Afternoon in the Woods 1919

Maurice Denis painted 'Afternoon in the Woods' with oil on canvas, imagining a scene dappled with light, somewhere between a dream and a memory. You can almost feel the brushstrokes, can't you? I imagine him, carefully placing each dot of color, building up this world bit by bit. Look at the way the trees stand, not quite real, more like symbols of a forest. He's playing with how we see, pushing us to feel the woods rather than just look at them. And the figures! Are they mourning? Celebrating? Denis leaves it open, doesn't he? Much like Gauguin who inspired him, he's after something deeper than just what's on the surface. It's a shared journey, this painting, a conversation between artists across time. It asks us to bring our own feelings, our own questions, to the canvas.