Paul Sérusier’s ‘The Talisman’, a prophecy of colour

The Talisman
"Paul Sérusier’s Landscape at the Bois d’Amour has now acquired a peculiar status: it is a work which is viewed less for its own merits than for its iconic role in the history of painting. This small plein air study painted 'under the guidance of Gauguin' in Brittany, in the little village of Pont-Aven in October 1888, soon became the symbol of a genuine aesthetic revolution for the Nabis (prophets, in Hebrew). When Sérusier returned to the Académie Julian and presented this synthetic landscape with its pure colours and simplified forms to this group of young artists, they adopted it as their 'talisman'. It later found its way into the collection of Maurice Denis, who helped to establish its credentials as a founding work by providing an account of its creation in an article published in the magazine L'Occident in 1903. Sérusier’s study became the focal point for a sort of origin myth which reinforced the story of a 'painting lesson' from Gauguin as the source of inspiration for the young painter’s manifesto for an art which sought to replace the mimetic approach with a 'colourful equivalent'. ..."
Musée d'Orsay