Focus on Italian Brigands Surprised by Papal Troops and explain the Style.
The scene is realized in dramatic tones, following academic visual traditions with particular attention to the details of shades of color. The rocks in the background and the grey clouds in the sky magnify the drama of the action illuminated by the sun. The attention to the military subjects and the cavalry comes from the pictorial interest of Vernet's father, Carle Vernet. The unlikely palm tree depicted behind the chapel, amid the wild vegetation, add a touch of exoticism to the painting. Vernet made many paintings with Orientalist themes.
Critics have observed how the scene represents a single moment of action: the hat of the cavalry soldier in the foreground has not yet fallen to the ground, and the brigand is lifted from the ground as the soldier is about to shoot him. All the painting's details are meticulously painting, giving it the feeling of a "a pre-photographic, photographic painting".The fountain of water in the foreground recalls a classical sarcophagus, a common feature in the neoclassical themes of the French school in Rome at that time.
Orientalist Carle Vernet