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1. Paul Sérusier, The Talisman, 1888.

Oil on wood, 27 × 21.5 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Although Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, Roussel and Vallotton have gone down in the history of painting as artists belonging to a single group, their works, in spite of some common features, in fact display more differences than similarities. They were bound together in their youth by membership in a circle which bore a curious name – the Nabis. Art historians, who see the Nabis’ work as a special aspect of Post-Impressionism, have long resigned themselves to this purely conventional label. The word Nabis says next to nothing about the aims and methods of these artists, but probably on account of their very diversity it has proved impossible to replace the label by a more meaningful term, or at least one which fits better into the established scheme of things. The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg possesses a splendid collection of works by Bonnard and his friends, and a much smaller collection of no less artistic merit is housed in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. All these works are presented in this book.

An interest in Nabis painting arose very early in Russia. Here, as elsewhere in Europe, it emerged not among art lovers as a whole, but among a tiny group of art collectors who were ahead of the general public in their appreciation of new developments. Works by Bonnard, Denis and Vallotton found their way to Moscow, and later to St. Petersburg, soon after they had been painted, some of them even being specially commissioned. In those days the purchase by Russian collectors of new French painting was a defiance of what was accepted as “good taste”. In contrast to earlier times, these new connoisseurs of painting came not from the aristocracy but from the merchant class. Several well-educated representatives of the new type of up-and-coming entrepreneurs, used to relying on their own judgement, also became highly active and independently-minded figures in the art market. Two of them, Sergei Shchukin (1854–1937) and Ivan Morozov (1871–1921) formed collections which at the beginning of the twentieth century ranked among the best in the world.

The name of Shchukin is probably more widely known, and this is not surprising: his boldness, seen by many of his contemporaries as mere folly, soon attracted attention. He had brought the most notable works of Henri Matisse, André Derain and Pablo Picasso to Moscow before Paris had had time to recover from the shock that they caused. Even today specialists are astonished by Shchukin’s unerring taste and keen judgement. He proved able to appreciate Matisse and Picasso at a time when so-called connoisseurs still felt perplexed or even irritated by their paintings. The Nabis, however, attracted Shchukin to a lesser degree, perhaps because their work did not appear sufficiently revolutionary to him. He acquired one picture by Vuillard and several by Denis, among them the Portrait of Marthe Denis, the Artist’s Wife, Martha and Mary and The Visitation. Later another canvas was added to these, Figures in a Springtime Landscape (The Sacred Grove), one of the most ambitious and successful creations of European Symbolism, which was passed on to Sergei Shchukin by his elder brother Piotr. But Shchukin failed to notice Bonnard. Regarding Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin as the key-figures in Post-Impressionism, Shchukin – and he was not alone in this – saw the works of Bonnard and his friends as a phenomenon of minor importance.

2. Maurice Denis, Sun Patches on the Terrace, 1890.

Oil on cardboard, 24 × 20.5 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

3. Paul Gauguin, Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), 1888.

Oil on canvas, 72.2 × 91 cm.

National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.

4. Jan Verkade, Decorative Landscape, 1891–1892.

Oil on canvas.

Private collection.

5. Paul Sérusier, Old Breton Woman under a Tree, c. 1898.

Oil on canvas.

Musée départemental Maurice Denis “Le Prieuré”, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

6. Mogens Ballin, Breton Landscape, c. 1891.

Oil on paper.

Musée départemental Maurice Denis “Le Prieuré”, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

He did in fact make one attempt to “get into” Bonnard. In 1899, he bought Bonnard’s painting Fiacre at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, but later he returned it. Today it is in the National Gallery in Washington. Shchukin used to say that a picture needed to be in his possession for some time before he made his final decision about it, and art dealers accepted his terms. The man who really appreciated the Nabis and who collected their pictures over a considerable period of time was Ivan Morozov. His taste for their work must have been cultivated by his elder brother Mikhail, one of the first outside France to appreciate their painting. Mikhail Morozov owned Behind the Fence, the first work by Bonnard to find its way to Russia. He also had in his collection Denis’s Mother and Child and The Encounter. When in 1903 Mikhail Morozov’s untimely death put an end to his activities as a collector, his younger brother took up collecting with redoubled energy, adding to his collection judiciously. Seeing in Bonnard and Denis the leading figures of the Nabis group, the best exponents of its artistic aims, he concentrated on their work. As a result, Bonnard and Denis were as well represented in his collection as the Impressionists, Cézanne and Gauguin.

After purchasing Denis’s picture Sacred Spring in Guidel at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1906, Morozov made a point of becoming acquainted with the artist. That summer he visited Denis at his home in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he bought the as yet unfinished Bacchus and Ariadne and commissioned Polyphemus as a companion piece. In the same year, or at the beginning of the next, he placed his biggest order with Denis, The Legend of Psyche, a series of panels for his Moscow mansion in Prechistenka Street. At Morozov’s invitation, Denis came to Moscow to install the panels and add the finishing touches. Relations between the patron and the artist became firm and friendly. Morozov sought the Frenchman’s advice; at Denis’s prompting, for example, Morozov purchased one of Cézanne’s finest early works, Girl at the Piano. Denis introduced Morozov to Maillol. The result of this acquaintance was a commission for four large bronze figures which later adorned the same hall as Denis’s decorative panels, superbly complementing them.

