"Easter Morning"

Easter Morning (also known as Holy Women at the Tomb) exemplifies the evermore pronounced integration of Christian allegory into Denis's work; unlike in Landscape with Green Trees, these themes are not ambiguously or ephemerally expressed. In fact, the title of the work indicates that the women are approaching the tomb of Christ on Easter Morning, in which context the beauty of the landscape comes to stand for the beauty of the women's souls, and of their spiritual devotion. Other paintings produced around this time focus on similar themes, including the Annunciation, the Madonna and Child, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. The increasingly direct expression of Christian faith through Denis's work would lead him away from  some of the central concerns of modern art.