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Maurice Denis

File:MauriceDenis-AutoportraitDevantLePrieure.JPG · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Maurice Denis

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Also known as Moris Deni, M. Denis, m. denis, Denis

French painter (1870–1943)

Person · Open Library

Born
1870
Died
1943
Works
37

Top works

  • Maurice Denis et la Bretagne, Maurice Denis à Perros-Guirec
  • Premiers paysages
  • Beautés du ciel
  • Französische Kunst des XIX. u. XX. Jahrhunderts Zürcher Kunsthaus 5 oktober bis 14 November 1917
  • L'oeuvre

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
United States
Active from
1945

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Quotes

  • Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a female nude or some sort of anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order.
  • The profoundness of our emotions comes from the sufficiency of these lines and these colors to explain themselves.. ..everything is contained in the beauty of the work.
  • Art remains a sure refuge, the hope of a reason in life from now on, and the consoling thought that little beauty manifests itself in our lives, and that we are continuing the work of Creation.. .Therefore the work of art has merit, inscribed in the marvelous beauty of flowers, of light, in the proportion of trees and shape of waves, and the perfection of faces; to inscribe our poor and lamentable life of suffering, of hope and of thought.
  • Think of late paintings where Christ is the central figure.. .Remember the large mosaics of Rome. Reconcile the employment of large-scale decorative means and the direct emotions of nature.
  • ..the classical aesthetic offers us at the same time a method of thinking and a method of wanting to be, a moral and at the same time a psychology.. .The classical tradition as a whole, by the logic of the effort and the greatness of results, is in some way parallel with the religious tradition of humanity.
  • The common error of us all [in late Impressionism] was to search above all for the light. It would have been better first to search for the Kingdom of God and his justice, that is to say for the expression of our spirit in beauty, and the rest would have arrived naturally.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
Maurice Denis , ( 1870-11-25 ) 25 November 1870, Granville, Manche , France
Died
13 November 1943 (1943-11-13) (aged 72), Paris, France
Education
École des Beaux-Arts , Académie Julian
Known for
Painting, drawing

via Wikipedia infobox

Works in European collections

4 objects attributed to Maurice Denis, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana

~31 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Maurice Denis ( French: [dəni]; 25 November 1870 – 13 November 1943) was a French painter, decorative artist, and writer. An important figure in the changing world of late 19th-century European art, Denis is associated with Les Nabis, Symbolism, and later Neo-classicism. His theories contributed to the foundations of Cubism, Fauvism, and abstraction. After World War I, Denis founded the Ateliers d'Art Sacré (Workshops of Sacred Art), decorated the interiors of churches, and worked for a revival of religious art.

Biography

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Maurice Denis” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (12)