It was during that summer stay that Sérusier met the French painters, Émile Bernard and Paul Gaugin. During the summer of 1888 Sérusier had spent his time at Pont-Aven in Brittany, which was a popular meeting place for artists. Sérusier, who was six years older than Denis, had also studied at the Lycée Condorcet high school. Pluie en Bretagne by Maurice Denis (1889)Īlso studying at the Académie Julian at that time was another aspiring artist, Paul Sérusier. Maurice completed his secondary schooling in 1888 and due to his family’s financial status was able to enrol simultaneously in the École des Beaux Arts and the Académie Julian where one of his tutors was Jules Lefebvre. In 1882, aged eleven, Maurice enrolled at the Lycée Condorcet, which was founded in 1803 and was one of the four oldest and most esteemed high schools in Paris Fellow students at the school were his future contemporary artists, Édouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel and the future theatre director and set designer, Aurélien Lugné-Poe.
After the war the family returned to Paris and went to live in the western suburb of Saint Germain-en-Laye which was to be Maurice’s home town for the rest of his life.
The Denis family, who had been living in Paris, had moved out of the French capital to avoid the Franco-Prussian war which culminated in the capital being besieged by the Prussian army in September 1870. Maurice was born into a wealthy family and benefited from this by attending the best school and academies. He was the only son of Constant Eugène Denis and Hortense Denis (née Hadde).
This Normandy coastal town with its scenic coastline and its countryside hinterland were very picturesque and would feature in many of Denis works. Maurice Denis was born in November 1870 in the fishing port of Granville in the Manche department of north-west France. Portrait of the Artist Aged Eighteen by Maurice Denis His writings on art theory and his paintings were to influence future painters and in some ways heralded the arrival of cubism, fauvism and abstract art. Today I am looking at the life and some works by the great French painter, designer, printmaker and writer, Maurice Denis whose Christian upbringing had an influence on many of his works. Remember that a painting – before it is a battle horse, a nude model, or some anecdote – is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order. Self-Portrait with his Family in Front of Their House by Maurice Denis (1916)
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