Analysis Of Love: Our Souls In Slight Gestures

Love: Our Souls in Slight Gestures

When first given the assignment of finding a piece for our final paper, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer task of narrowing down candidates from such a vast, eclectic collection of pieces here at the Cleveland Museum of Art. All of the interesting histories and unique stories can cause the imagination and curiosity to run amuck. So I decided to let my heart choose instead of my head.

As my eyes surveyed the many images and three dimensional works, I found myself feeling as if some pieces were attention bullies with all of their overtly intricate creation processes. Subsequently, I unconsciously decided to seek out a soft, whispering piece that I thought might be easily overlooked or undervalued by the uneducated

Even the frame seemed to outshine the contained image. I began feeling connected to it somehow, perhaps because though surrounded by noisy relatives and a polished appearance I too often feel overlooked despite my unspoken amazing story. I was drawn in. I had to know more; and I am so proud of my efforts to take a second look, because this piece has become the doorway to a wealth of knowledge about a man who speaks life into a love I had long since surrendered to fables and fairy tales. A lithograph by French artist, Maurice Denis, “Love: Our Souls in Slight Gestures” is part of a collection of twelve prints created for commercial distribution; the cover of which is also owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art (Love: Our Souls in Slight Gestures, 2015). Its focus, like the other pieces in the collection is a scene plucked from everyday life, romanticized and immortalized by its viewer.

When collecting research about this image and its creator, I found that there was a wealth of material, but most of it was in French! I needed some serious help, so I utilized an extremely invaluable resource made available to us by our professor, Stephanie Foster. I interviewed one of the librarians at the Art Museum, Christine

Edmonson showed me, was how to use Google Translate to decode foreign websites and text which I love and will be using much more in future research. The first thing I used it for, was Maurice Denis : l’éternel printemps / sous la direction de Vanessa Lecomte et Fabienne Stahl. A biographic catalog of an exhibition held at Musée des impressionnismes, Giverny, Apr. 1-July 15, 2012 where works of Denis were featured. This helped to get a deeper well of knowledge about the artist and his influences around the time he produced the “Love” collection. There I learned that Denis often depicted the symbolism of spring time in his art, as well as repeating themes of “harmony, happiness and intimacy”(Lecompte and Stahl, 2012); quite apropos for an individual with deeply religious affiliations and fully entwined in the throes of being in love. For both are wrought with themes of renewal, simplicity and