Approaching Pierre Bonnard through The Nabis: Reflecting on ‘artistic groups’.
Monday, 23 Jul 2018, 09:30
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Edited by Steve Bamlett, Monday, 23 Jul 2018, 16:09
Approaching Pierre
Bonnard through The Nabis: Reflecting on ‘artistic groups’.
I want to find a way of thinking about this topic and I’d
welcome input from elsewhere. As I read up on Bonnard (not as much as I’d like –
these books are so expensive), I’m developing more of a sense of the incredible
differences that Bonnard introduced to painting and thinking of that as, in
part, a benefit of his isolation from mainstream traditions and genius worship
that forefront Matisse and Picasso in their different ways. It is clear that
the Nabi group and an ‘Intimism’ movement (maybe no more than himself and
Vuillard in practice) discovered different innovations that they synthesised. I’d
like to look at the second in another blog.
As for the Nabis, even an old reliable source like Frèches-Thory
& Terrasse (1990) shows that this group was in part short-lived because it
could provide too little to its front-runners as long as it limited itself to a
few precepts – notably the idea of the inescapability of flat 2-dimensional
imagery in easel painting and compositional values that asserted unity. The
latter could not last long – in as far as the movement relied on japonisme, it became increasingly clear
that that source could not justify compositional unity particularly in the
movement to de-centre the single focus perspective as the source of unity in
pictures. The Nabis developed large mural and decorative works that had to
learn from the multiple focus of Chinese scrollwork and even preferred ‘primitive’
pre-Raphaelite models in re-asserting the value of diptych and triptych – but
on a domestic screen rather than an altarpiece. There were also political
splits amongst Nabis – the sinister one for instance between Latin and Semite
Nabis, a source for the later much more significant marking of anti-Semitism
debates in art that culminated in the Dreyfusard and anti-Dreyfus parties.
Bonnard was of the former I’m glad to say.
According to Frèches-Thory & Terrasse (199012ff.), the
key spark of the Nabis (a word from the Jewish tradition - Nebiim
- meaning ‘prophets’) was, adding to the Japonisme, launched by the 1868 Meiji restoration in Japan, one
important work by Gauguin who was considered the mainspring of Nabiism – the God
almost of whom Nabis were prophets. The painting that sparked this perception
was The Vision After the Sermon (1888).
Because there is too much to reflect upon, I’m using this
blog to look at features of Gauguin’s wonderful painting that led to early Nabi
practice, although many of these were later over-turned in the best post-Nabi
art of Bonnard and Vuillard.
1.
Seeing the canvas as a compositional whole which
nevertheless invited compartmentalising of its sections, using devices thus to
sectionalise (I believe this became the source of Bonnard’s interests in door,
window, mirror, picture and other framing
devices. These separate frames contained semi-discrete elements which
reflected on each other formally and in meaning. In the Gauguin, this is shown
in the almost satiric mirroring of the dancing cow and the four-legged creature
formed by Jacob in full bodily contact with an angel.
2.
Perceptual tricks. The interesting play of the
legs in the pair of wrestling males is mirrored in Gauguin’s ‘Children
Wrestling’.
The focus here is on the perceptual melding of bodies where the
viewer struggles initially to find which leg belongs to which combatant – I
find this of interest in Jacob iconography even in Byzantine examples.
3.
The use of delineated figures using repeated
shapes that emphasise both regularity and freer irregularity.
4.
Distortional suggestive figures, objects and
icons – trees and cows which are liminal for instance between nature and art
(as angels are anyway liminal). As the priest, on the right, is liminal with
Gauguin himself.
5.
The use of ‘unnatural’ colour to insist on such
distortion in the interest of art (and perhaps expression) rather than nature.
This is as far as I’ve got.
Can anyone help?
Frèches-Thory, C.
& Terrasse, A. (1990) The Nabis: Bonnard, Vuillard and their circle Paris, Flammarion
Approaching Pierre Bonnard through The Nabis: Reflecting on ‘artistic groups’.
Approaching Pierre Bonnard through The Nabis: Reflecting on ‘artistic groups’.
I want to find a way of thinking about this topic and I’d welcome input from elsewhere. As I read up on Bonnard (not as much as I’d like – these books are so expensive), I’m developing more of a sense of the incredible differences that Bonnard introduced to painting and thinking of that as, in part, a benefit of his isolation from mainstream traditions and genius worship that forefront Matisse and Picasso in their different ways. It is clear that the Nabi group and an ‘Intimism’ movement (maybe no more than himself and Vuillard in practice) discovered different innovations that they synthesised. I’d like to look at the second in another blog.
As for the Nabis, even an old reliable source like Frèches-Thory & Terrasse (1990) shows that this group was in part short-lived because it could provide too little to its front-runners as long as it limited itself to a few precepts – notably the idea of the inescapability of flat 2-dimensional imagery in easel painting and compositional values that asserted unity. The latter could not last long – in as far as the movement relied on japonisme, it became increasingly clear that that source could not justify compositional unity particularly in the movement to de-centre the single focus perspective as the source of unity in pictures. The Nabis developed large mural and decorative works that had to learn from the multiple focus of Chinese scrollwork and even preferred ‘primitive’ pre-Raphaelite models in re-asserting the value of diptych and triptych – but on a domestic screen rather than an altarpiece. There were also political splits amongst Nabis – the sinister one for instance between Latin and Semite Nabis, a source for the later much more significant marking of anti-Semitism debates in art that culminated in the Dreyfusard and anti-Dreyfus parties. Bonnard was of the former I’m glad to say.
According to Frèches-Thory & Terrasse (199012ff.), the key spark of the Nabis (a word from the Jewish tradition - Nebiim - meaning ‘prophets’) was, adding to the Japonisme, launched by the 1868 Meiji restoration in Japan, one important work by Gauguin who was considered the mainspring of Nabiism – the God almost of whom Nabis were prophets. The painting that sparked this perception was The Vision After the Sermon (1888).
Because there is too much to reflect upon, I’m using this blog to look at features of Gauguin’s wonderful painting that led to early Nabi practice, although many of these were later over-turned in the best post-Nabi art of Bonnard and Vuillard.
1. Seeing the canvas as a compositional whole which nevertheless invited compartmentalising of its sections, using devices thus to sectionalise (I believe this became the source of Bonnard’s interests in door, window, mirror, picture and other framing devices. These separate frames contained semi-discrete elements which reflected on each other formally and in meaning. In the Gauguin, this is shown in the almost satiric mirroring of the dancing cow and the four-legged creature formed by Jacob in full bodily contact with an angel.
2. Perceptual tricks. The interesting play of the legs in the pair of wrestling males is mirrored in Gauguin’s ‘Children Wrestling’.
The focus here is on the perceptual melding of bodies where the viewer struggles initially to find which leg belongs to which combatant – I find this of interest in Jacob iconography even in Byzantine examples.
3. The use of delineated figures using repeated shapes that emphasise both regularity and freer irregularity.
4. Distortional suggestive figures, objects and icons – trees and cows which are liminal for instance between nature and art (as angels are anyway liminal). As the priest, on the right, is liminal with Gauguin himself.
5. The use of ‘unnatural’ colour to insist on such distortion in the interest of art (and perhaps expression) rather than nature.
This is as far as I’ve got. Can anyone help?
Frèches-Thory, C. & Terrasse, A. (1990) The Nabis: Bonnard, Vuillard and their circle Paris, Flammarion
Steve