Landscape during a storm

At the age of 20, Simon Denis left to work in Paris in the studio of Jean Baptiste Lebrun, then established himself in Rome, then Naples, where he became painter to the Court of Joseph Bonaparte.

At first influenced by the Flemish and animal painting tradition, from which he retained the tenets of studying nature, he turned to Arcadian landscapes in the style of Claude Lorrain.

This is work is one of the few paintings he did before leaving for Paris.

Denis captured nature at the moment when the elements were unleashed—the moment when the wind brings the first raindrops to fall on the trees before the storm.

The small female figures and the cows are here mere features of the majestic decor, which has idealistic echoes. This painting shows an ambition for realism mixed with an idealised conception of nature, which is the very essence of neoclassicism, a movement that Denis can be attributed to.

Only two works by this artist can be found in French public collections.

From the texts of Sandrine Le Bideau in the catalog Flemish and Dutch paintings–Collection of the Châteauroux museums (Peintures flamande et hollandaise–Collection des musées de Châteauroux) Somogy-Editions d'Art.