Les Nabis Movement
The Les Nabis Movement was a collective of young artists active in Paris from 1889 to 1900, known for their innovative approaches to art that challenged traditional aesthetic standards. Describing themselves as "the prophets," the group sought to create vibrant, meditative artworks that emphasized subjective experience over objective representation. Influenced by the symbolism movement, the artists aimed to evoke emotions and spiritual experiences through their use of strong colors and decorative patterns. Key figures included Paul Sérusier, whose painting "The Talisman" became a defining work for the group, and other notable members like Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard.
The movement emerged during a time of significant technological advancement and cultural change in Europe, reflecting a shift in how art was conceived and created. Les Nabis were inspired by various philosophical and artistic influences, such as the writings of Schopenhauer and the decorative styles of Japanese woodcut prints. Their work often focused on domestic themes, and they created large, site-specific artworks for private homes. Although the movement eventually declined, Les Nabis left a lasting impact on later art movements, being seen as precursors to fauvism and cubism, and continue to be recognized for their contributions to the evolution of modern art.
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Les Nabis Movement
Les Nabis (the prophets, from the Hebrew word nabiim) were a group of young artists who were active from 1889 to 1900 primarily in Paris, France. Described by Debora Silverman as a "broad theory of life," the movement, by 1891, was gaining recognition as the challenge to traditional aesthetics. Paul Sérusier inspired the formation of the collective. Generally categorized as part of the symbolist movement, Les Nabis artists created highly personalized artworks while simultaneously collaborating; the group met weekly in a studio they called "The Temple." Together they sought to create environments of "total works of art" (Gesamtkunstwerk) with vibrant color and bold lines. Les Nabis were active in painting, theatre design, interior decoration, lithography, poster-art, and book and magazine illustration.
Brief History
Les Nabis emerged in an industrializing Europe, particularly in Paris; the city that hosted the 1889 World Exhibition. Technological advancements across domains were changing the conception of art as category; painting itself—in terms of subject and style—was reconsidered in avant-garde groups including Les Nabis. Their aesthetic was formed out of a reaction against the traditional standards of the Parisian Salon exhibitions of the nineteenth century—a break that the earlier avant-garde group of impressionists had begun. The artists of Les Nabis had the common goal of contemplating the mysteries of nature without representing nature in an objective manner. They were interested in creating sensuous, subjective, and meditative visual experiences through strong lines and color, which translated into decorative and meditative patterns; this was the focus of their work. The artists often created large site-specific artworks—made up of multiple panels—for the homes of patrons. An example of this is Édouard Vuillard’s 1894 work, Public Gardens. The everyday domestic interior, the figure, the portrait and the landscape are dominant themes of Les Nabis’ artwork.
Paul Sérusier’s The Talisman (1888),painted in the Bois d’Amour in Pont-Aven, France, would become the iconic image for Les Nabis. Under the tutelage of Paul Gauguin, Sérusier painted this outdoor scene, dominated by a vivid yellow. Sérusier showed The Talisman to his classmates at the Académie Julian and to his friends at the École des Beaux-Arts. His painting became the group’s "pictorial manifesto." There were formal and informal members of the group—a group based primarily on friendship; among those counted as Les Nabis are Pierre Bonnard, Paul Ranson, Gabriel Ibels, Maurice Denis, Édouard Vuillard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, René Piot, Georges Lacombe, Aristide Maillol, József Rippl-Rónai, Félix Vallotton, Jan Verkade, and Mogens Ballin. Despite their self-appointed group name, the artists exhibited their works together with impressionists, post-impressionists, and symbolists. In fact, the group name of Les Nabis added to their identity as members of a secret society and was used only among those within the circle.
The philosophy of Les Nabis, which privileges a nonobjective inner—as well as universal—experience finds roots in the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, Henri Bergson, and Stéphane Mallarmé. The music of Richard Wagner was admired by the group, particularly for its aspect of Gesamtkunstwerk. Les Nabis artists had differing interests, including mysticism, Catholicism, and anarchism. However, their interest in the evocation of spirituality was common and central to the group. Les Nabis artists looked primarily to Gauguin for inspiration and attempted to develop his style of "simplicity" based on form and reminiscent of stained glass decor. Les Nabis were influenced by the "primitive" subject matter and the daringly bold pallet of Gauguin’s paintings and those of the Pont-Aven school, including Émile Bernard. Inspired by ancient manuscripts and tapestries, Les Nabis were intrigued by simplicity and decoration, harmony and rhythm; the arabesque is a common motif in their work. Japanese woodcut prints inspired Les Nabis with their use of bold expressive outlines and flattened surfaces. Les Nabis also admired the imaginative, spiritual, and dream-like artworks of Odilon Redon and the symbolist decorative painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. In turn, Bonnard’s lithograph France Champagne (1891) is said to have inspired Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to take up poster-art.
