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Description
In 1892, the year after Bonnard displayed Decorative Panels 1. 2. 3. 4. Maurice Denis submitted the series, Poetic Subjects to the Salon des Indépendants. Since each of the four paintings is named for a month, art historians have interpreted them as representing a different "season" in the life of a young woman. April, in which girls in white choose flowers for their bouquets, may symbolize first communion. The young women strolling through a park in July (Fondation Rau, Switzerland) perhaps allude to the freedom of youth. In September women on a terrace await the arrival of their "knights" (Denis was interested in medieval poetry at the time), and in October a bride holds a bouquet under a canopy of autumnal leaves. Denis returned to these traditional themes of love and marriage throughout his career.
The academic painter and composer Henri Lerolle asked the twenty-one-year-old Denis to create a ceiling painting for his home, something the young artist had never before attempted. Denis's fiancée, the artist Marthe Meurier, served as the model for all four figures on the ladder. It was she who painted the foliate border around the edge of the painting, and, accordingly, added her initials (lower left corner). Denis's intitials can be found amid the foliage in the middle of the canvas, at right.Ladder in Foliage launched Denis's career as a painter-decorator, and he received commissions from Lerolle's family and friends throughout the decade.
In 1895 the art dealer Siegfried Bing invited Denis to create a bedroom decoration for the launch of his new gallery, the Maison de l'Art Nouveau. Inspired by Robert Schumann's song cycle, "Frauenliebe und Leben" ("The Love and Life of a Woman"), Denis created seven panels that were hung high on the walls as a frieze. He also insisted on designing the bedroom furniture for the room. Much to Denis's disappointment, his furniture was roundly criticized and the seven paintings were separated after the exhibition.
In 1912 Bonnard purchased a small two-story brick house, Ma Roulotte (My Caravan), in the town of Vernon in Normandy. The house had a balcony that ran along the upper story and led to a large terrace with stairs down to the gardens below. Bonnard was inspired to create a series of paintings from this terrace.
Bonnard painted this work on the Mediterranean coast in the winter of 191819, soon after the end of World War I. In the myth of Europa, Zeus disguised himself as a bull, so as not to incite the jealousy of his wife Hera, and brought Europa to Crete, where she bore him several children. This painting seems related to the Bernheim decorative series, two paintings of which are included in this exhibition.
In 1920 Denis received a commission to paint a large mural for Le Tigre Royale, a Geneva fur shop. The resulting painting, a nearly thirteen-foot-long image of a drunken orgy, contrasts sharply with the religious themes that usually preoccupied the artist. It is not known if this canvas was painted as a model for the larger mural or as a repetition after it.
In 1908 Vuillard moved to an apartment facing the Place Vintimille in the ninth arrondissement of Paris. Earlier that year, the playwright Henry Bernstein had purchased four panels from Vuillard's Streets of Paris series. Bernstein ordered four additional cityscapes, and Vuillard chose as their subject the Place Vintimille and nearby side streets.Place Vintimille screen was ready to be mounted onto a wood support and backed with wallpaper.