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→not to be confused with the French painter and architect Émile Bénard, 1844-1929

Émile Bernard, ~1887

Émile Bernard (April 28, 1868 – April 16, 1941) was "a poet, painter, engraver, sculptor, architect, novelist, playwright, and art critic" whose aim was, at last, to become an artiste complet like the masters of Renaissance he admired.

The artist however is best known as a Post-Impressionist painter who maintained close relations to Van Gogh and Gauguin and, at a later time, to Cézanne. Most of his well-remembered work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. Less known is Bernard's literary work. His art critical as well as art historical statements contain first hand information on the crucial period of modern art to which Bernard had contributed.

Biography

Émile Bernard was born in Lille, France in 1868, to an employé of the textile industry. As in his younger years his sister was sick more often than once, Émile was unable to receive much attention from the parents and stayed with his grandmother, Sophie Bodin-Lallement, who owned a successful laundry business with some 20 employed in Lille. She was an important supporter when Émile wanted to become an artist. He soon moved to Paris and attended the College Sainte-Barbe.

Émile Bernard, Toulouse-Lautrec, 1886.

Education

He began his studies at the École des Arts Décoratifs, 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 “showing expressive tendencies in his paintings”, he toured Brittany on foot, where he was enamored by the tradition and landscape.

In August 1886, Bernard met Gauguin in Pont-Aven. In this brief meeting, they exchanged little about art, but looked forward to meeting again. Bernard said, looking back on that time, that “my own talent was already fully developed.” He believed that his style may have played a part in the development of Gauguin’s mature style.

1887-1888

Bernard spent September 1887 at the coast, where he painted La Grandmère, a portrait of his grandmother. He continued talking with other painters and started saying good things about Gauguin. Bernard went back to Paris, met with Van Gogh, who as we already stated was impressed by his work, found a restaurant to show the work alongside Van Gogh, Anquetin, and Lautrec’s work at the Avenue Clichy. Van Gogh, called group the School of Petit-Boulevard.

One year later, Bernard set out for Pont-Aven by foot and saw Gauguin. Their friendship and artistic relationship grew strong quickly. By this time Bernard had developed many theories about his artwork and what he wanted it to be. He stated that he had “a desire to [find] an art that would be of the most extreme simplicity and that would be accessible to all, so as not to practice its individuality, but collectively…” Gauguin was impressed by Bernard’s ability to verbalize his ideas.

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 Vision of the Sermon, a powerful work of visual symbolism of which he had already sent a sketch to Van Gogh in September.

• 
  Self-portrait with portrait of Paul Gauguin, Bernard, 1888.
• 
  Gauguin's counterpiece, same year, for same 'Vincent'.
• 
  Pardon at Pont-Aven, Bernard, 1888.
• 
  Van Gogh's copy, December 1888.
• 
  The Vision of the Sermon, Gauguin, 1888.

Besides, he brought along Bernard's Le Pardon de Pont-Aven which he had exchanged for one of his paintings and which he used to decorate the shared workshop.
At Père Tanguy's shop, he first saw some of Cézanne's paintings. Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin introduced young Bernard to Montmartre's night life. In 1885, Bernard created his first important work, the woodblock La Nativité.
After having been expelled by Cormon for insubordinate behaviourin early spring, 1886, his parents tried to convince him to work in business, which he refused.
Financially supported by the parents, Bernard instead went on a foot trip to Brittanny. Recommended by Claude-Émile Schuffenecker, whom he had met at Concarneau, he went to Pont-Aven in July, to see Gauguin who however at first did not recognize Bernard's talent. Returned home after two months, he moved in with his parents, visited the Salon des Indépendants and saw the work of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac.

• 1887 - When his parents rented a house in Asnières, Émile was able to exhibit pointillist works there, early in the year, and was invited by Seurat to visit his studio. Bernard and Anquetin however soon decided to break with Neo-Impressionism and go their own way, painting flat colour areas but strong black contours.
  At Tanguy's, Bernard met Lucien Pissarro and Charles Angrand at that time.
  In spring, he returned to Brittany and stayed two months in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, where he created stained glass windows. After his grandmother started to live with the family, they moved to a bigger house and built a studio for Émile. In November, Bernard, Van Gogh, Anquetin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Koning exhibited at the Grand Restaurant-Bouillon du Chalet (Boulevard de Clichy), where Bernard succeeded to sell his first painting. On occasion of the Salon des Indépendants in March 1888, the art critic Édouard Dujardin coined Bernard's and Anquetin's new style Cloisonnism.

• 1888 - The day before Van Gogh left for Arles, Bernard helped him to decorate his room in Theo's appartment, and soon later left for another three months in Saint-Briac.
  In August, he travelled to Pont-Aven once more, where his mother and his sister joined him. Madeleine was in love with 23 years older Gauguin for a while, and he and her brother worked together quite closely. In November, Émile returned to Asnières.

• 1889 - Due to Paris World's Fair held at the centennial of the French Revolution, Schuffenegger got the chance to expose works of himself and other avantgarde painters in the Grand Café des Beaux-Arts, just opposite the Pavillion des Beaux-Arts (which was part of the Fair, where only pieces admitted by a jury would have been shown): The Volpini Exhibition. As Armand Guillaumin and Theo van Gogh (Vincent's manager) were disappointed by the way the exhibit was promoted, they withdrew. Others however joined, and Bernard took the chance to expose 23 works, plus two more under the pseudonym Ludovic Nemo.
  As his father prohibited him to visit Gauguin in Pont-Aven, he spent the summer in St. Briac, where he met one Charlotte Buisse whom he had liked to marry, but was repelled by her father for not being able to maintain a family. He afterwards went to Lille, stayed with his grandmother and worked as a textile designer for a while.

