Maurice Denis et la Belgique, 1890-1930

Abstract

This illustrated book analyzes the artistic relationship of Maurice Denis (1870-1943), French painter and theoretician, with Belgium at the end of the nineteenth century and during the first decennia of the twentieth century. In Belgium Denis was able to harmonize the two central values of his art: a modern taste for formalism combined with Christian spirituality. In his works Denis illustrated the historical evolution of the Belgian Catholic Church and the way Catholicism embraced the modern artistic creation: first the Church was tempted to adopt modernism as a vehicle of a new Christian art, but then it started to doubt the modernist values and finally rejected all contemporary forms of expression.