The second ensemble of decorative panels commissioned by Morozov is even more remarkable when seen today. Created by Bonnard, it comprises the triptych Mediterranean and the panels Early Spring in the Countryside and Autumn, Fruit-Picking. At Morozov’s suggestion Bonnard also painted the pair of works, Morning in Paris and Evening in Paris. Together with the triptych, these rank among Bonnard’s greatest artistic achievements.

St. Petersburg had no collectors on the scale of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov. Only Georges Haasen, who represented a Swiss chocolate firm in what was then the capital of Russia, collected new French painting. He was especially interested in artists like the Nabis group. Among other works, he had in his collection Bonnard’s The Seine near Vernon and six paintings by Vallotton (all now in the Hermitage). Haasen knew Vallotton well: the artist stayed with him in St. Petersburg and painted portraits of the businessman himself and of his wife. No complete list of the works in Haasen’s collection has survived, but there is enough information to indicate that it was very well put together. The catalogue of the St. Petersburg exhibition held in 1912, A Hundred Years of French Painting, contains a number of works by Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel and Vallotton from Haasen’s collection that were not among those which entered the Hermitage in 1921.

7. Édouard Vuillard, Chestnut Trees.

Distemper on cardboard, mounted on canvas, 110 × 70 cm.

Private collection.

8. Ker Xavier Roussel, Women in the Countryside, c. 1893.

Pastel on paper, 42 × 26 cm.

Private collection, Paris.

9. Ker Xavier Roussel, Garden, 1894.

Oil on cardboard mounted on canvas, 120 × 91.4 cm.

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

There was one more Russian collector who showed interest in the Nabis, Victor Golubev, but he took up residence in Paris. The two canvases belonging to him at the 1912 St. Petersburg exhibition, Vuillard’s Autumn Landscape and Denis’s St. George, were actually sent from France. The exhibition betokened a genuine recognition of new French art: on display were the finest works by Manet, Renoir, Monet, Cézanne and Gauguin.

The salon idols, who still had many admirers among the public, were represented by only a few works, while there were twenty-four Renoirs, seventeen Cézannes and twenty-one Gauguins. The Nabis were, of course, represented on a more modest but still creditable scale: six paintings by Bonnard, five each by Roussel and Denis, four by Vuillard and two each by Vallotton and Sérusier. Their works effectively formed the final element in the exhibition. They could no longer be regarded as the last word in French art, but they were the latest thing considered acceptable by the organizers of this diverse artistic panorama which occupied over twenty rooms in Count Sumarokov-Elstone’s house in Liteny Prospekt. This was undoubtedly one of the most significant art exhibitions of the early twentieth century, not only in Russia, but in the whole of Europe. Even today one cannot help marvelling at its scope and at the aptness in the choice of many works. At the same time the catalogue shows its organisers’ desire to avoid excessive radicalism. It was, after all, a purely St. Petersburg affair, a joint venture of the magazine Apollon (Apollo) and the French Institute, which at that time was located in St. Petersburg. The Institute’s director, Louis Réau, was a prominent art historian. The great Moscow collectors did not contribute to the exhibition, although Ivan Morozov was a member of its honorary committee.

10. Louis Comfort Tiffany, Garden, 1895.

Made after the stained glass window from Ker Xavier Roussel.

Private collection.

11. Pierre Bonnard, The Child with a Sandcastle, c. 1894.

Distemper on canvas, 167 × 50 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

By that time in Moscow, where artistic life was far more turbulent than in St. Petersburg, painting of the type represented by the Nabis had been ousted by the more audacious and striking manifestations of the avant-garde, both Russian and foreign. Whereas at the 1908 Golden Fleece exhibition, Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, Sérusier and Roussel were well represented, the following year their pictures were no longer on show. However, the organizers of the 1909 exhibition included works by Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck and Braque. The Izdebsky Salon, a fairly large international exhibition arranged by Vladimir Izdebsky which in 1910 visited Odessa, Kiev, St. Petersburg and Riga, presented not only works by Matisse, Kees van Dongen, Vlaminck, Rouauft and Braque, but also by Larionov, Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Bechtejeff, Altman and many others. In sharp contrast there were only a few Nabis paintings. Neither Russian nor Western European art lovers had turned their backs on the art of Bonnard and his companions, but it had receded into the background. The opinion took root that these artists were of minor importance, and several decades were to pass before this myth was finally dispelled. The reason for the rise of the myth was that the Nabis stood apart from the mainstream of the various antagonistic movements in art, torn by strife on the eve of the First World War. But Time, that great arbiter, lifted the veil of obscurity from the Nabis, once again revealing the merits of their art, and placing Bonnard among the most brilliant colourists that France has ever produced.

