1889
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Orange Christ is a 1889 unspecified by Maurice Denis, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a bright orange Christ on a cross, surrounded by dark, shapeless women and pink angels. The sky is purple with green streaks. Denis painted this when he was only 19, mixing bold colors and simple shapes to show deep feeling. He wanted to make modern religious art that felt fresh, not old-fashioned. If you like this, look up *impasto*—a technique where paint is laid on thickly to create texture.
A devout Catholic, Maurice Denis sought to create what he described as “imperishable icons.” In this small painting, he used flat planes of intense colors to conjure emotion in the viewer. Here, a somber group of women, depicted as amorphous black forms, gather around an orange figure of Christ on the cross. The sky is a reddish-purple streaked with green clouds. Pink angels flank the crucified Christ whose head is haloed in brilliant yellow. In this painting, the daring young artist combined religious fervor with unprecedented visual experimentation.
As reflected in the two-dimensionality and color blocking in this painting, Denis believed a painting was "a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order."
Read the full account in the museum source.
Maurice Denis (French: ; 25 November 1870 – 13 November 1943) was a French painter, decorative artist, and writer.
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