Sacred Grove by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Canvas Print

Sacred Grove by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1883, is an expressive watercolor in jewel-like colors over graphite pencil of classical figures in a pastoral, Arcadian landscape of forest reflecting in a lake. This small study recalls both neo-Classical landscapes, the sacred groves of ancient Greece, and the open-air paintings of Cezanne and the Impressionists. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 - 1898) was a French painter and one of the most widely admired and influential artists during the latter 19th century. Puvis studied briefly under Delacroix and Thomas Couture and at the Académie des Beaux Arts before gaining wide recognition exhibiting in the Paris Salon. His many public and private mural commissions canonized Puvis as the "painter for France", bringing many accolades from across the worlds of art and literature. His work is part of the French Symbolist movement, spanning the period between Romanticism and the rise of Modernism. Though Puvis’ reputation has diminished greatly, the artist influenced countless others including Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, and left an unmistakable impression on the 20th century Modernists.