Mary Magdalene in the Desert by Puvis de Chavannes Postcard

Saint Mary Magdalene in the Desert by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, oil on canvas 1869, is a large painting depicting the standing, robed saint with long, flowing hair contemplating a human skull against a harsh, brightly lit landscape. Puvis sets the strongly contoured, classical figure of Mary amid the flattened, modernist tonality and strong colours of the desert, creating the powerful synthesis of classical antiquity and the modern that made French Symbolism such an influential school of painting. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 – 1898) was a French painter and one of the most widely admired and influential artists during the latter 19th century. Puvis studied briefly under Delacroix and Thomas Couture and at the Académie des Beaux Arts before gaining wide recognition exhibiting in the Paris Salon. His many public and private mural commissions canonised Puvis as the "painter for France", bringing many accolades from across the worlds of art and literature. His work is part of the French Symbolist movement, spanning the period between Romanticism and the rise of Modernism. Though Puvis’ reputation has diminished greatly, the artist influenced countless others including Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, and left an unmistakable impression on the 20th century Modernists such as Matisse and Picasso.