With Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, Denis was a founding member of the Nabis group in France, active from 1888 to 1899. Denis, the group's spiritual leader and chief theoretician, called for a new pictorial language in response to the rhythms of nature. In date and sensibility his work bridges the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and as shown here, he had a firm grasp on modernist thought. He once said, "Remember that a picture, before being a war horse, a female nude or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order."

Springtime, a double-sided canvas, describes a purification scene set deep in the forest of Saint-Germain, near Paris. Several pairs of young women—representing the sacred and the profane—blend into a bucolic landscape where one of them stands nude in a stream. Denis draws a parallel between the flowering sapling in the center (a symbol of spring, renewal, and Easter) and the maidens.

The composition is a study for a larger, more realistic painting of 1899 (Virginal Printemps), and in 1908 was the basis for a wall decoration. Until now, the Museum owned prints and illustrated books by Denis but no paintings, a gap filled by this gift.