Girl from Savoy - Paul Sérusier

A 1890 oil painting by Paul Sérusier, featuring a young woman in a blue dress seated on a grassy slope, rendered in the flat, decorative style of the Nabis.

Paul Sérusier painted Girl from Savoy in 1890, a period during which he was deeply involved with the Nabis group. This collective sought to move away from the objective representation of nature, favouring instead the expression of subjective emotion through simplified forms and flat areas of colour. The work depicts a young woman seated on a grassy slope, occupied with a piece of needlework. Her posture is relaxed, and her gaze is directed downward, creating a sense of quiet introspection.

The composition is defined by its lack of traditional perspective. Sérusier uses large, unmodulated planes of colour to construct the scene. The deep green of the grass contrasts with the muted blue of the girl's dress, while the background features stylised trees that appear as decorative elements rather than realistic representations of a forest. The application of paint is relatively uniform, avoiding the textured brushwork often associated with Impressionism. Instead, the artist focuses on the harmony of the colour palette and the clarity of the outlines.

This painting reflects the influence of Paul Gauguin, who encouraged Sérusier to paint what he felt rather than what he saw. The simplified shapes and the deliberate choice of non-naturalistic colours are characteristic of the Nabis aesthetic. The girl's form is reduced to essential lines, and the surrounding environment is treated as a flat surface. This approach allows the viewer to focus on the overall decorative quality of the image. The work remains a clear example of the shift towards abstraction that occurred in late nineteenth-century French painting, where the artist's internal vision took precedence over the accurate depiction of the physical world.