12. Paul Cézanne, The Four Seasons – Autumn (detail), 1850–1860.

Oil on canvas, 314 × 104 cm.

Petit Palais – Musée des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris, Paris.

The generation of Bonnard and his companions came to the fore in artistic life at the close of the nineteenth century. Nurtured by the colourful era known as the belle époque, they themselves contributed much to it. The history of nineteenth-century French art may be divided up in different ways. If, however, one is guided by the most fundamental cultural distinctions, a pattern of three periods approximately equal in length can be drawn. The first, which began when the principles of Classicism still reigned supreme, saw the emergence of the Romantic movement. The second was dominated by Realism, which appeared sometimes on its own, sometimes in interaction with Romanticism and even with a form of Classicism lapsing into Academicism. The third period was marked by a greatly increased complexity in the problems tackled by the artists. Influences of earlier times could still be traced in the various artistic styles, but only to highlight the new and unusual artistic manifestations. The development of painting gathered an unprecedented momentum. Its idioms became enriched by numerous discoveries. Impressionism assumed the leading role in spite of the hostility shown towards it in official circles, by the general public, and by most painters.

The last three decades of the nineteenth century were among the greatest and richest in French art. They were staggering in their volcanic creative activity. One brilliant constellation of artists was followed by the rise of another. Younger painters rapidly caught up with their older colleagues and competed with them. Moreover, the appearance of a dazzling new movement in art was not followed by a lull, a pause in development, which could have had a historical justification – to give that movement time to strengthen its influence. On the contrary, no sooner had the roar of one gigantic wave subsided, than another came rolling implacably behind it, and so on, wave after wave.

13. Maurice Denis, Martha and Mary, 1896.

Oil on canvas, 77 × 116 cm.

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

14. Georges Lacombe, Isis, c. 1895.

Bas-relief in mahogany, 111.5 × 62 × 10.7 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

15. Paul Cézanne, The Four Seasons – Spring (detail), 1859–1860.

Oil on canvas, 314 × 104 cm.

Petit Palais – Musée des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris, Paris.

The main “disturber of the peace” in the 1860s was Édouard Manet. His works caused a revolution in painting, blazing the way for a new style – Impressionism. The 1870s were decisive years in the Impressionists’ battle to assert their new, unbiased approach to reality and their right to use bright, pure colours, wholly appropriate to the wonderful freshness of their perception of the world. The 1880s were marked by more developments. Proceeding from the discoveries of Monet and his fellow Impressionists, Seurat and Signac on the one hand, and Gauguin on the other, all mapped out entirely new directions in painting. The views of these artists were completely different. The “scholarly” approach of the first two Neo-Impressionists ran counter to the views of Gauguin and the Pont-Avon group of which he was the leader. These artists owed a great deal to medieval art. Meanwhile Vincent van Gogh, who had by that time moved from Holland to France, led the way in another direction: his main concern was to express his inner feelings. All these artists had moved a good distance away from Impressionism, yet each owed a great deal to the revolution that Manet had fomented. When Seurat and Gauguin exhibited their pictures at the last exhibition of the Impressionists held in 1886, their divergence was already clearly marked. Naturally, among the “apostates” one ought to name the two contemporaries of the Impressionists – Redon, and, above all, Cézanne, who from the start recognized not only the enormous merits of Impressionist painting, but also saw traits in it which threatened to lead to shallowness and to the rejection of the eternal truths of art.

Soon a new term – Post-Impressionism – made its appearance. It was not a very eloquent label, but it came to be widely used. The vagueness of the label was not accidental. Some of the French artists who were initially inspired by the Impressionistic view of the world later left Impressionism behind, each pursuing his own path. This gave rise to an unprecedented stylistic diversity which reached its peak between the late 1880s and the beginning of the twentieth century. No one name could possibly be adequate in this situation.

Even from anti-academic points of view, Impressionism could seem narrow and insufficient as a means of artistic expression, yet it still remained a force which no artist of talent, at least in France, could ignore. It was not only Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec who came to be regarded as Post-Impressionists, but also Redon and Cézanne, and even Matisse and Picasso. For example, in 1912 the last two artists displayed their work at the second exhibition of Post-Impressionists at the Grafton Gallery in London. More recently, however, art historians have tended to limit Post-Impressionism to the nineteenth century. The revolution caused by the Impressionists, and its aftermath, Post-Impressionism, became the most important forces in the development of art from the 1860s through to the 1890s, and it would probably be no exaggeration to say that they influenced artistic evolution throughout the twentieth century.

