions without frame: 73 x 100 cm. In its original setting. François Eugène Brillaud is a French painter born in 1846 and died in 1917. In 1867 he made a copy of the baptism of christ after Francesco Albani to decorate the baptismal font of the new church of Cugand. He borrows the painting to present it in 1868 to the general council of Vendée which grants him a pension of study for the fine arts and it is at that time that he enters the fine arts in Paris with as teachers Breton and Pils . He exhibited regularly at the Champs-Élysées salon from 1877. The salon then took the name Salon des artistes français. His first paintings, influenced by the style of his master Jules Breton, are scenes of peasant life and also portraits of his family and local notables. In 1884 he lives in Nantes and in 1894 he divides his life between Paris where he lives and Nantes. In 1898, with Libellule begins a second period: sensitive to the change of taste of the public, with the advent of the Art nouveau, it tries to the nude and the scenes of kind. We also owe him some still lifes and later scenes of military life in which we find the teaching of Pils. In 1909, the death of his mother was the theme of the Viatique en Vendée first exhibited in Nantes and then in the salon in 1910. He lived in Nantes until 1914, continuing his shipments at the show. He obtained an honorable mention in 1904, 27 years after his first participation. You can see his paintings at the Municipal Museum of La Roche-sur-Yon and the Museum of Fine Arts in Nantes.