Talisman: Landscape in the Bois d'Amour

Documentation:

Caroline Boyle-Turner explains the significance of Sérusier’s The Talisman :

“The fact that the Talisman is an unfinished painting does not diminish its importance as a key work in the formation of what we call ‘abstract art’. While in Gauguin’s contemporary work, as well as in that of Cézanne and others, abstract notions of line, color and harmony are revealed, it is rare to find in any of their work so succinct an example of these notions as in Sérusier’s unfinished panel. The ideas illustrated by the Talisman nurtured the nabis and encouraged their startling advances in the pursuit of abstraction. “

Caroline Boyle-Turner, “Serusier’s Talisman,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 127, no. 1396-97 (May-June 1985): 195.