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Maurice Denis produced a great body of woodcuts in the 1890’s. In the book The Nabis, Claire Frèches-Thory and Antoine Terrasse describe Denis’ illustrations, done off woodcuts, for Verlaine’s Sagesse as follows, “These illustrations give an impression of silence and purity:an atmosphere perfectly in tune with the humility and simplicity of Verlaine’s poems. They also express the painter’s world: life observed from a distance on a calm Sunday morning. The tranquil figures – women and children hand in hand, communicants in procession, praying nuns (and nudes with long tresses, flying like angels) contrast with the geometrical landscapes of counterbalanced light and shade.”