Émile Bernard

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Émile Bernard (April 28, 1868 – April 16, 1941), born in Lille, France, was a Post-Impressionist painter. He began his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts, befriending fellow artists Louis Anquetin and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. He joined the Atelier Cormon in Paris in 1884 where he experimented with impressionism and pointillism. After being suspended from the École des Beaux-Arts for insubordination, he toured Brittany, where he was enamored by the tradition and landscape. He theorized a style of painting with bold forms separated by dark contours which became known as cloisonnism. His work showed geometric tendencies which hinted at influences of Paul Cézanne, and he collaborated with Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. His correspondence with these artists is of great art historical interest. In 1891 he joined a group of Symbolist painters that included Odilon Redon and Ferdinand Hodler. In 1893 he started travelling, to Egypt, Spain and Italy and after that his style became more eclectic. He returned to Paris in 1904 and died there in 1941.

One of Émile Bernard's students was the Swedish painter Ivan Aguéli.

[edit] 1888

1888 was a seminal year in the history of Modern art. From October,23 till December,23 Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh worked together in Arles. Gauguin had brought his new style from Pont-Aven exemplified in [1]"Vision of the Sermon" , a powerful work of visual symbolism of which he had already sent a sketch to Van Gogh in September.

In addition Gauguin brought to Arles Emile Bernard's "Breton women in the meadow/Pardon at Pont-Aven" ("Les Bretonnes dans la prairie/Bretonnes au Pardon") see in: which he used to decorate the shared workshop.(ref.Druick 2001) This work was equally striking and illustrative of the style Emile Bernard had already acquainted Van Gogh with when he sent him a batch of drawings in August, so much so that Van Gogh made a watercolor copy of the "Pardon" (December 1888) which he sent to his brother Theo Van Gogh (art dealer). The following year Van Gogh still vividly remembered the painting in his written portrait of Emile Bernard in a letter to his sister Wil (Dec.10,1889):"...it was so original I absolutely wanted to have a copy." Bernard's style was effective and coherent (see:woman at haystacks,) as can also be seen from the comparison of the two "portraits" Bernard [2] and Gauguin sent to Van Gogh at the end of September 1888 at the latter's request: self-portraits -at Gauguin's initiative- each integrating a small portrait of the other in the background.(ref.Druick 2001) One of Emile Bernard's drawings from the August batch ("...a lane of trees near the sea with two women talking in the foreground and some strollers" -Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to Bernard -Arles 1888) also appears to have inspired the work Van Gogh and Gauguin did on the Allée des Alyscamps in Arles.

It was always Emile Bernard's great frustration that Paul Gauguin never mentioned him as an influence on pictorial symbolism.(see for instance his own notes attached to the Belgian edition (1942) of his selected letters, published shortly after his death) In 2001/2002 The Art Institute of Chicago and the Van Gogh Museum,Amsterdam held a joint exhibition:Van Gogh and Gauguin:The Workshop of the Souththat put Emile Bernard's contribution in perspective.(ref.Druick 2001)

[edit] References

Emile Bernard:"Notes relative au Symbolisme pictural de 1888-1890" in: Lettres à Emile Bernard -Nouvelle Revue Belgique, 1942
Douglas W.Druick and Peter Kort Seghers: "Van Gogh and Gauguin:The Workshop of the South" -Art Institute of Chicago Museum Shop, Paperback, 2001