Any really creative artist living in Paris who embarked on his career in the late 1880s, when Impressionism was drawing to its close, was almost inevitably “doomed” to become a Post-Impressionist. So it is hardly surprising that a small group of artists, calling themselves the Nabis – Bonnard, Vuillard and Denis among them – readily joined this broad new movement which speedily gained authority among painters outside the academic circle. With the advent of the twentieth century, when the age of Post-Impressionism was approaching its end, these artists would be faced with the necessity of making a new choice: either to follow the style of their youth or to rally to the banners of new, more radical movements. But for the Nabis, the question never seriously arose. All their background and artistic experience made them little disposed towards Fauvism and even less towards Cubism or any other modern style. Bonnard was a little more than two years older than Matisse, Vuillard was even closer in age, and though they sincerely respected Matisse as an artist, they could not share his ideas. This does not mean that their intention was to adhere assiduously to their earlier manner. They realized that by acting that way they would be doing no more than marking time and consequently condemning themselves to failure. The real alternative lay in each member of the group developing his own artistic personality. This was bound to conflict with the aspirations of the group as a whole and disrupt its joint efforts. The growing individuality in each artist’s work undermined the group’s unity. At the same time, this process clarified the position of these artists in the art world. It showed that some of them had become figures of European standing, while others were no more than members of a transient group.

Of course, the Nabis artists had never followed one particular style. Each member of the group pursued his own course, regardless of the stylistic, ideological and religious ideas of the others. In this respect the group was unique. This is not to say that the Nabis did not have a common artistic platform, as without one the group could hardly have formed and existed as long as it did.

The group came into being in 1888. The event was connected with the Académie Julian in Paris. The reader should not be misled by this high-sounding name: the word “Académie” was used in the French capital with reference to all sorts of private studios. Among them, the Académie Julian, founded in 1860, probably enjoyed the best reputation. Artists attended this studio because they could find a model there, and many prepared there for entrance examinations to the École des Beaux-Arts. The atmosphere in the studio was less formal than at the École, but the professors as authoritative; in fact, often enough the same academic celebrities taught at the Académie and the École. The students at the studio were a very mixed bag. Shared backgrounds, artistic temperament and talent very quickly drew them together into groups that came apart just as easily as they were formed. The centre of attraction was Paul Sérusier. He was, at 25, older than his fellow-students, the head of the class and better educated than the rest. The painting exhibited at the 1888 Salon had gained him an honourable mention. With his inclination to discuss matters and his ability to express his ideas clearly and eloquently, he easily won listeners. The main subject of Sérusier’s discourses was the experience he gained in Brittany from where he had returned in October 1888 deeply influenced by the ideas of Synthetism. He assumed the role of champion of “the last word” in painting, passed on to him by Gauguin at Pont-Avon.

16. Ker Xavier Roussel, In the Snow, 1893.

Colour lithograph.

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

17. Georges Lacombe, Red Pines, 1894–1895.

Egg tempera paint, 59 × 46 cm.

Josefowitz Collection, Lausanne.

18. Paul Sérusier, Breton Women, the Meeting in the Sacred Grove, c. 1891–1893.

Oil on canvas, 72 × 92 cm.

Private collection.

Sérusier was completely under the spell of his encounter with Gauguin. But the most important thing was that he brought back with him The Talisman (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). This small landscape study hurriedly painted on a piece of board was to become a true talisman for a small group of students at the Académie Julian. With a sacramental air, Sérusier showed the panel to Bonnard, Denis, Ibels and Ranson. Later Vuillard and Roussel joined “the initiated”. The study, painted in the Bois d’Amour outside Pont-Avon, depicts autumnal trees reflected in a pond. Each area of colour in this work is given in such a generalized fashion that the object depicted is not easily recognized, and, turned upside down, the picture becomes an abstract. The study was made under the guidance of Gauguin, who demanded: “How do you see that tree? Is it green? Then choose the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow? Is it more like blue? Then don’t hesitate to paint it with the purest blue possible.”[1] The words are cited differently in different sources, but all versions contain the same main idea: an exhortation to simplify the methods of painting, beginning with the simplification of the artist’s palette and an increase in its dynamism. “This is how we learned,” recollected Denis, “that all works of art are a kind of transposition, a certain caricature, the passionate equivalent of an experienced sensation. This was the starting point of an evolution in which we at once became engaged.”[2]

19. Georges Lacombe, Breton and Breton Women, 1894–1895.

Sculpted polychromic wood, 33 × 14.5 cm.

Private collection.

The seed had fallen upon fertile ground. Comparing The Talisman and the works of the Impressionists and their followers seen in the Durand-Ruel, Boussod and Valadon galleries with the popular paintings exhibited in the Musée du Luxembourg and the works of their own teachers, the young painters could not but fall under the spell of this new mode of painting, with its vitality and brilliant colours.

Of course, Sérusier and his attentive audience were by no means unanimous in their interpretation of the arguments of the leader of the Pont-Avon school. While for Sérusier the simplification of colour seemed a tempting gateway into the realm of symbols (and Denis was ready to agree with him), Bonnard and Vuillard, who did not wish to leave the precincts of painting as such, hoped that these devices would help to open up promising decorative resources. Though their own artistic experience was still rather limited, all of them were able to appreciate the beauty of resonant colours, no matter how unorthodox the means used to achieve them.

