Monks.

Monks by Simony Jensen from 1903 revisits the subject he had treated the previous year in his Merry Monks composition, demonstrating his continued engagement with ecclesiastical genre scenes as a vehicle for exploring character and conviviality. The figure of the monk in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century genre painting carried a range of associations — from anticlerical satire to nostalgic affection for pre-Reformation communal life — and Jensen's handling suggests the latter, finding in monastic life an image of male fellowship and simple pleasures. As a Danish Post-Impressionist working in a Protestant country with no monastic tradition, Jensen's interest in monks likely reflected the appeal of an exotic Catholic subject.

Jensen renders the monastic figures with the directness of his genre approach, using warm earth tones and browns for the habits against a lighter background. His brushwork is sufficiently loose to suggest character and movement within the composition without achieving the level of psychological portrait study.