Attitudes are Easy and Chaste - Maurice Denis

A delicate colour lithograph from the 1899 'Amour' portfolio, featuring a contemplative figure in a stylised woodland setting.

This colour lithograph by Maurice Denis, titled 'Les attitudes sont faciles et chastes', originates from the 1899 portfolio 'Amour'. As a member of the Nabis group, Denis rejected traditional perspective in favour of flat colour planes and decorative surfaces. The composition features a young woman in the foreground, her gaze directed downward toward a small flower held in her hand. Her expression is one of quiet contemplation, a recurring theme in Denis's work during this period.

The background depicts a stylised woodland setting, rendered with soft, muted tones of green and brown. The trees are simplified into rhythmic, vertical forms that frame the central figure. A smaller, distant figure in a blue dress walks through the trees, adding a sense of narrative ambiguity to the scene. The lithographic technique allows for a soft, granular texture across the surface, which contributes to the dreamlike quality of the image. Denis uses a restrained palette, relying on subtle shifts in hue rather than high-contrast lighting to define the forms.

Denis was deeply influenced by the theories of Paul Gauguin, particularly the idea that a painting is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order. This work demonstrates that philosophy, as the forms are flattened and the space is compressed. The title, inscribed at the bottom of the print, suggests a moral or spiritual purity associated with the subject matter. The work reflects the Nabis' interest in the intersection of personal emotion and decorative art, moving away from the objective recording of reality toward a more subjective, symbolic representation of the world. The print remains a clear example of the aesthetic concerns that defined the late nineteenth-century French avant-garde.