Jean-louis Demarne (1744 -1829) Animated Seaside

Late 18th century painting oil on canvas by Jean Louis DEMARNE (Brussels 1744 - Paris 1829) signed on the frame, cartouche on the front and round stamp on the back. Rich composition depicting a large navy animated by genre scenes located along a rocky coast, presumed to be in Normandy. As usual, Demarne skillfully handles groups of characters, which he arranges harmoniously in this poetic and airy seascape, the drawing is precise, the lights are measured and the atmosphere prefigures the romantic style. The whole testifies to the qualities of an artist who knew how to combine a keen observation spirit with his imagination. Canvas in perfect condition, Louis XVI period frame "Rays of the heart" with a carved wooden structure gilded with gold leaf (some wear and tear). Dimensions: 67 cm X 54 cm / view: 55 cm x 42 cm Jean Louis DEMARNE was born in Brussels on March 7, 1744, he arrived very young in Paris where he studied painting under the direction of Gabriel Briard. He made his Salon debut in 1783 and the same year came to the knowledge of the Academy. Originally a painter of history marked both by the importance of a triumphant neoclassicism, he was very early inspired by Dutch painters of the 17th and 18th centuries, very popular in Paris in the 1780s. Demarne was fond of nature as a city dweller who insists on not straying from the big city, he liked to follow the lively edges of a canal to stop in a noisy inn, where he studied and grasped at his ease the mariners treating their business amid bundles, chests, and picturesquely grouped animals. He also did not disdain to enter the farms, to learn about and trace their movement and work.Jean-Louis Demarne belongs to a form of neoclassicism of Dutch tradition, strongly influenced by the great Nordic masters of the 17th century. such as Jacob van Ruysdaël and Meindert Hobbema. He sometimes worked in collaboration with the artists Lazare Bruandet and Jacques-François-Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines, who are among the first to have traveled and represented the forest of Fontainebleau, invested a few years later by the artists of the Barbizon School. . Many paintings by Jean-Louis Demarne are present in collections as prestigious as those of the Louvre, the Royal Museum in Brussels, the Museums of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg but also the Wallace Collection in London. He was decorated with the Legion of Honor in 1828 and before that date had received medals of excellence in 1806 and 1810.