Short summary of their history, art, and their role in the evolution of painting in the twentieth century, with copious links to articles here.
Sérusier
What became of those who had been Nabis in the early 20th century? These four never completely abandoned their Nabi roots, as seen in their paintings.
Paintings from 1893-95 feature predominantly women, and explore the theme of womanhood. Bonnard, Vuillard, Sérusier and others.
Flattened perspective, muted colours, and decorative patterning: some of the characteristics of the early Nabi years.
Paul Gauguin inspired and launched the Nabis during the late 1880s at Pont-Aven. They first exhibited in 1889, and published their manifesto in 1890, by which time he had moved onto another project.
Influence by Gauguin and Sérusier, he painted intensively in Brittany as a Nabi. By 1894, he had entered a monastery, where he worked in the Beuron Art School.
Gauguin Post-Impressionistm, Nabism, Japonism, and finally Divisionist Post-Impressionism – not bad for someone known as a sculptor.
Shepherds and shepherdesses painted in stories, from classical myth, through the Bible and Christ’s nativity, to epic poetry, including Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Three exceptional paintings are dominated by geometrical forms. In one, a huge golden cylinder hangs in the night sky. Was this an innovative abstract painting?
One of the paintings he made in 1888 is quite unlike any other that he made in his career: The Talisman, which became an icon for the Nabis. Is it abstract?
