Digitales

A woman stands in the forest, surrounded by plants and trees. The tall, vertically arranged canvas has been created in an extremely decorative composition that fully represents the characteristics of its Nabis painter Ranson. The four sides of the canvas are framed by decorative borders reminiscent of tapestries, and it can be imagined that this painting was originally a preparatory work for a tapestry project. The Nabis painters were highly conscious of the planar nature of paintings, and the inherent decorativeness of such planar images, and they considered medieval period and later tapestries to be one of the best models in the creation of their works.Digitalis (foxglove), the plant with purplish red bell-shaped blossoms, grows in large form across the foreground. This plant's leaves had been known since antiquity as a tonic for the heart. The twining movement of this plant burgeoning with life is a realization of the Nabis' decorative aesthetic. On the one hand, as a result of the Nabis' study of the decorative arts both of Japan and of Europe's medieval period, they used a large number of planar elements and curved lines which eventually resulted in the Art Nouveau style. On the other hand, they also created a symbolic type of expression intimately linked to the fin-de-siècle symbolism of the late 19th century. The fragrance of the blossom sniffed by the woman in the painting, along with its pollen and plant-life mysteries, is somehow intimately linked to the life force within the woman herself.In 1895 the Maison de l'Art Nouveau of Siegfried Bing was set up on rue de Provence in Paris. Ranson's wall mural series of seven works for the dining room were created as part of the refitting and redecoration of the shop. A major work from that series, Seven Women Harvesting, was acquired by the Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art in 1992. Ranson also created vitraux and tapestries. It was during this Maison de l'Art Nouveau period that Ranson's inclination towards decorative arts, particularly tapestries, increased and he became involved in tapestry production in competition with his friends Maillol and Rippl-Ronai. Thus said, however, there are only some ten extant tapestries by Ranson remaining today, and the majority of his tapestry works remain solely in cartoon form. It is possible that this work is related to a tapestry project that was never actually realized. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 106)