Description
The Nabis (French: les nabis, French pronunciation: [le nabi]) 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. Read more ↗
Key Artists
Paul Sérusier
Founder and spiritual catalyst of Les Nabis who returned from Pont-Aven with his radical cloisonnist landscape 'The Talisman', inspiring his fellow students at the Académie Julian to form the secret brotherhood.
Pierre Bonnard
Founding Nabi known as 'Le Nabi très japonard' (The highly Japanese Nabi) for his bold graphic posters, folding screens, and intimate interiors emphasizing flat pattern and decorative color.
Édouard Vuillard
Master of 'Intimisme' and leading Nabi whose claustrophobic, richly patterned interior paintings of seamstresses merged domestic figures seamlessly into wallpaper and textile patterns.
Maurice Denis
Chief theorist and 'Le Nabi aux belles icônes' whose famous 1890 definition of a painting as essentially a flat surface covered with colors in a certain order laid the theoretical groundwork for modern abstraction.
Paul Ranson
'Le Nabi plus esoterique' who hosted the group's weekly ritual meetings at his studio on Boulevard du Montparnasse (nicknamed 'The Temple') and designed occult and esoteric tapestries.
Félix Vallotton
Swiss-born 'Le Nabi étranger' who revolutionized modern woodcut printmaking with stark, high-contrast black-and-white compositions satirizing Parisian bourgeois society.
Famous Artworks
Women in the Garden
Édouard Vuillard · 1891
Musée d'Orsay, Paris - Four decorative oil panels on distemper
Fun Facts
The name 'Nabis' was suggested by poet and linguist Auguste Cazalis from the Hebrew word 'Navi' (Prophet or Seer), because the artists believed they were prophets initiated into a sacred new visual religion that would revitalize modern art.
↗ Source: britannica.com
The Nabis operated as a secret society with their own private vocabulary; they signed letters with the acronym 'E.T.P.M.V. et M.P.' (En ta paume mon verbe et ma pensée - In your palm my word and my thought) and called their monthly dinners 'Le Banquet des Nabis'.
↗ Source: tate.org.uk
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