It so happened that the students of the Académie Julian who displayed the greatest talent in painting felt drawn towards one another and began by gathering round Sérusier. Among the other students, these young artists stood out with their superior cultural level; they were well-read, loved poetry and the theatre. This too helped to establish close ties between them. Soon they started meeting outside classes. Feeling that their association had a special significance, they decided to call themselves les Nabis. This name, a password for the group and a mystery for outsiders, was suggested by one of their friends, Auguste Cazalis, then a student at the School of Oriental Languages.

20. Georges Lacombe, Harvestwomen, 1894–1895.

Egg tempera paint, 65 × 50 cm.

Private collection.

21. Georges Lacombe, The Ages of Life – Spring, 1893–1894.

Egg tempera paint, 151 × 240 cm.

Petit Palais – Musée des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris, Paris.

22. Maurice Denis, Madame Ranson with Cat, c. 1892.

Oil on canvas.

Musée départemental Maurice Denis “Le Prieuré”, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

The meetings of the Nabis were characterized by lively conversations on a wide range of subjects, more often than not connected with painting or literature. It is true that Sérusier and, to a lesser extent, Denis were inclined to give themselves airs, but the rest preferred a merry atmosphere and enjoyed a good joke. This was quite natural: they were all young. On Saturdays they met in Ranson’s studio, played charades (popular at the time), staged little puppet shows and read poetry. Once a month, and this with time became a ritual, they gathered in a small, modest restaurant called L’Os à Moelle (The Marrowbone). Each member of the group had a nickname: Sérusier, for example, was called “Nabi à la barbe rutilante” (Nabi with the sparkling beard), Denis bore the name “Nabi aux belles icônes” (Nabi of the beautiful icons), Bonnard’s nickname was “Nabi japonard” (the Japanese Nabi), Vuillard’s was “Zouave”, Verkade’s “Nabi obéliscal” (the “obeliscal” Nabi), and Vallotton, who joined the group in 1892, became “Nabi étranger” (the foreign Nabi).

From time to time the Nabis gathered in the editorial offices of the recently-founded magazines Mercure de France and Revue Blanche or in Le Barc de Boutteville’s gallery, where at that time they usually exhibited their works. But their main meeting place remained Ranson’s studio on the boulevard Montparnasse, which they styled “the Temple”. The walls of the Temple were adorned with decorative pieces by Denis, Vuillard, Bonnard and Roussel. They were executed on paper and, unfortunately, have not survived. In 1891 Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis and Lugné-Poë rented a workshop in the rue Pigalle, which was frequented by other members of the Nabis circle. With the coming of spring, they spent Sundays at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in Denis’s house, or at l’Etang-la-Ville, with Roussel’s family.

23. Aristide Maillol, Spring, 1896.

Wood.

Dina Vierny Collection, Paris.

Unlike the rest of the Nabis, Ranson and these two artists had married and settled down to a more or less steady home life. Even in summer the Nabis remained faithful to their fellowship: Sérusier, Verkade and Ballin, for instance, visited Brittany together. In 1895 Thadée Natanson, the publisher of the Revue Blanche, and his charming wife Misia, whom both Renoir and Bonnard painted many times, entertained Vuillard and Vallotton at their home in Valvin. The following year the couple moved to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where over the course of several years Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel and also Toulouse-Lautrec were invited to their home. Members of the Nabis group often entertained Maillol, whom they held in great esteem. Three or four times they were visited by Gauguin. The Temple was frequented by the composers Chausson, Hermand and Claude Terrasse (Bonnard’s brother-in-law). Denis introduced to the Nabis his fellow-student from the Lycée Condorcet, Lugné-Poë, who was soon to gain prominence on the French stage both as an actor and producer. Lugné-Poë had introduced the Parisian public to Ibsen, Strindberg and other outstanding dramatists of the time. Through him the Nabis entered the theatrical world. They designed stage sets and theatrical programmes for Lugné-Poë’s productions. They even appeared on the stage as extras, taking part, for example, in the much talked about Ubu Roi by Jarry. Members of the Nabi group were personally acquainted and often friendly with many contemporary French authors – Alfred Jarry, Francis Jammes, Jules Renard, Tristan Bernard, Édouard Dujardin and André Gide – so it is hardly surprising that they illustrated their books. While at the Lycée, Maurice Denis became acquainted with Marcel Proust. He was also on close terms with André Gide in whose company he travelled all over Italy. Mallarmé taught English at the Lycée Condorcet. The Nabis greatly admired his poetry and some of them kept in touch with him after leaving the Lycée.

24. Félix Vallotton, Woman Relaxing, 1899.

Oil on canvas.

Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris.

25. Pierre Bonnard, The Dressing Gown, c. 1890.

Cloth, 150 × 50 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

More than half of the Nabis attended the Lycée Condorcet, undoubtedly one of the finest in Paris and perhaps the best as far as its humanities programme was concerned. It played an important role in fostering a taste for literature in its students. Curiously enough, not one of the Nabis had ever won a prize for art at the Lycée, while Vuillard and Roussel gained the first and second prizes for history. A shared interest in literature, history and aesthetics helped to form firm ties between people of very different convictions. The friendship which sprung up in their Lycée years proved stronger than the artistic and religious differences which arose later.

