MAURICE DENIS’ MUSEUM : AN IDYLLIC BACKWATER IN THE HISTORY OF ART

Artist Maurice Denis is a local hero in this pleasant suburb of Paris. As chief theoretician of the Nabis group of painters, a conservative offshoot of the Symbolist school, Denis (1870-1943) is only a big fish in one of modern art history’s smallest ponds. But his nearly lifelong residence here and the establishment of a museum in his grand former home makes him a revered presence.

Residents know Denis as an artist whose pastoral idylls and religious paintings now hang in the Musee du Prieure on the edge of town, along with the work of his peers. Critics who discount Denis’ art as decorative give him at least credit for a statement that remains a cornerstone of contemporary painting: “Remember that a picture--before being a war horse or a nude woman or an anecdote--is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order.”

Inspired by Paul Gauguin during his Symbolist phase, Denis and other sympathizers formed the Nabis group, taking their name from the Hebrew word for prophet. Reacting to Realism and Impressionism, they turned their attention toward a spiritual world and attempted to paint formal equivalents of emotions and ideas.

While the eclectic Symbolists aimed to “clothe ideas in sensuous form” and to make visual the mystical and the occult, the Nabis were relatively unified in style and placid in temperament. They favored a light palette and a broad decorative approach as they flattened figures, brushed arabesque patterns and absorbed the influence of Japanese prints. It’s their work, mostly created during the group’s active life (1888-1899), that now populates the museum.

The Musee du Prieure opened seven years ago in a 17th-Century building that was first a royal hospital and subsequently served as a warehouse, an artists’ studio, a Jesuit priory and home of Denis’ dreams. In 1893, the artist moved into a house next to the current museum and in 1905 rented one of its halls to work on large projects. His desire to own the estate was fulfilled in 1912 when it was put up for sale. Taking possession two years later, he moved in with his wife and six children and lived there for nearly 30 years.

Yet another happy blend of modern art and historical architecture--in the tradition of the Picasso museums in Antibes and Paris--and another artist’s home in a country that proliferates with such shrines, the priory consists of a two-story stone building with an attached chapel and a nearby atelier, surrounded by sculpture and set in a terraced 2 1/2-acre park. A more or less permanent display of works by Denis, Paul Serusier, Felix Vallotton, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and a dozen or so less-known artists is complemented by temporary exhibits from the museum’s collection.

The priory is duly noted in guidebooks and is easily reached by a 20-minute train ride from central Paris, but it hasn’t been inscribed on tourists’ must-see lists. The deserted look of the place a few weekends ago suggests that the museum doesn’t even attract many specialists.

As a visiting critic crossed the priory threshold, a cheerful attendant brightened and immediately inquired about eligibility for a reduction. Confronted with a press pass, she positively glowed and asked if an article about the museum would be forthcoming. An affirmative reply yielded a dossier, a verbal description of the museum layout and a request for a copy of the review. Three security officers lounging in a stairwell snapped to attention and began guarding the museum’s treasures as the lone visitor proceeded to the galleries.

Tourists escaping the museum crowds of Paris to wander through this little-known retreat may wonder if they have died and gone to heaven or wasted their time in trekking out to a suburban museum that everyone else knows isn’t worth the trouble.

After touring the museum--and after another lonely guard makes sure that they see the chapel decorated by Denis and a studio built for him while he was designing ceiling paintings for the Theatre des Champs-Elysees--visitors may conclude that a visit to the priory ranks somewhere between those extremes.

Better works by Denis and company can be seen at the recently opened Musee d’Orsay in Paris, but they are obscured by more prepossessing art and the spectacle of the converted train station. At the priory, the peaceful beauty of the setting makes the art--often second-rate and sometimes worse--seem better than it is, but the shortage of masterpieces does not prevent the museum from being a delightful example of its genre.

Neither a shabby provincial collection of unrelated material nor one of those disappointing artist’s homes that contain little or no art, this one is generously stocked with paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics, stained-glass windows and furniture, with several hundred examples on view at any given time. While a visit to the priory is more an idyllic respite than a high art experience, the attractive museum gives breathing space to a minor period of modern art that is usually squeezed between the major milestones of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Gauguin’s influence is noted in a single painting, an early (1886) portrait called “The Proprietor’s Daughter.” Denis is represented by portraits of his family, religious works and his trademark paintings of diaphanous women who seem to float toward spiritual fulfillment or stand like statues in the woods. Appearing boneless and wearing interchangeable faces, they embody Nabi ideals but often seem hopelessly fey.

At their best, the Nabis’ canvases have the tapestrylike richness of Bonnard’s interiors. At their worst, they resemble the wispy trifles that one might find on greeting cards or faded wallpaper in a 10-year-old girl’s bedroom.

The priory displays portraiture, luminous landscapes, delicate fantasies, religious works and frankly decorative or utilitarian creations. Handsome theatrical posters by Alphonse Mucha hang in the commodious stairwells. A parlorlike setting features furniture whose green upholstery teems with amusing mergers of human beings and aquatic animals. Pedestrian portrayals of flowers, animal life, rustic scenes and legends in stained-glass windows are mollified by the colored light that streams through them.

These hand-crafted products mark the Nabis’ multidisciplinary aspirations and a desire to bring art into everyday life that foreshadowed the more sucessful efforts of the Russian avant-garde, the German Bauhaus and the Dutch De Stijl movement.

The museum that honors them was founded with a donation of property and art from Denis’ family. While Americans are generally uninformed about this new institution, the Japanese are becoming acquainted with its resources. About 120 works from the priory’s collection are visiting six cities in Japan on a six-month tour that ends in September.