Maurice Denis was born 25 November 1870, in Granville, Manche, a coastal town in the Normandy region of France. His father was of modest peasant origins; after four years in the army, he went to work at the railroad station.

His mother, the daughter of a miller, worked as a seamstress. After their marriage in 1865, they moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the Paris suburbs. His father was employed in the offices the administration of the Western Railroads in Paris.

Maurice was an only child. From an early age, his passions were religion and art. He began keeping a journal in 1884 at the age of thirteen. In 1885 he recorded in his journal his admiration for the colors, candlelight and incense of the ceremonies at the local church.

A Love of the Louvre

 He frequented the Louvre and admired especially the works of Fra Angelico, Raphael and Botticelli. At the age of fifteen, he wrote in his journal, “Yes, I must that I become a Christian painter, that I celebrate all the miracles of Christianity, I feel that is what is needed.” In 1887 he discovered a new source of inspiration, the works of Puvis de Chavannes.

Denis was accepted as a student at one of the most prestigious Paris schools, the Lycée Condorcet, where he excelled at philosophy. However, he decided to leave the school at the end of 1887 and in 1888 enrolled in Académie Julian to prepare for the entrance examination to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

There he studied with the painter and theorist Jules Joseph Lefebvre. He passed the entrance examination for the Beaux-Arts in July 1888, and passed another examination in November to receive his baccalaureate in philosophy. Source: Wikipedia.