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Maurice Denis: Photography at the Musee D'Orsay

By (author) Francoise Heilbrun, By (author) Nathalie Bondil, By (author) Saskia Ooms

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This small-format book presents a selection of sixty photographs by the French Nabi painter, Maurice Denis (1870-1943). The photographs depict his family and his artist and writer friends, in particular Eduard Verkade and Andre Gide, and offer greater insight into the life of the painter. In 1895 George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, unveiled the latest model of his portable cameras for the market of amateur photographers. The users of these cameras could not see the subject framed through the lens clearly but Maurice Denis made successful use of the fortuitous nature of early photography. Like Bonnard and Vuillard, thanks to his familiarity with Japanese prints, Denis became one of the best interpreters of the aesthetics of instant photography. The pictures he took between 1895 and 1913 of his family and painter and writer friends are fascinating for the strong affinities they have with his pictorial and graphical work. Maurice Denis' photographs marvellously illustrate the intrusion of mystery into everyday life, which is the very essence of his art.