.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Painted in the summer of 1893 in Perros-Guirec, where Marthe and Maurice Denis were spending their honeymoon, the present work, Légende de Chevalerie ou Trois jeunes princesses includes all the most emblematic motifs of the painter's life. It is set in Brittany, where Denis spent his summer vacations as a child and where he continually returned throughout his life. The area forged his personality and was a fertile source of inspiration for him. While his beloved Brittany is shown here as timeless, it remains just as precisely represented: the narrow curved strip of land on which the horseback riders are moving – a visual echo of the garden in the foreground – separates the two parts of the Linkin harbour in Perros-Guirec.
In this 'natural' setting, Denis depicts three young women in an enclosed garden, while two horseback riders come to meet them. One of the sources of inspiration for this work might have been a popular love song from the 16th century that was regularly sung in the artist's family. As in the song, the work portrays three princesses waiting under apple trees and the love of knights away at war... but who remain in the hearts of these beauties! This legendary world is, however, accompanied by symbols that make reference to the artist's intimate convictions: the princesses, surrounded by lilies – associated with purity – are seated in front of a plate of fruit – associated with fertility – under stylised apple trees like those of the Verger des vierges sages (1893; private collection).
This highly accomplished gouache reveals few variations from the definitive work in oil, except for the fan in the young lady's hand that evokes the one that Denis painted in 1891 for his own engagement to Marthe. The matte texture reinforces the work's preciosity, which appears to be inspired by the medieval miniatures that Denis so admired. The painter uses a full poetic language of waiting and revealing, purity and fertility, love and sacredness. The feminine trinity, a quintessential symbolist theme, had already been explored by Puvis de Chavannes in Jeunes Filles au bord de la mer (1879; Musée d'Orsay), and was the central subject of Maurice Denis' Soir Trinitaire (1891; private collection) inspired by a poem by Adolphe Retté.
This poetic symbolism, which uses a private scene to express a spiritual message, is unexpectedly echoed by the young Kandinsky, with whom Jean-Paul Bouillon compares the horseback riders painted by Denis in the years between 1893 and 1895 (J.-P. Bouillon, Maurice Denis, Geneva, 1993, p. 56); but this symbolism moves us first and foremost by this work's perfectly successful combination of the formal approach of the School of Pont-Aven (frontality, solid colours) with the decorative demands of Art Nouveau (arabesques, mirror composition). It is no accident that Denis returns to these themes in 1898 in a large painting with light strokes and muted hues imitating the appearance of a tapestry, as he himself explained. Art which, in his words, should 'sanctify nature', becomes the source of renewal for our lives.
Gilles Genty, Art Historian.
In this 'natural' setting, Denis depicts three young women in an enclosed garden, while two horseback riders come to meet them. One of the sources of inspiration for this work might have been a popular love song from the 16th century that was regularly sung in the artist's family. As in the song, the work portrays three princesses waiting under apple trees and the love of knights away at war... but who remain in the hearts of these beauties! This legendary world is, however, accompanied by symbols that make reference to the artist's intimate convictions: the princesses, surrounded by lilies – associated with purity – are seated in front of a plate of fruit – associated with fertility – under stylised apple trees like those of the Verger des vierges sages (1893; private collection).
This highly accomplished gouache reveals few variations from the definitive work in oil, except for the fan in the young lady's hand that evokes the one that Denis painted in 1891 for his own engagement to Marthe. The matte texture reinforces the work's preciosity, which appears to be inspired by the medieval miniatures that Denis so admired. The painter uses a full poetic language of waiting and revealing, purity and fertility, love and sacredness. The feminine trinity, a quintessential symbolist theme, had already been explored by Puvis de Chavannes in Jeunes Filles au bord de la mer (1879; Musée d'Orsay), and was the central subject of Maurice Denis' Soir Trinitaire (1891; private collection) inspired by a poem by Adolphe Retté.
This poetic symbolism, which uses a private scene to express a spiritual message, is unexpectedly echoed by the young Kandinsky, with whom Jean-Paul Bouillon compares the horseback riders painted by Denis in the years between 1893 and 1895 (J.-P. Bouillon, Maurice Denis, Geneva, 1993, p. 56); but this symbolism moves us first and foremost by this work's perfectly successful combination of the formal approach of the School of Pont-Aven (frontality, solid colours) with the decorative demands of Art Nouveau (arabesques, mirror composition). It is no accident that Denis returns to these themes in 1898 in a large painting with light strokes and muted hues imitating the appearance of a tapestry, as he himself explained. Art which, in his words, should 'sanctify nature', becomes the source of renewal for our lives.
Gilles Genty, Art Historian.