De Gide à Denis ou de Cézanne à Athman : la relation peintre–écrivain face à la question du classicisme

Abstract

FROM GIDE TO DENIS OR FROM CÉZANNE TO ATHMAN : THE PAINTER–WRITER RELATIONSHIP AND THE ISSUE OF CLASSICISM

In 1900, French writer André Gide purchased Maurice Denis’s Homage to Cézanne, nowadays in the collection of Musée d’Orsay. Considered a turning point in Denis’s career, the painting cele­brates the new values of classicism that Denis discovered in the company of Gide while in Rome two years earlier. This essay discusses the similarities between the painter’s and the writer’s own definitions of classicism, while focusing also on the way in which each one of them applied this definition to their own work.