Notes on Maurice Denis's 'Definition of Neo-Traditionism'

Maurice Denis (1870-1943) - 'Definition of Neo-Traditionism'

Introduction

• Maurice Denis, at the age of twenty, was a student at the Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian.

• He learned about Gauguin and Bernard's work at Pont-Aven from Paul Sérusier.

• The painters at Académie Julian, including Bonnard, Vuillard, and Ranson, formed the Nabis, a Symbolist faction.

• Other Nabis members included Ibels, Roussel, Verkade, Valotton, and Maillol.

• Denis's opening statement connects late 19th-century Symbolist theories with early 20th-century abstract art.

• It prioritizes painting's formal and decorative principles over narration and description.

• His academic teachers would not have necessarily disagreed with this statement.

• The article's modernism lies in its rejection of Naturalist principles and assertion of 'aesthetic imagination'.

• Denis painted modernized versions of traditional Catholic motifs and achieved success in 1889 with his Catholic Mystery.

• The article was originally published in Art et Critique in 1890 under the pseudonym Pierre-Louis.

• It was later reprinted in Denis's Théories 1890-1910.

Core Argument

I. Essence of a Picture

• A picture should be viewed, first and foremost, as "a flat surface covered with colours arranged in a particular pattern."

II. Defining Painting of 'Nature'

• The task is to define painting of 'nature', the dominant theory of art at the end of the century.

• Optical experience is insufficient due to intellectual habits influencing vision.

• Examples: Attempts to perceive trompe-l'oeil in art, Signac's scientific arguments for chromatic insights, and Bouguereau's conviction in copying 'nature'.

III. Museum Experience

• In a museum, each canvas can give a sense of reality, but it's what you expect to see that you find.

• It's possible to see 'nature' in these pictures, but it's also possible not to.

• Painters tend to relate perceived reality to existing paintings.

• Intellectual activity can create optical anomalies, like perceiving greys as violet after searching for it.

• Admiration for old pictures can distort the eyes of art teachers.

• 'Nature' is always changing and subject to fashion, differing between salons and eras.

IV. Modern Artist's Interpretation

• Modern artists adopt an eclectic and exclusive habit of interpreting optical sensations through choice and synthesis.

• This becomes the criterion of naturalism: the painter's sense of self or 'temperament'.

• It is a kind of hallucination beyond aesthetic judgment that reason cannot control.

V. Aesthetic Judgment and Temperament

• When someone claims that nature is more beautiful than any painting, they assert their impressions of nature are superior.

• Comparing the impact of the original and its imprint on someone's mind highlights the issue of temperament.

• Definition: 'Art is nature seen through a temperament.'

• It is vague and lacks a precise measure for judging temperament.

• Aesthetics is a science that deals with these matters, developing through investigations by figures like Charles Henry and the psychology of Spencer and Bain.

• Sensations should be evaluated in terms of beauty before externalizing them.

VI. Naturalism and the Renaissance

• Painters have failed to understand the term 'naturalist' in a philosophical sense applied to the Renaissance.

• Fra Angelico and Ghirlandaio's works recall 'nature' more accurately than Giorgione, Raphael, or da Vinci.

• It is simply a different way of seeing, a different kind of imagination.

VII. Constant Change in Sensations

• Sensations are constantly changing, whether as subject or object.

• It is difficult to recreate the same composition due to life, color intensity, light, movement, and atmosphere.

VIII. Photography and Plaster Casts

• Photography informs us of the degree of reality of a form, and a plaster cast from nature is 'as natural as possible'.

• 'Natural' includes trompe-l'oeil and panoramas that blur the line between reality and canvas.

IX. Sincerity and Naivety

• "Be sincere; you need only be sincere in order to paint well. Be naive. Paint quite simply what you see."

• Academies have tried to produce infallible, rigorously precise machines.

X. Bouguereau's Teaching

• Bouguereau's teaching exemplifies that the secret of drawing lies in the articulation of the joints.

