Émile Bernard

French

47 paintings in our database

Bernard is one of the most important and most contested figures in Post-Impressionism.

Biography

Émile Bernard (1868–1941) was a French Post-Impressionist painter who played a pivotal role in the development of both Cloisonnism and Synthetism at Pont-Aven and whose correspondence with Paul Cézanne is one of the most important documents of modern art theory, yet whose own career after 1895 retreated into academic conservatism that obscured his early revolutionary contributions. Born in Lille, he trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Fernand Cormon — where he met Van Gogh — and later independently with Paul Gauguin at Pont-Aven in 1888. At Pont-Aven he and Gauguin jointly developed the Synthetist or Cloisonnist style — bold outlines enclosing flat areas of pure colour, inspired by medieval stained glass and Japanese woodblock prints — a development whose priority between them has been disputed ever since. Bathers with Red Cow (1889), Madeleine in the Bois d'Amour (1888), and Bretonne Women in a Meadow are key works from this period. His Self-Portrait with Portrait of Gauguin (1888) records the famous exchange of self-portraits between the two artists. He also corresponded extensively with Cézanne from 1904, eliciting the famous letters about cylinders, spheres, and cones that became the theoretical foundation for twentieth-century geometric abstraction. After 1895 he abandoned modernism for a reactionary classicism that bewildered his former colleagues.

Artistic Style

Bernard's Pont-Aven paintings are among the most radical of the late 1880s — flat, boldly outlined, brilliantly coloured works that entirely rejected the atmospheric dissolving of Impressionism in favour of a structural clarity derived from cloisonné enamel and stained glass. His figure paintings have a simplified, hieratic quality that directly influenced Gauguin's mature style and anticipated Fauvism and the Nabis. His early still lifes show the influence of Cézanne's structural approach.

Historical Significance

Bernard is one of the most important and most contested figures in Post-Impressionism. His Cloisonnist innovations at Pont-Aven were foundational for the development of the Nabis, Fauvism, and ultimately all form-simplifying tendencies in twentieth-century art. His correspondence with Cézanne preserved some of the most significant theoretical statements in modern art. The irony that he then retreated from modernism makes him one of art history's most tantalising might-have-beens.

Things You Might Not Know

•Bernard was expelled from the École des Beaux-Arts for insubordination at age 17 and walked from Paris to Brittany — the journey brought him to Pont-Aven, where he met Gauguin and the encounter transformed both their careers.
•There is a genuine historical dispute about whether Bernard or Gauguin invented Cloisonnism (the flat, bold-outlined style) first — Bernard's letters claim priority, and the argument between them permanently destroyed their friendship.
•After Gauguin's death, Bernard spent decades promoting himself as the origin of Post-Impressionism and writing extensively about his relationships with Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin — he knew all three personally as a young man.
•He underwent a dramatic religious conversion in his thirties and spent the second half of his career painting conventional religious subjects in an academic manner that his early avant-garde circle found baffling and disappointing.
•His letters to Van Gogh are among the most important in the Van Gogh correspondence — the two never met in person but exchanged letters and drawings extensively in 1887-88.

Influences & Legacy

Shaped By

Paul Gauguin — Bernard met Gauguin at Pont-Aven in 1888; the exchange between them produced Cloisonnism, though who influenced whom remains disputed
Paul Cézanne — Bernard visited Cézanne at Aix in his final years and published the most important early account of Cézanne's ideas about pictorial structure
Medieval art and stained glass — Bernard was fascinated by Gothic art and cloisonné enamel; these medieval models directly inspired the flat, outlined style he and Gauguin developed

Went On to Influence

Paul Gauguin — the Synthetist style developed at Pont-Aven, whether Bernard or Gauguin originated it, became Gauguin's vehicle for his mature Polynesian work
The Nabis (Denis, Sérusier, Vuillard) — Bernard's synthesis of flat colour and symbolic content was transmitted to the Nabis group, who developed it into Intimism and decorative symbolism