Les Nabis

Les Nabis
Paul Sérusier · Public domain · source
Name	Les Nabis
Caption	Members in Paris studio, c.1890
Founded	1888
Location	Paris, France
Notable members	Pierre Bonnard; Édouard Vuillard; Maurice Denis; Paul Sérusier; Ker-Xavier Roussel; Félix Vallotton

Les Nabis Les Nabis were a group of avant-garde painters and printmakers active in Paris in the late 19th century who sought to renew painting through symbolist, decorative, and synthetist strategies. Influenced by developments in Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Japanese art, they formed networks around studios, salons, journals, and print ateliers that connected Parisian circles with international exhibitions and private collectors.

Origins and Influences

The movement emerged in the milieu of the Académie Julian, the Académie Colarossi, and the Parisian cafés frequented by students of Gustave Moreau and followers of Paul Gauguin. Early stimulus came from exhibitions at the Salon des Indépendants and the critical writing of Édouard Dujardin and Paul Verlaine, while pictorial models included works shown at the Salon d'Automne and the Exposition Universelle (1889). Contact with prints by Hokusai, paintings by Vincent van Gogh, compositions by Georges Seurat, and theories circulated by Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé also informed their aesthetic debates. The group's development paralleled institutional shifts at the Musée du Luxembourg and the collecting practices of patrons like Théodore Duret and Sergei Shchukin.

Membership and Key Figures

Core founders and prominent personalities included practitioners trained under Gustave Moreau: painters such as Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier, Ker-Xavier Roussel, and Félix Vallotton. Associated artists, illustrators, and allies ranged across circles containing Émile Bernard, Armand Guillaumin, Paul Sérusier’s mentor Paul Gauguin, and printmakers who collaborated with journals like La Revue Blanche and Le Mercure de France. The group intersected with sculptors and designers such as Aristide Maillol and textile decorators connected to ateliers like those of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Eugène Grasset. Critics and theorists who engaged with their work included Gustave Geffroy and collectors such as Ambroise Vollard and Kees van Dongen.

Artistic Styles and Techniques

Nabist practices emphasized flattened pictorial space, expressive color fields, and decorative patterning, synthesizing lessons from Cloisonnism, Synthetism, and Symbolism. They adopted techniques ranging from oil on canvas to lithography, woodcut, watercolor, gouache, and mural painting executed in collaboration with architects and designers associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Art Nouveau network. Borrowing from Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Hiroshige and Kunisada, as well as the color theories explored by Michel-Eugène Chevreul and the optical experiments of Ogden Rood, Nabis works often prioritized surface rhythm and line over illusionistic modeling. Workshops produced illustrated books, theater scenography, and decorative panels for salons and villas commissioned by patrons linked to the Belle Époque cultural economy.

Major Works and Exhibitions

Key pictures and public showings included Paul Sérusier’s influential canvas painted under the direction of Paul Gauguin at Pont-Aven, works by Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and group presentations at venues such as the Galerie Durand-Ruel and the Galerie Georges Petit. Exhibited prints and posters appeared in publications like Le Pêle-Mêle and the illustrated periodicals run by Joris-Karl Huysmans and Octave Mirbeau. Large-scale decorative commissions included murals in private homes and public cafés alongside theater sets for troupes connected to Sarah Bernhardt and productions staged at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre. International exposure reached collectors and curators at institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Gallery, and the Guggenheim Museum through later retrospectives.

Philosophy and Symbolism

Members articulated a doctrine asserting painting as a synthesis of emotion, memory, and formal organization, influenced by the writings of Maurice Maeterlinck and the poetic symbolism of Arthur Rimbaud. Maurice Denis’s famous pronouncements positioned painting in relation to decorative easel-painting and sacred art, while other Nabists engaged with iconography drawn from mythological, domestic, and everyday sources, referencing motifs circulating in Symbolist literature and theatrical symbolism practiced by directors like Henrik Ibsen and Richard Wagner. Their use of emblematic color and stylized motif aligned with contemporary debates in journals edited by Théodore de Wyzewa and supplemented by art criticism from figures such as Théodore Duret.

Legacy and Influence on Modern Art

The group's decorative synthesis and emphasis on surface and pattern anticipated currents in Fauvism, Expressionism, and Modernist design, influencing younger artists like Henri Matisse, André Derain, and Pablo Picasso during formative periods. Their interdisciplinary practices fed into the development of Graphic design, textile arts, and stagecraft, and their work was reassessed in 20th-century exhibitions alongside collections assembled by dealers like Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and curators at the Museum of Modern Art. Retrospectives and scholarship by historians such as Élie Faure and later catalogues raisonnés helped reframe their role in the transition from 19th-century art to 20th-century art.

Category:French art movements Category:Symbolism