"Poetry" 168×135 cm, 1893, held at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Maurice Denis (1870-1943) is the most representative painter of the Nabis. In 1888 he entered the Julian Academy, where he met Serusier and founded the Nabis with his friend Vuillard. A follower of Cézanne ("To Cézanne with highest respect," 1900), under Gauguin's Synthetist influence, they emphasized flatness, patterning, and decoration, making color their core exploration. As theorists of the group, their most famous argument was that "a painting, whether it depicts a warhorse, a nude woman, or any anecdote, is most importantly a surface orderly covered with a combination of colors," which had a significant impact on 20th-century modernism.

"Poetry" depicts a group of beautiful and elegant ladies sitting under shady trees in a park, chatting during a pleasant holiday. Through decorative imagery, flattened or color-blocked figures, noble graphic skirts, contrasting colors, and vertical structures, it praises the poetic and happy atmosphere of Parisians, presenting a fresh new Art Nouveau aesthetic.