Maurice Denis
1870–1943 · 8 works
Maurice Denis helped develop the ideas of the Nabis, a group that treated a picture’s arrangement of colors and shapes as important in itself. He carried that approach into paintings, prints, and decorations, often using religious subjects or scenes of family life. A mother and child could become a pattern of rounded forms, while trees might organize the surface instead of opening a realistic view into the distance. His later work drew increasingly on classical art, but the relationship between intimate subjects and deliberate composition remained central.
8 works · 1895–1898
In Mother and Child with Cypress Tree, compare the figures’ outlines with the tree. How do these shapes divide the sheet?
- The Pilgrims at Emmaus1895
Mother and Child with Cypress Tree1897
Allegory, plate one from Love1898, published 1899
Attitudes are Easy and Chaste, plate two from Love1898, published 1899
Cover for Love1898, published 1899
Life Becomes Precious, Discreet, plate eleven from Love1898, published 1899
On the Pale Silver Sofa, plate ten from Love1898, published 1899
The Knight Did Not Die at the Crusade, plate five from Love1898, published 1899