André Giroux, 'Ruins on the Palatine', before 1830

In 1819 André Giroux showed his first work at the Paris Salon when he was only 18. He won the prestigious Prix de Rome for a historical landscape in 1825. Throughout his career, from his earliest works, the focus of his interest was landscape. His submissions to the Salon included urban genre scenes as well as landscapes. When he abandoned painting later in life, he did so to take up photography. He stayed in Rome for five years. As with many of the French artists in Rome in this period, Giroux started to paint landscape sketches in the open air.

These sketches were intended to help the artist produce finished oil paintings in the studio. They were not thought of as finished works in their own right. While in Rome, he became friends with other French artists, such as Camille Corot, Caruelle d’Aligny, Edouard Bertin and Leon Fleury. They sketched together in Rome and the surrounding Campagna. So closely did they work together that many of their sketches resemble each other.

Giroux returned to Paris in 1835. He continued to produce paintings of Italian subjects composed in his studio. He used the sketches he had made while in Rome for reference. He was fascinated with capturing the fleeting effects of light in the landscape. No doubt this contributed to his change from painting to photography. In particular, he had learned in Rome how to identify an interesting subject, as well as composition, framing and, perhaps most importantly, swift action.

These skills gave his photographic work a painterly style. He sought to achieve greater atmospheric effects in his photography. He developed a technique called cliché-verre. This brought together the two media through painting and scratching on the paper and the glass negatives. Corot would also experiment with this approach.

This sketch shows the classical Roman ruins on the south-east corner of the Palatine Hill. The Palatine Hill is one of the oldest parts of Rome. It was the site of several imperial Roman palaces. Due to its central and easily accessible location and its mix of ancient ruins and abundant foliage, reminiscent of prints by the seventeenth-century artist Giovanni Piranesi, the Palatine was a popular subject for artists.

The relationship between manmade structures and the natural world was one that Giroux would return to frequently in his work. He often depicted buildings that were collapsing and being taken over by foliage, or which were standing in seeming defiance of encroaching trees and shrubs. Here, it is difficult to distinguish between the ruins and the trees. The architecture has started to blend into nature, becoming the same colour as the rocks and tree trunks.