Maurice Denis (1870 – 1943) was a French painter, decorative artist and writer, who was an important figure in the transitional period between impressionism and modern art. He was associated with Les Nabis then the Symbolist movement, and then with a return to neo-classicism. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art. Following the First World War, he founded the Ateliers d’Art Sacré (Workshops of Sacred Art), decorated the interiors of churches, and worked for a revival of religious art.

Denis was accepted as a student at one of the most prestigious Paris schools, the Lycée Condorcet, where he excelled at philosophy. However, he decided to leave the school at the end of 1887 and in 1888 enrolled in Académie Julian to prepare for the entrance examination to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At the Académie Julian, his fellow students included Paul Sérusier and Pierre Bonnard, who had shared ideas about painting. Through Bonnard he met additional artists, including Édouard Vuillard, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel and Hermann-Paul. In 1890 they formed a group which they called the Nabis, taken from “Nabi”—Hebrew for “Prophet”. 

For his technique, Maurice Denis was first drawn toward the neo-impressionist style of Seurat, but rejected it as too scientific. In 1889, Denis was captivated by an exposition of works of Gauguin and his friends at the Cafe Volponi, on the edge of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889. The work of Gauguin had an immediate effect on Denis’ work. The brightly colored forms of Gauguin’s Vache au-dessus du gouffre first shown in 1889, appeared in an October 1890 work by Denis, Taches du soleil sur la terrace, and later in Denis’ Solitude du Christ (1918). Source: Wikiart.