Madeleine in the Bois d'Amour

1888

Oil on canvas, 137 × 163 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

A young woman lies full length on the grass of a wood, head propped on one hand. The life-size canvas is signed with the name of the Breton town where it was made.

She is lost in a daydream, and the museum sees a portrait with allegorical overtones. The pose stands for a state of mind, not a moment observed.
It was painted in the studio, with the woods worked up from studies made on the spot.
Look at her body: it lies parallel to the river running behind the trees.
Figure and landscape differ in light, brushwork and color, as if painted separately.
The Orsay bought it in 1977 from a private collection.

The sitter was the painter's sister, then 17; he was 20. The museum points out that Sérusier's small panel, the Nabis' talisman, made this same wood famous.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art