Their fellowship expressed itself at times through naive and even childish features, for example, the ritual formula, modelled on those of ancient fraternities, with which they finished their letters: “En ta paume, mon verbe et ma pensée” (My words and thoughts are in your palm). On occasion these words were reduced to an abbreviation: “E.T.P.M.V.E.M.P.” Whatever the reason, it is a fact that for many years their friendship was never dimmed by resentment, envy or estrangement.

In works on the history of art the Nabis are at times equated with other groups and movements which existed for a short period and then dissolved. This conception is fraught with inconsistencies. Can the Nabis circle be regarded as a distinct movement? Yes and no. Some common features may be traced in their work, but the kinship between them is at two removes, if not more. It is not by chance that at some recent exhibitions painters of this group have been ascribed to different movements. For example, works by Denis, Sérusier and even Vallotton were included in the widely representative exhibition of European Symbolism held in 1975–76 in Rotterdam, Brussels, Baden-Baden and Paris,[3] while neither Bonnard, Vuillard nor Roussel were featured. It is true that some traces of Symbolism may be found in the works of the last three painters, but they are so rare and so faint that these artists cannot possibly be regarded as Symbolists. However, Bonnard, Vuillard and Roussel always paid considerable attention to the painterly aspects of their work and so they had certain points of contact with the Fauves. That explains why their works are now and again shown at the same exhibitions. The exhibition of the Nabis and Fauves held in the Zurich Kunsthaus in 1983[4] may serve as an example. It is noteworthy that paintings by Denis and Sérusier were not included in this exhibition.

26. Paul Ranson, Women in White, c. 1895.

Wool on canvas, needlepoint tapestry, 150 × 98 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

27. Paul Ranson, The Tiger, 1893.

Colour lithograph.

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

28. Maurice Denis, Bacchanalia, 1920.

Oil on canvas, 99.2 × 139.5 cm.

Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo.

29. Henri-Gabriel Ibels, At the Circus, 1893.

Colour lithograph.

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

30. Paul Sérusier, Bretons Wrestlers, 1890–1891.

Oil on canvas, 92 × 73 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

The Nabis were not simply a group of artists using similar painterly devices and the same strategy in the struggle to exhibit their works, as was the case with the Neo-Impressionists or the Fauves. They were a kind of fraternity, hence their desire to be tolerant of each other despite the many differences between them. It is difficult for such a fraternity, based not on discipline but on shared aesthetic conceptions, to survive for long. All the more surprising, then, is the fact that the group continued to exist until 1900. Personal relationships and in certain cases family ties held the group together, though the activities of the group, or at least of some of its members, soon might well have appeared naive and even anachronistic.

In fact, the activities of the group were for most of the Nabis to some extent a kind of game, one that with time lost its attraction. Differences in temperament, in personal inclination and outlook were sooner or later bound to affect the relationship between the Nabis. True, they all worshipped Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Verlaine, they loved Gauguin, sincerely admired such disparate artists as Cézanne and Van Gogh; they delighted in old stained-glass windows, Breton crucifixes and popular prints from Epinal (images d’Epinal); they were all interested in folk legends, traditional country festivals and ancient rituals. Yet, though they shared these interests, each had his own preferences. A certain coolness was a required buffer between Sérusier, an ardent Catholic, and Roussel, a confirmed atheist. Neither was it easy for Sérusier, with his inclination to doctrinairism, to find a common language with Bonnard, who would never thrust his opinions upon others. Perhaps of no lesser importance was that whereas the former was almost devoid of a sense of humour, the latter was endowed with a very strong one.

31. Georges Lacombe, Death and Love, 1894–1896.

Bas-relief in walnut, 48.7 × 195.5 × 6 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

32. Henri Matisse, The Dance, 1909–1910.

Oil on canvas, 260 × 391 cm.

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

While admiring Gauguin and medieval art, Degas and Japanese woodcut prints, each member of the Nabis group saw them in a different way. Here, preference was dictated by personal conviction and taste. These differences from the very beginning divided the group into two parties: Sérusier, Denis and Verkade wished to follow Gauguin and drew on the art of the Middle Ages, whereas Bonnard, Vuillard and Vallotton felt an affinity with Degas and Japanese artists. Thus the nicknames given to Bonnard and Denis, names which they readily accepted, reflected their aesthetic inclinations. The names in each case defined the source of their art and, ultimately, that of the two Nabis parties, one of which gravitated towards a vivid, dynamic representation of life, the other towards a more religious, stylized and symbolic representation. Both wings agreed that art should not aim to copy nature. They saw it above all as “a means of expression”[5] and recognized that there was “a close connection between form and emotion”.[6] The theory of equivalences was the foundation of Nabis aesthetics. This may well provide the explanation for the respect which each member of the fraternity felt for the work of the others.

33. Paul Ranson, Lustral or The Blue Bather, 1891.

Oil on canvas.

Alain Lesieutre Gallery, Paris.

