Young Women on the Seashore

After Neoclassical beginnings, Puvis gradually perfected a style that suited mural painting and that he also used in easel paintings with a decorative intention, such as the present painting. The style was characterised by an absence of perspective and chiaroscuro, and the use of areas of light colour. He achieved grandeur and depth of emotion through the austere simplification of figures that are somehow outside time and place.