Les Nabis
You know how sometimes one thing leads to another? This time my starting point was House & Garden magazine. In one of their articles, about a Belgian artist’s home and studio (pages 10-11), I found an unknown art term – Les Nabis (pronounced nah-BEE). Sounds familiar? Not to me…
Apparently Les Nabis was an art group, a group of artists whose “aesthetic philosophy was to remove the boundaries between decorative art and easel painting, while also injecting art with literary or other narrative meaning. And Realism in art was set aside in favour of decorative symbolism. Not content solely with oil painting, the group branched out into stained glass art, fans, tapestry, furniture, mosaic art, lithographic prints, poster art, puppets, book illustration and theatrical set designs.” (Art Encyclopedia)
As I keep jumping from photography to painting, from knitting to drawing, from printmaking to paper crafts, no wonder I found their philosophy very appealing and, of course, had to find out a bit more.
— — —
“Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian (Académie Julian) in Paris in the late 1880s.” (Wikipedia)
“The name Nabis derived from the Hebrew for ‘prophets’, and was coined by the poet Henri Cazalis, who compared the way the group aimed to revitalise painting as prophets of modern art, with how the ancient prophets had rejuvenated Israel.” (Art Encyclopedia)
Pierre Bonnard – Rue Tholozé (ca. 1895) – image was found here
Pierre Bonnard – The Port of Cannes (1926-1927) – image was found here
The core of Les Nabis were – Pierre Bonnard, Ker Xavier Roussel, Felix Vallotton, Maurice Denis and Edouard Vuillard.
Felix Vallotton – Le Haut-de-forme, intérieur ou La Visite (1887) – image was found here
“Les Nabis rebelled against the confines of academic art …, dabbled in mysticism and symbolism, and sought a universal form of painting that placed more importance on a painting’s decorative presentation, paying special attention to the emotional use of colour and linear distortion.” (Art Encyclopedia)
Maurice Denis – Wave (1916) – image was found here
Les Nabis slowly disbanded in 1899. Some of the artists stuck to the original ideas, yet Bonnard and Vuillard collaborated in the development of a new style called Intimism – a style of decorative interior scenes (this might be a brilliant topic for another post though).
Edouard Vuillard – The Flowered Dress (1891) – image was found here
Edouard Vuillard – Le Pot de fleurs (1900) – image was found here
— — —What started with House & Garden magazine will have to end somewhere… Hopefully it will be a new painting with loads of bright colours and no academic rules (not that I know many), probably an interior scene with some decorative symbolism. Time will show.
