Nabis

The Nabist (Hebrew: "prophet") group was the result of a meeting between Gauguin and Serusier in 1888. The aim of the group, whose most famous members were Serusier, Maurice Denis, Desvallieres, Roussel, Vuillard, Bonnard and Vallotton, was to regenerate painting by simplifying design and tone, suppressing relief and depth, and by using the arabesque and placing emphasis on composition. The Nabis were decorators (churches, theatres), book-illustrators and poster-designers. Associates both of contemporary poets and the Revue Blanche, the Nabis influenced their contemporaries, and, historically speaking, linked Impressionism and Fauvism. " Young people," relates Maurice Denis, speaking of the beginnings of the movement, "were almost totally unaware of the great aesthetic movement called Impressionism
which had just revolutionised painting. They had only got as far as Roll and Dagnan, as far as admiring Bastien Lepage and discussing Puvis de Chavannes with respectful indifference. They talked ill-informedly of Peladan, Wagner, Lamoureux's concerts and decadent literature: one of Ledrain's pupils initiated us into Semitic literature and Serusier demonstrated the doctrines of Plato and the Alexandrian school to the young Maurice Denis who was studying for the philosophy paper of the baccalaureat in literature." Philosophy, or to be more precise, theosophy and theology, aroused the Nabis' interest: they attended lectures by R.P. Janvier on St Thomas; indeed several of the Nabis' taste for religious speculation only confirmed their ardent spirituality. They also followed current musical trends and knew Claude Debussy (1862-1918), the writer of Pelleas et Melisande, La Mer and Le M artyre de Saint Sebastien,
the composer whose recitative, subtle genius, and harmonic innovations (such as his Preludes for the piano) renewed the language of music. Ernest Chausson (1855-1899), a disciple of Cesar Franck, and the composer of La Legende de Sainte Cecile, Le Roi Arthur and L'Hymne vedique, was a close friend of Denis. "Less nihilistic than the painters, but equally concerned with greater individual freedom and greater expression, musicians were undergoing the simultaneous influences of the pure music revealed to them by Cesar Franck, Bach and the 16th- century contrapuntalists." (Maurice Denis, Theories.) Elsewhere, in Jean Cassou's preface to the catalogue for the exhibition entitled" Bonnard, Vuillard et les Nabis" (Paris, Musee d'art moderne, 1955) we read: "Revolution in painting is partly a spiritual revolution, and the radicals who practised this new manner of painting naturally identified their work with a spiritual exercise; for that reason they desired a unity among themselves similar to that of a religious community. Serusier dreamed of a future elect brotherhood composed solely of dedicated artists enamoured of goodness and beauty who imbued their work with that indefinable character he regarded as Nabist. ... The Nabis were serious in their desire for a spiritual fraternity drawn together around the precious jewel of a new idea .... Their. rather bantering acceptance of contemporary reality-its crazes, the gamut of culture from Paris street to cosy bourgeoisie- ran side by side with a desire for purity, at its most evident in their technique of elucidation and simplification and in their break with Impressionism. The movement and its outstandingly powerful personalities-Maurice Denis, Vuillard, Bonnard and Maillol-created a very rich and subtle movement in the history of French art."

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