Overview
In 1891 the critic Albert Aurier, referring to the work of impressionist artists, argued that despite their break with academic painting, this earlier group of avant-garde artists were nonetheless still working within a traditional framework of representation. This judgement—linking the impressionists to traditional painting—underscored the newer symbolist initiative as the artistic movement that was truly breaking with painting’s past. According to Aurier, the symbolists—including Les Nabis—were creating an innovative rupture in the history of painting by evoking ideas through imagined, exaggerated, and distorted visual representation. For example, landscapes of Les Nabis were often inspired by multiple outdoor scenes rather than the representation of one site. Although Les Nabis felt that impressionistic works relied too heavily on the faithful recording of nature, the earlier movement was admired for its advances in color theory, form, and outdoor painting; Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and Edgar Degas stand out as inspirational to the group.
The first exhibition of Les Nabis took place in 1891 at the Salon des Indépendants and Le Barc de Boutteville gallery. Various members of Les Nabis exhibited at La Maison de L’Art Nouveau and with La Libre Esthétique. They created illustrations for La Revue Blanche and worked on sets for La Théâtre de L’Œuvre. Les Nabis often exhibited their work in the homes of private patrons. At the turn of the twentieth century, Les Nabis members continued their artistic practices independently.
Gender and modernity’s emphasis on individualism informs the interpretation of Les Nabis’ work for art historian Debora Silverman. She argues that nineteenth century medical psychology, which explored correlations between nervous disorders and the city/modernity, influenced the symbolist decorative arts to "turn inward." Susan Sidlauskas interprets the paintings of Vuillard as symptomatic of the times, which regarded women as generally passive and anxious in the home. In contrast, Katherine Kuenzli argues that Les Nabis created "soothing" rather than "unsettling" works and that theirs is primarily a public, rather than private, art due to their philosophy of universal spirituality. She argues that the interpretation of gender and individualist narratives is an oversimplification. Kuenzli also notes in The Nabis and Intimate Modernism (2010) that Les Nabis’ artwork has been regarded as of a second order precisely because of their public ambition: "their reigning principles –whether intimacy, the decorative, or the Gesamtkunstwerk—fell out of favor in the 1930’s when totalitarian dictatorships took over Europe."
Despite this overshadowing of Les Nabis, George Mauner noted in The Nabis: Their History and Their Art, 1888–1896 (1967) that a formalistic rather than subject-oriented pictorial action reveals Les Nabis as inspirational to the artistic movement of abstraction. He qualified that this is in opposition to an individualistic expressionism. Les Nabis are also regarded as precursors of fauvism and cubism.
Bibliography
Aumasson, Pascal et Mathilde Pigallet. Les Peintres de Pont-Aven et Les Nabis. Brest: Muséedes beaux-arts de Brest métropole océane et Locus Solus, 2013. Print.
Collectif, Guy Cogeval et Isabelle Cahn, direction Musée d'Orsay. Catalogues d'exposition:PierreBonnard (1867–1947). Paris: Hazan, 2015. Print.
Collectif, Claire Frèches-Thory et Ursula Perucchi-Petri. Nabis—Bonnard, Vuillard, MauriceDenis, Valloton—1888–1900. München: RMN, 1993. Print.
Denis, Maurice. "Définition du néo-traditionnisme," Art et critique, Paris, 1890. (Available in Théories 1890–1910: Du symbolisme et de Gauguin vers un nouvel ordre classique, Paris, 1911).
Frèches-Thory, Claire, and Antoine Terrasse. The Nabis: Bonnard, Vuillard, and Their Circle. New York: Abrams, 1991. Print.
Genty, Veronique, and Gilles Serrano. L’œil d’un collectionneur les peintres et graveursBonnard, Vuillard & les Nabis. Silvana, 2014. Print.
Kuenzli, Katherine M. The Nabis and Intimate Modernism. Surrey:Ashgate, 2010. Print.
Sidlauskas, Susan. "Contesting Femininity: Vuillard's Family Pictures." The Art Bulletin 79.1(Mar., 1997): 85–111. Print.
Silverman, Debora L. Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siècle France: Politics, Psychology, and Style. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992. Print.