Bibliography
Catherine Lepdor and Isabelle Cahn (ed.), Maurice Denis. Amour, exh. cat. Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Editions Hazan, 2021: n. 74.
Jean-Paul Bouillon, ‘Du jardin à la plage: deux peintures nouvelles de Maurice Denis au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne,’ in De Vallotton à Dubuffet: une collection en mouvement, acquisitions, dons, prêts, Les Cahiers du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, n. 5, 1996: 21-28.
The painting’s warm, velvety, almost acid hues and thick, matte paintwork make it almost glow. It dates from a period when Maurice Denis was moving on from his Nabi period to embrace a new classicism. The work is deeply informed by his Christian faith: it celebrates his seven-year-old daughter Noële’s recovery from severe appendicitis, overlaid with the New Testament narrative of the miraculous healing of a royal official’s child. Denis, already grieving the loss of a child, spent his nights in prayer. He wrote in his diary, “I have grasped the true meaning of the beautiful words in the Gospel: Septima hora, reliquit febris” (at the seventh hour, the fever left him).
The setting is La Bernerie, on France’s Atlantic coast, at the property of the La Laurencie family. Denis was staying there to paint the lady of the house’s portrait. The painting takes up the very structured composition typical of the Primitives. In the lower third, a group of sculptural figures proclaim the child to be healed in the warm light of the rising sun. Noële is in the arms of her mother, Marthe, reaching for the light. The two other children similarly have their arms raised: the running figure is Maurice and Marthe’s other daughter, Bernadette. Denis’s father stands on the threshold, bearing witness. In the middle third, the artist depicts himself running towards his family. In the top third, the landscape opens up to the ocean and the sky in the warm light of dawn. To the left, Christ, haloed in orange, is comforting the royal official.
The intertwining of the two scenes gestures to didactic parallels between the Old and New Testaments painted on church walls. Here, Denis illustrates the connection between miraculous cures in the Bible and the no less miraculous cures experienced by true Christian believers. For Denis, art was a way of mediating the Word of God.