Interiors of churches and monasteries were a common theme in painting. Granet, a pupil of the Neoclassicist David and a friend of Ingres, was considerably less talented and less skilled than his great acquaintances, and yet this painting reveals his great professionalism in conveying space and light and the quality of air.
Granet used the "romantic" device of the collision of two opposing movements: the bright stream of light which falls from the depths of the painting onto the viewer, and the diagonal perspective lines of the interior - the planks of the floor, the walls and benches - which seem to strain towards the open window. The heroes of this painting are not people, but contrasts of light and shade which create a mystical atmosphere, turning an ordinary service into the ritual of some secret cult.