In Information, a peasant gives critical information to a Napoleonic military leader, General Desaix. The highly detailed rendering of the winter landscape and the uniformed men is an attempt, in the manner of a historical novel, to re-create the great days of Napoleon's victories. Ernest Meissonier made his reputation through such meticulously realistic and highly finished paintings. Under Napoleon III's Second Empire, Meissonier painted a number of scenes that glorified the campaigns of the First Napoleonic Empire. These paintings have a narrative, illustrative character far removed from the broad, even coarse, realism of Maissonier's contemporaries, such as Gustave Courbet and Honoré Daumier.

Excerpt from

Heather MacDonald, DMA label copy, 2010.

• National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
  Read a biography of Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  View another painting of a military scene by Meissonier at the Met.