34. Maurice Denis, Shepherds (The Green Seashore), 1909.

Oil on canvas, 97 × 180 cm.

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.

35. Maurice Denis, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1907.

Oil on canvas, 81 × 116 cm.

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

The fact that the Nabis regarded very different artists with equal esteem – Gauguin and Cézanne, Redon and Puvis de Chavannes – may be explained by their genuine respect for individuality. It is easy to see what attracted them to Odilon Redon, with his air of mystery and subtle colour nuances, or to Puvis de Chavannes, with his profound understanding of the essence of monumental painting. The works of the young Nabis from time to time betrayed a hint of the influence of these two artists. With Cézanne, whom they discovered very early, when his works could be found only in a small shop kept by Le Père Tanguy, the question becomes more difficult. Did he influence them? Neither Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis nor any other representative of the group can be considered followers of Cézanne; they moved in an entirely different direction from that taken by the vanguard Impressionist. Cézanne’s work served them as an example of great skill. To be able to appreciate his art in the early 1890s, when, with the exception of a few close friends, art lovers saw his canvases as nothing but daubs, not only proved independent judgement, but also revealed an uncommonly high degree of painterly culture. It is thus not surprising that the writer Sâr Péladan, for example, an idol of Symbolism who was in great vogue about 1890, at least among a considerable section of the public, failed to impress the Nabis, although they themselves were by no means indifferent to Symbolism. They also remained unmoved by the English painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, who were much talked about in artistic circles throughout Europe.

The Nabis, particularly those who sided with Sérusier, doubtlessly shared some of the important ideas inherent in Symbolism. Since they discussed among themselves all notable artistic events in Paris, they were well acquainted not only with the work of Puvis de Chavannes, Redon and Gustave Moreau (whom they rated less highly, evidently because of his approach to colour), but also with the work of foreign Symbolists belonging to various trends. At the Exposition Universelle of 1889 they would naturally have seen the work of the British artists Burne-Jones, Millais, Watts and Crane, and of the Italian Previati. Moreover, Burne-Jones was a regular exhibitor at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts from the time of its foundation in 1890. In that year the Salon also featured works by the Belgian artist Leon Frédéric and the German Ludwig von Hofmann; in 1891, works by the Swiss artist Hodler and the Finn Gallen-Kallela. Foreign artists, including the Belgians Delville, Mellery and Khnopff, and the Dutchman Toorop, were represented in the salons of the “Rose + Croix”, arranged by Péladan from 1892 to 1897.

The Nabis’ lukewarm reaction to these Symbolists was no manifestation of patriotism. Rather they found their work lacking in artistic merit. The French artists who joined the Symbolist movement always paid special attention to the use of colour. Not simply in the work of Gauguin and Redon, whose achievements as colourists were so astonishing that this factor alone makes it impossible to regard their work solely within the framework of Symbolism, but also in that of less gifted artists such as Seguin, who was close to the Nabis. Other followers of Gauguin produced works characterized by a more complex painterly texture, and by more subtle and original colour harmonies. The understanding of the role of colour evinced by the British, German and Belgian Symbolists seemed to the Nabis narrow, or simply dull and academic.

Many aspects of non-academic art also remained alien to the Nabis from a purely colouristic point of view. They were never tempted, for example, to try their hand at Neo-Impressionism. The exponents of this style aimed at achieving the utmost intensity of light, close to reality, using the technique of separate dabs of paint and the optical mixing of pure spectral colours. Colour for the sake of light – that was never an issue for the Nabis, nor was the choice between colour and light. Colour invariably remained of paramount importance for this group of artists. Their colour schemes were most often based on subtle, even elusive gradations of tone, and were in themselves usually rather subdued.

The colour solutions characteristic of the Nabis may be explained by the artists’ attitude towards what they depicted. This attitude was far from the immediacy of the first Impressionists. While rejecting the rapid, casual approach of Monet and Sisley, they remained faithful to accurate visual perception. Their preference was for the eternal rather than the transient. A painting by Bonnard, Vuillard or Denis is, of course, correlated to the object it depicts, but not with it alone. In their works one can always discover a number of subtle associations which place the picture in a definite artistic and historical context. Works by the Nabis are always decorative, and this precludes a naturalistic interpretation of them. At the same time, this decorativeness shows that these paintings belong to an artistic system which is structurally close to other systems. Those other systems may be far removed in time and space, but that fact is irrelevant to their art. In Bonnard’s works we find parallels with Japanese prints, in Denis’s with the murals of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.

Such a tendency to look back may at its worst have led to mere stylization. However, Bonnard and Vuillard established fruitful links with earlier art. It was not a matter of iconographic borrowing, though this did take place, but rather a kind of compression of artistic significance: a work is seen not solely as a reflection of the reality surrounding the artist, but also in the context of a long-existing, well-developed tradition, at times very unexpected by the artist’s contemporaries. Denis, the chief theoretician of the group, even invented a word to denote this phenomenon, Neo-Traditionalism. It is easy to see that Denis’s art does indeed fall under this heading. The issue is more difficult with such artists as Vuillard, but in his work too, links with artistic traditions of the past are clearly evident. He owes a great debt to eighteenth-century art, to Japanese woodcuts and to highly decorative French printed cloths. These correlations reveal a very important peculiarity of Nabis art: in comparison with the work of their immediate forerunners, it makes special demands on the viewer and requires a good knowledge of the history of art. An Impressionist picture is easily understood without this, as long as the viewer knows how to look at it.

