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Four "prophets" of art whose luminous work unfolds the mysteries of domestic life
Pierre Bonnard was the leader of the group of post-impressionist painters who called themselves “the Nabis”, from the Hebrew word for “prophet”. Influenced by Odilon Redon, Puvis de Chavannes, popular imagery, and Japanese woodblock printing, Bonnard, Vuillard, Vallotton and Denis (to name the most prominent members) revolutionised the spirit of decorative technique during one of the richest periods in French painting. Although the increasing individualism of their works often threatened to weaken their unity, the Nabis were above all a group of close friends. The artwork presented in this book - varying between Bonnard’s guilelessness, Vuillard’s ornamental and mysterious works, Denis’s soft languor and Vallotton’s almost bitter roughness - plunges us into the deep source of their creative talents.
Pierre Bonnard was the leader of a group of post-impressionist painters who called themselves the Nabis, from the Hebrew word meaning ‘prophet’. Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel and Denis, the most distinguished of the Nabis, revolutionized the spirit of decorative techniques during one of the richest periods in the history of French painting. Influenced by Odilon Redon and Puvis de Chavanne, by popular imagery and Japanese etchings, this post-impressionist group was above all a close circle of friends who shared the same cultural background and interests. An increasing individualism in their art often threatened the group’s unity and although tied together by a common philosophy their work clearly diverged. This publication lets us compare and put into perspective the artists within this fascinating group. The works presented in this collection offer a palette of extraordinary poetic expressions: candid in Bonnard, ornamental and mysterious in Vuillard, gently dream-like in Denis, grim and almost bitter in Vallotton, the author shares with us the lives of these artists to the very source of their creative gifts.
Providing a fresh perspective on an important but underappreciated group of late nineteenth-century French painters, this is the first book to provide an in-depth account of the Nabis' practice of the decorative, and its significance for twentieth-century modernism. Over the course of the ten years that define the Nabi movement (1890-1900), its principal artists included Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul S?sier, and Paul Ranson. The author reconstructs the Nabis' relationship to Impressionism, mass culture, literary Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Wagnerianism, and a revolutionary artistic tradition in order to show how their painterly practice emerges out of the pressing questio...
Pierre Bonnard was the leader of a group of post-impressionist painters who called themselves the Nabis, from the Hebrew word meaning ‘prophet’. Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel and Denis, the most distinguished of the Nabis, revolutionized the spirit of decorative techniques during one of the richest periods in the history of French painting. Influenced by Odilon Redon and Puvis de Chavanne, by popular imagery and Japanese etchings, this post-impressionist group was above all a close circle of friends who shared the same cultural background and interests. An increasing individualism in their art often threatened the group’s unity and although tied together by a common philosophy their work clearly diverged. This publication lets us compare and put into perspective the artists within this fascinating group. The works presented in this collection offer a palette of extraordinary poetic expressions: candid in Bonnard, ornamental and mysterious in Vuillard, gently dream-like in Denis, grim and almost bitter in Vallotton, the author shares with us the lives of these artists to the very source of their creative gifts.
"Marvelous, beautifully illustrated."--Wall Street Journal Édouard Vuillard was so secretive that he berated himself for betraying his emotions in conversation. He was a reticent, impassioned man, at once a timid stalker and a social climbing anarchist, caught in conflicting desires. From the 1880s until the advent of World War II, using styles from academic to pointillist to Nabi to Fauve, Vuillard's abundant paintings revealed his turmoil of love and hatred: models pose beside a plaster torso cast from the Venus of Milo, women appear without faces, anxiety radiates from many masterpieces--while other works were left unfinished for months or years. Drawing on insights and images from Vuill...
"The Contributions of Artists Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and Ker Xavier Roussel to the French avant-garde of the 1890s, as members of the Nabis, are widely recognized. What is less known about these artists' careers is their extraordinary work in decorative painting - work on a large or unusual scale for private interiors. This illustrated book focuses on the many decorative works carried out by the four artists between 1890 and 1930. During these years, they moved beyond the narrow parameters of easel painting and applied their wholly untraditional aesthetic of decoration to a wide range of works for domestic interiors, from wall-size ensembles to folding screens. The ...
The Swiss artist Felix Vallotton (1865-1925) was born in Lausanne, but spent much of his working life in France. Closely associated with Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, and a fellow member of the avant-garde group Les Nabis, Vallotton has nonetheless sometimes been overshadowed by his more famous contemporaries. Although he produced some of his most important work in Paris in the 1890s, his original and innovative approach persisted throughout his career. Texts by leading authorities on the artist look at his life, work and reception. Generously illustrated throughout with the finest exemplars of the artist's paintings and prints, this book accompanies a new presentation of Vallotton's ...
A fascinating look at how snapshots by seven Post-Impressionist artists influenced their work and the history of photography The advent of the Kodak camera in 1888 made photography accessible to amateurs as well as to professionals. Artists were not immune to its allure, and many began experimenting with the camera as a means of observing the world and capturing their own images of it. Snapshot investigates seven Post-Impressionist painters and printmakers: Pierre Bonnard, George Hendrik Breitner, Maurice Denis, Henri Evenepoel, Henri Rivière, Félix Vallotton, and Edouard Vuillard. Although celebrated for their works on canvas and paper, these artists also made many personal and informal s...
With their pioneering method using dots, the artists of Pointillism no longer directed their gaze only towards the imitation of reality. In their paintings between 1886 and 1930 their dots, colour and light assumed an independent existence to create masterpieces of unprecedented brightness and colour diversity. The works by the inventors of this technique, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, marked the beginning of this exuberant outburst of colour. Works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Carlo Carrá, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee demonstrate how artists made a study of Pointillism during the 20th century. Vincent van Gogh contributed to the way that modernist painters abandoned Pointillism. More than 100 selected works, including paintings, watercolours and drawings, illuminate the dawn of a new era which this art movement was responsible for bringing about: the beginning of modern painting.