Forentice Landscape, Viale dei Colli 1898

Maurice Denis created this oil on panel painting, "Forentice Landscape, Viale dei Colli." The composition presents a broad vista, its hazy rendering evoking a dreamlike serenity. The muted palette, dominated by soft greens, browns, and blues, creates a tranquil, almost melancholic atmosphere. Denis manipulates perspective and form to flatten the pictorial space. The city below blends into an array of soft, indistinct shapes, while the foreground hills are simplified into textured planes. This flattening effect subverts traditional landscape conventions. It suggests a deeper engagement with the formal properties of painting itself. This work invites us to reconsider our relationship with the seen world. Denis does not simply reproduce a landscape; he constructs a visual experience that challenges fixed ways of seeing. Instead, he evokes a sense of contemplation and subjective interpretation.