Style Other / Ref.15551

Gustave VANAISE, Innocence, 1884

This painting titled Innocence was created by Gustave Vanaise in 1884.

Gustave Vanaise (Ghent, 1854-Saint-Gilles, 1902) studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent under Théodore Canneel, and later in Brussels. He notably produced historical paintings, portraits, and intimate scenes; many of his works are preserved at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent. Vanaise participated regularly in the Paris Salon from 1879 to 1888; in 1884, he exhibited a Young Boy with a Pigeon, which may be this very piece.

This work is an allegory of Innocence. Against a backdrop of a luminous yellow cloth stands the figure of a young boy lying on the ground, propped up on his elbows; his youth and nudity, both symbols of innocence, are further emphasized by the dove he holds in his left hand, a symbol of purity. The boy seems about to kiss the bird on the beak. The scene is completed on the right by a low-relief representing a gentle Madonna and Child, set against the background.

The artist’s choice of subject and treatment place this work at the boundary between allegory and intimate scene, a genre in which the painter excelled: the presence of the yellow sheet in the background, intended to close the scene, adds to the composition’s closed, intimate character, while the use of symbols and the presence of the Virgin and Child tend to place the work in allegorical painting.

In a similar spirit, Vanaise painted The Bacchante, a piece housed at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. It depicts a woman crowned with ivy lying sensually on the ground, while a young boy resembling the one in Innocence – though likely a young satyr here – plays the flute.