Statue de Diane

This undated canvas depicting a sculpture of Diana — Roman goddess of the hunt — sits at an intriguing intersection of Van Rysselberghe's interest in the female form and in classical subject matter. Held in the Museum of the John Paul II Collection in Warsaw, the painting belongs to a strand of his work that meditates on sculpture as a subject for painting, asking how divisionist colour and light can animate an object designed to be monochrome and three-dimensional. Diana was a common allegorical presence in late nineteenth-century European art, embodying nature, female autonomy, and athletic grace. Van Rysselberghe, who had designed posters and decorative panels throughout the 1880s and 1890s, brought a graphic sensibility to figurative subjects, and the clean silhouette of a sculpted deity would have appealed to his decorative instincts. The choice to paint a statue rather than a live model introduces a layer of artistic self-consciousness: the painting becomes a meditation on the relationship between two different representational traditions — sculpture and Post-Impressionist colour theory.

Oil on canvas using divisionist dot-work to suggest the cool whiteness of marble through complementary colour notes of pale blue, violet, and warm cream. The sculptural surface is rendered without traditional modelling — instead optical mixing of adjacent touches creates volume. Background passages contrast warm and cool tones to set the figure against depth.