A new understanding of the aims of painting, determined by a more complex approach to the inner meanings of the image, is one of the most distinctive marks of Post-Impressionism. In some cases the approach owed a great deal to the artistic systems of the East. Although oriental art was only one source of the stylistic changes taking place at that time, it is particularly clear that the Nabis, moving in the same direction as Van Gogh, Gauguin, Redon, and (partly) Toulouse-Lautrec, strove, in contrast to Impressionism, for a synthesis in art, a kind of synthesis which was entirely new in European art. The “synthetism” of Gauguin and other members of the Pont-Avon group, Redon’s experiments which delighted Bonnard and his friends by “a unity of practically opposite qualities, the purest matter and extremely mystic expression”,[7] the visions of Gustave Moreau, usually deliberately theatrical – all these artistic manifestations at the end of the nineteenth century betrayed an anti-naturalistic mood. The Nabis inevitably came to share this mood, although their attitudes towards Redon and Moreau differed. It influenced their art considerably and gave rise to a situation where in a single painting vague allusions could unexpectedly be combined with almost poster-like abstractions. Courbet and the painters of the Barbizon school had avoided using images which could be interpreted in different ways: in short, images outside the world of painting. For the Nabis, on the other hand, the interplay of various styles and images of the past, from the millefiori glass of the late Middle Ages to the colour prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige, motifs drawn from legends, mythology and the Gospels, all formed an integral part of their art. This tendency towards a synthesis of artistic concepts was entirely in keeping with the revival of the idea of combining painting with other arts and with architecture.

36. Aristide Maillol, The Wave, c. 1891.

Oil on canvas, 95.5 × 89 cm.

Musée Maillol, Paris.

37. Félix Vallotton, The Saturday Evening Bath, 1892.

Oil on canvas.

Kunsthaus, Zürich.

38. Aristide Maillol, Bather or The Wave, 1899.

Needlepoint tapestry, 101.5 × 92.5 cm.

39. Aristide Maillol, Bather or The Wave, 1896.

Plaster relief, 93 × 103 × 25 cm.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

This idea was current all across Europe. It was not rejected by the academic and salon leaders, but what they offered was the construction of modern works of art based on copying Renaissance and Baroque examples, which merely led to a still-born “historicism”. The creative young artists of Paris were concerned with something entirely different. They dreamt of decorative and monumental painting which would absorb all the colouristic discoveries of the previous two decades. Later Verkade recalled: “Around 1890 a war-cry surged through the studios: ‘We’ve had enough of easel-paintings, down with useless furniture! Painting must not usurp a liberty which isolates it from other arts! There are no paintings, but only decorations!’”[8] What were they to be like, these new decorations? Even beginners in painting realized that merely copying the Old Masters would be no better than the thoughtless transfer of the Impressionists’ brilliant colours onto walls. It was then that many artists’ eyes turned towards Puvis de Chavannes. The seventeen-year-old Denis wrote in his diary: “Yesterday I visited the exhibition of Puvis de Chavannes’ works. The calm, decorative aspect of his pictures is very beautiful: the colour of the walls is delightful, the harmonies of pale-yellow tones are superb. The composition is astonishingly well thought out and lofty; this suggests wonderful mastery. I am sure that above all it is the composition that influences the soul gently and mysteriously, elevating and soothing it.”[9] Not only Puvis de Chavannes’ murals in the Pantheon but also his easel paintings were seen as a lesson in decorative art. Gauguin made a copy of his Hope, and later, on Tahiti, painted two versions of A Poor Fisherman, a work (now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris) which was also copied by Maillol, who was close to the Nabis. Even many years later Anna Golubkina, advising her friend and fellow artist L.Gubina what to see in Paris in the short time at her disposal, said: “Don’t linger in the Pantheon – just look on the right for Puvis de Chavannes’ In the Luxembourg, don’t forget Puvis de Chavannes’ Poor Fisherman”.[10] It is worth noting that the study for this picture was among the early purchases made by Sergei Shchukin. The deliberately restrained work of Puvis de Chavannes, by no means as daring in colour as the canvases of Manet, Monet or Degas, was destined to become a kind of banner for the following generation of artists. This generation dreamt of murals, of an “eternal” type of art; the young painters were fascinated by the promise which Puvis de Chavannes’ painting held; they saw that contemporary easel painting could stimulate meditation on life, breaking through the realm of purely visual facts. Maurice Denis, who loved to express himself in the language of a manifesto, formulated the aesthetic credo of his milieu in the following way: “We insist on the idea that the visible is a manifestation of the invisible, that forms and colours are indications of the state of our soul.”[11]