Nabis

Nabis. A group of painters, mainly French, active in Paris in the 1890s; their outlook was essentially Symbolist and they were particularly influenced by Gauguin's expressive use of colour and rhythmic pattern. The name Nabis (Hebrew for ‘prophets') was coined in reference to the missionary zeal with which the members promoted Gauguin's teachings. Paul Sérusier, who met Gauguin at Pont-Aven in 1888, was the driving force behind the group and with Maurice Denis was its main theorist. Other members included Bonnard, Maillol (before he turned to sculpture), Ranson (see ACADÉMIE), Roussel, Vuillard, the Hungarian Josef Rippl-Rónai (1861–1927), the Swiss Vallotton, and the Dutchman Jan Verkade (1868–1946). They were active in design (of posters, stained glass, and theatrical decor) and book illustration as well as painting. Group exhibitions were held between 1892 and 1899, after which the members gradually drifted apart. Several of them, however, continued Nabis ideas into the 20th century, notably Denis and Sérusier, whose work remained esoteric in spirit and bound up with their religious beliefs. (Verkade was even more devout, entering a Benedictine monastery in Germany in 1894 and being ordained in 1902, after which he was known as Dom Willibrod Verkade; he continued to paint fairly regularly up to the First World War.) Bonnard and Vuillard departed radically from Nabis ideas in the quiet Intimiste scenes for which they became chiefly famous, but their later decorative work sometimes retained a feeling for flat pattern that recalls their Nabis days.