Maurice Denis (France, 1870-1943) studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian, and through fellow student, Paul Sérusier learned of the innovative stylistic movement developed by Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard in Pont-Aven in the summer of 1888. With Sérusier and a number of like-minded contemporaries at the Académie Julian such as Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and others, Denis found himself fundamentally opposed to the naturalism recommended by his academic teachers. They formed the Nabis, a secret artistic brotherhood dedicated to a form of pictorial Symbolism based loosely on the synthetic innovations of Gauguin and Bernard. Their bold experiments in flat paint application and anti-naturalistic colour prefigured later abstract initiatives. A gifted writer, Denis's first article, "Définition du néo-traditionalism," published in Art et critique in 1890, served almost as a group manifesto, and his tireless proselytizing was crucial to the development of the Nabis' early patronage.

Denis's experiments with small-scale, synthetic work soon gave way to more traditional working methods. He had never denied the importance of the subject matter, and in his later painting devoted himself to the revival of religious imagery. He undertook immense preparation for the more complex decorative projects he commenced from circa 1900 onwards, cultivating the dry, matte surface of fresco and favouring a muted palette of pastel blues, pinks, greys and mauves. A visit to Rome in 1898 had stirred his interest in classicism, and initiated a shift away from the more spectacular, subjective Symbolism of Gauguin and Van Gogh towards what he saw as the reassertion of the classical values of Paul Cézanne. In articles, Denis disseminated the view that classicism was the essence of the French cultural tradition, a view that had considerable influence on a younger generation of artists in France and elsewhere.

In the wake of his first important private decorative commission in 1897 for the Paris hôtel of Baron Denys Cochin, Denis was occupied by a succession of decorative projects for religious and secular settings, notable among them the enormous decorative scheme on the theme of the Histoire de la Musique for the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (1912-1913) and the Histoire de l'Art Français for the cupola of the Petit Palais (1924-1925).