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Maurice
Denis. Ladder in Foliage, or Poetic Arabesques for the Decoration
of a Ceiling, 1892. Oil on canvas, mounted on cardboard. Musée
Départemental Maurice Denis "Le Prieuré," St.-Germain-en-Laye
(cat. no. 14)
Originally commissioned
by the artist and musician Henry Lerolle as a ceiling painting but later
hung vertically as an easel painting, Ladder in Foliage can be
seen as Maurice Deniss meditation on the musical and ornamental
concept of the arabesque, or S-curve. The use of sinuous and organic lines
dominates the canvas, apparent in the swirling skirts and wavy tresses
of the women as well as in the curling leaves of the trees. The four women
were modeled after the artists future wife, Marthe, who assisted
Denis by executing the border of the painting. The work now hangs in the
artists former home, a restored convent (Le Prieuré) outside
of Paris, which, in 1980, was converted to a museum devoted to works of
Denis and the Nabis.
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