Like many of his generation, Jules Alexis Muenier does work, which owes a great debt to the father of Rural Naturalism, Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884). Muenier was born in Vesoul, in Eastern France, where he lived for most of his life, painting the rural landscape and the local villagers. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) where his great friend Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret (1852–1929) also studied.

Muenier embraced photography, using his glass-plate negatives as studies from which he constructed his completed oils, as other artists might use preparatory sketches. By the late 1880s he had constructed a glass studio on his property, which was Gérome's former mansion in the village of Coulevon.

Muenier's first Paris Salon exhibit Le Bréviaire (1887) was met with great critical acclaim, as was his 1891 work The Catechism Lesson, a great example of Naturalist painting, which was purchased by the French government. Muenier received the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1895 and a Gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1900.