Les Nabis were a group of young French artists active in Paris from 1888 until 1900, who played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of modernism. The members included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, Édouard Vuillard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Félix Vallotton, Paul Sérusier and Auguste Cazalis. Most were students at the Académie Julian in Paris in the late 1880s. The artists shared a common admiration for Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne and a determination to renew the art of painting, but varied greatly in their individual styles. They believed that a work of art was not a depiction of nature, but a synthesis of metaphors and symbols created by the artist. In 1900, the artists held their final exhibition and went their separate ways.
Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter, decorative artist, and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a prominent member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas of pure color. His interior scenes, influenced by Japanese prints, explored the spatial effects of flattened planes of color, pattern, and form. As a decorative artist, Vuillard painted theater sets, panels for interior decoration, and designed plates and stained glass. After 1900, when the Nabis broke up, Vuillard adopted a more realistic style, approaching landscapes and interiors with greater detail and vivid colors. In the 1920s and 1930s, he painted portraits of prominent figures in French industry and the arts in their familiar settings.
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist group of avant-garde painters Les Nabis, his early work was strongly influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin, as well as the prints of Hokusai and other Japanese artists. Bonnard was a leading figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism. He painted landscapes, urban scenes, portraits and intimate domestic scenes, where the backgrounds, colors and painting style usually took precedence over the subject.
Maurice Denis was a French painter, decorative artist, and writer. An important figure in the transitional period between impressionism and modern art, he is associated with Les Nabis, symbolism, and later neo-classicism. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art. Following the First World War, he founded the Ateliers d'Art Sacré, decorated the interiors of churches, and worked for a revival of religious art.
Guy Gofete is a Belgian-born poet and writer. Gofete published his first book of poems in 1969. Since then he has worked as an editor at the publishing company Gallimard. Gofete's poetry has been compared to Verlaine – the contemporary French poet Yves Bonnefoy remarked
Gofete is an heir to Verlaine. A poet who very courageously has decided to remain faithful to his own personal life, in its humblest moments. He keeps things simple, he is marvelously able to capture the emotions and desires common to us all. Gofete is without question one of the best poets of the present moment in France.
The year 1899 in art involved some significant events.
Dina Vierny was an artists' model who became a singer, French art dealer, collector and museum director. She is known as the model and muse to French sculptor Aristide Maillol. In 1995, she established the Musée Maillol.
Paul Sérusier was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabis movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism.
Events from the year 1928 in France.
Events from the year 1947 in France.
Events from the year 1880 in France.
Events from the year 1867 in France.
Suzanne Hoschedé was one of the daughters of Alice Hoschedé and Ernest Hoschedé, the stepdaughter and favorite model of French impressionist painter Claude Monet, and wife of American impressionist painter Theodore Earl Butler. Suzanne is known as The Woman with a Parasol in Monet's painting of 1886.
Eleanor Yule is a Scottish film director, best known for her feature film Blinded and her television documentaries with Michael Palin. She also directed Ghost Stories for Christmas a TV mini-series with Christopher Lee for BBC2.
The Open Window is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Pierre Bonnard, painted in 1921. Depicting a scene in a room, the painting draws the viewer's focus to the natural landscape outside of the window, away from the figures in the bottom right. The work is housed in The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C..
Nude Against the Light or Backlit Nude is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French Post-Impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard. Created in 1908, it is now in the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.
The year 2023 in art will involve various significant events.
Bonnard, Pierre and Marthe is a 2023 French film written and directed by Martin Provost. The film depicts the love story and romance between the painter Pierre Bonnard and his wife, model, and muse Marthe.
Woman with a Cat or The Demanding Cat is a 1912 oil on canvas painting by French Post-Impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947). The work depicts Marthe Bonnard, Bonnard's mistress, and a cat climbing on to a table arranged for a meal. The influence of the Nabis and the Japanese style is apparent. The painting was donated by Baronnes Eva Gebhard-Gourgaud to the Musée National d'Art Moderne in 1965, and assigned to the Musée d'Orsay in 1977.
