The Talisman (Landscape in the Bois d'Amour)

1888

Oil on wood, 27 × 21.5 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

A small wooden panel shows a riverside wood in a handful of strong hues. Dense trees fill the upper left, with a path below them.

Trees, path and mill shrink to patches of strong color. Each color is an equivalent for what he saw, not a copy.
A note on the back says it was made at Pont-Aven under Gauguin's direction.
Look for the mill at right and the trees lining the river.
Gauguin's advice, as Maurice Denis recorded it, was to paint shadow pure ultramarine.
It stayed with Denis and his heirs until the Orsay bought it in 1985.

On his return to Paris, young painter friends saw the panel and adopted it as their guiding example. They soon called themselves the Nabis.

Nabis: A group of young Paris painters inspired by Gauguin; the name comes from the Hebrew word for prophets.