• His mind was fixated on the anatomical complexity of the joints.

• Some find a resemblance to Ingres, even thinking Bouguereau has progressed further.

XI. Degradation of Naturalism

• Petty painters have retained vague memories of Old Masters, distorting their aesthetic.

• They are busy messing up the canvases of the Renaissance.

XIII. The Immorality of Naturalism

• A modern master criticizes a painting of a woman for not being 'natural' enough to be desirable.

• This raises questions about the morality of art, comparing symbols, photographs, and nudes.

• Analytical works with trompe-l'oeil are criticized for appealing to both youths and libertines.

XIV. Return to Beautiful Things

• There are beginnings of a return to beautiful things among the Impressionists, led by Manet.

• Imitators seek colorful natural scenes but spoil the fresh taste of their original sensation.

• They disdain composition and prioritize being natural, with an exasperating mania for modelling.

XV. Gauguin's History of Modelling

• 'Art is the form turning' ['L'art, c'est quand ça tourne'],

• Gauguin's history of modelling:

  • Pure arabesque is far from trompe-l'oeil.

  • Painted bas-reliefs.

  • Artists attempted ornamental trompe-l'oeil in the fifteenth century.

  • Modelling finds its perfection in full relief.

XVI. Early French Sculpture

• Early French sculpture derives from Byzantine manuscript illumination.

• Folds of togas and robes are used as simple arabesques with no concern for draping real cloth.

• Sérusier explained how this tendency runs through archaic Athenes, Tanagra figurines, and Greek statues.

• Unrealistic folds were introduced to fill gaps, creating relief.

XVIII. Literature and the Plastic Arts

• Our times are literary, refining even minutiae.

• In periods of decadence, the plastic arts dwindle into literary affectation or naturalistic negation.

XIX. Renaissance Artists

• Renaissance artists let their profound work pour forth naturally.

• Michelangelo did not have to struggle to appear great, unlike Bernini or Annibale Carracci.

• Trying too hard ruined the Romantics.

XX. Sentiment and Emotion

• True sentiment arises from the soul of the artist.

• 'He who would paint the things of Christ should live with Christ', said Fra Angelico.

• Emotions are provoked through the canvas itself, a flat surface bathed in color.

• These emotions are 'literary' and do not need to impose memories of past feelings.

• A Byzantine Christ is a symbol; the Jesus of modern painters is merely literary.

• Form is expressive in the former; expression is attempted through imitation of nature in the latter.

• Any representation may appear natural, and any beautiful work of art can provoke absolute emotions.

• Even linear invention and the Parthenon frieze have emotional value.

• Beethoven's sonatas evoke emotion as well.

XXI. Redemption of the Human Form

• The Doryphorus, the Diadumenus, the Achilles, the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory, and the Saints of the Middle Ages are a redemption of the human form.

• Rodin's John the Baptist was inspired by a venerable bronze, the embodiment of the Word in motion.

• Puvis de Chavannes selected a man to be his Poor Fisherman, expressing eternal sorrow.

• Aesthetic imagination triumphs over crude imitation, and the emotions of beauty triumph over the lies of Naturalism.

XXII. True Form of Art

• When unjustifiable bias and illogical prejudice are eliminated, the field remains open to painters of imagination and aesthetic thinkers.

• Neo-Traditionism must not become trapped in psychological theories or literary sentimentality.

• Neo-Traditionism has reached the moment of definitive synthesis.

• All is contained within the beauty of the work of art.

XXIII. Originality and Modern Painters

• Artists who rack their brains for originality, rejecting their true feelings, are fools.

• Modern painters are distinguished through their vision, technique, and subject matter.

• They all follow the same fashion.

XXIV. Sanctification of Nature

• Art is the sanctification of nature, transforming vulgar feelings of natural objects into sacred icons.

• The hieratic simplicity of figures of the Buddha, the lions of Khorsabad, and the Doryphorus exemplify this.