Collection: Maurice Chabas

Maurice Chabas (1862–1947, Nantes) was a French painter whose practice moved from an academically trained figurative tradition towards a Symbolist and spiritualist vision of landscape, light and cosmic experience. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury, Chabas exhibited regularly at the Salon des artistes français from the 1880s onwards before developing the contemplative, luminous landscapes that would define his mature work.

His paintings of the early twentieth century — often depicting still water, misty shores, figures in meditation and atmospheric light effects — were shaped by his engagement with Theosophy and Symbolist ideas about the relationship between the visible world and inner or spiritual states. Works exhibited under titles such as Sérénité, Contemplation, Calme and La Poésie dans la Nature were regularly acquired by the French state between 1907 and 1934, entering the collections of provincial museums across France.

His exhibition Les Grandes Visions — La Poésie dans la Nature at Galerie Devambez, Paris, in February 1922 was accompanied by an essay by the poet and critic Gustave Kahn, whose text — printed in full on the folded invitation — placed Chabas’s work within a tradition of visionary painting concerned with the immaterial, the infinite and the atmospheric dissolution of form. His work is held in museum collections across France.