18th Century French school, Landscape with Ruins

18th Century, French Painting with Landscape with Ruins
Measures: frame cm L 165 x H 95 x P 10; canvas cm L 142 x H 71

This painting depicting a landscape with architectural ruins was made in oil on canvas in the late 18th century in France.
The work represents a landscape composition of invention in which on the right stands an architectural whim composed of a temple of classical taste in ruins. Columns, capitals, marble statues, friezes and tympanums are in a state of decay and the vegetation surrounding the architecture, slowly takes over. Next to the temple are two characters, a seated man and a woman, who entertains themselves in conversation, and holds a newborn baby in her arms. On the right of the canvas, other architectural elements collapsed to the ground, becoming one with the plants that surround them. The landscape turns far towards the horizon, where we can observe other times in ruins, with large arches and architecture inspired by antiquity. Still further, some 18th century buildings show a lived and inhabited countryside. The mountains act as a backdrop, leaving space beyond a clear sky on which some clouds of steam move the composition.
The architectural whim, an artistic genre that has made its way in Italian painting since the seventeenth century, is characterized by the representation of fantastic architectures or inventions of perspective type, sometimes combined with elements drawn freely from reality. The author of the work in question flaunts a remarkable compositional and luministic virtuosity building a very pleasant work, where the ruinous sensitivity is linked to a theatrical and scenic taste.
Very decorative, the work is accompanied by a frame in richly carved and gilded wood, made in the nineteenth century in baroque style.