• 1890 - After returning to Paris, Bernard had to find out that Charlotte was meanwhile engaged to someone else. Madeleine became engaged to Charles Laval, who also was obliged to proof that he would be able to maintain a family. After loosing his parental allowance, Émile ogranized a lottery of his paintings. After Vincent van Gogh's death, 29 July, he helped Theo to hang the memorial exhibition.

• 1891 - When, at a banquet in honor of Jean Moréas, Gauguin was hailed by Albert Aurier as the leader of Symbolism and initiator of the Synthetist movement, Bernard felt deeply offended and broke with Gauguin.
  In March-September, Bernard exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and at the first Nabi exhibition. In December, participated in the first exhibition by the gallery Le Barc de Boutteville and tried to launch a print periodical on woodcut, "Le Bois".

• 1892 - March and April: Bernard exhibited at the first Salon de la Rose + Croix, which was held at Durand-Ruel gallery, and at the Salon des Indépendants. Staying in Pont-Aven for the rest of the year, he sculpted furniture for one Mlle Swart, a friend of Andries Bonger, brother-in-law to Theo van Gogh. Working on textiles, he was assisted by a seamstress named Maria.

• 1893 - Deciding to got abroad, together with Maria, Bernard was supported by Comte Antoine de La Rochefoucauld and Bonger. He first travelled Italy: On visits in Genova, Pisa, Rome and Florence he admired Perugino, Botticelli, Giotto, Simone Martini, Taddeo Gaddi and Fra Angelico. When meeting Dal Médico, a fellow from Pont-Aven, he decided to accompany him to Constantinople via Samos. There, he got the commission to paint the chaple of Les Missionnaires de Lyon. He afterwards moved on to Smyrna, where Maria left him for a French photographer. Via Jerusalem and Alexandria, he arrived in Cairo by the end of the year. There, he had some income from decorating the chapel of the Pères de la Mission africaine de Lyon, but still was supported by Bonger and de La Rochefouauld.

• 1894 - Married Hannénah Saati, of Libanese descent, on July 1 and started living like an Arab, whilst reading Fathers of the Church (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas) and philosophers like Hegel, Aristotle and Plato, for becoming inspired. Still was, to some extent, supported by his family. To the 5th album of André Marty's L'Estampe originale, he contributed a print.

• 1895 - Bernard's first son, Otse, was born. The painter was commissioned with frescoes for the chapel of Cairo's Cathédrale de la Vierge and looked for inspiration in Michelangelo's oeuvre. His sister Madeleine, terminally ill with tuberculosis, moved to Cairo where she died on November 19.

• 1896 - For their difficult financial situation, the family moved to Spain, reaching Granada in August and Seville in December. Hannénah became ill of tuberculosis.

• 1897 - In spring, Bernard met Spanish painter Zuloaga; after the birth of a second son, Fortunato, they moved back to Cairo to live with Hannénah's family. Both sons died of tuberculosis, soon later.

• 1898 - Birth of a third son, Odilon. Bernard participated at the Salon de l'Art Religieux and published the firstone of 17 volumes of poetry. Besides, he started a major paintings series on life in Cairo.

• 1899 - In an exhibition in honour of Odilon Redon, organized by de La Rochfoucauld and held at Duran-Ruel gallery, Bernard exhibtited a tapestry and a cupboard panel.

• 1900 - Travelling towards France, the family stayed in Venice for a while before returning to Cairo due to Odilo's illness. The child died there shortly after arrival, but a fourth son, Antoine, was born same year.

• 1901 - Prompted by de La Rochefoucauld, Bernard went to France for three months, exhibited in Ambroise Vollard's gallery and met (not for the first time) poet and theatre manager Paul Fort, becoming involved with his sister Andrée who would accompany him to Cairo.

• 1902 - Daughter Irène, born to Hannénah.

• 1903 - After founding Le Parnasse, a short-lived review publication, Bernard left Cairo for Venice in March, accompanied by Andrée, Irène and Antoine. He returned to Cairo in October to definitely separate from Hannénah and went back to France, taking both children with him.

• 1904 - On the way to Paris, Bernard stopped for a visit at Cézanne's place in Aix-en-Provence, then decided to establish his more-or-less permanent home in Tonnerre-sur-Yonne (Bourgogne), whilst spending the winter in Naples.

• 1905--1912 - On return from Naples, Bernard met Cézanne again. La Rénovation esthétique was founded to propagate increasingly reactionary Catholic points of view. He from now mostly travelled between Paris and Tonnerre and produced a vast output of art critic's essays, poems, plays, book illustrations, but also paintings (towards 1910, mainly landscapes). Around 1907, he visted Andries Bonger in Holland and portayed him and his wife. In 1908, he exposed three of his paintings at the Post-Impressionist exhibition in Prague, having been invited by Milos Martin, who admired his art. In 1910, he had a whole room in the Musée Baudouin (Paris) to exhibit his Orientalist work. At that time, working on his carreer, he was hardly concerned about Andrée and the children. In December 1911, heirship after his father's death allowed him a better life.

• 1913--1921 - Bernard showed some of his woodcuts at the Circle des librairies, in 1913. Having fallen in love with Persian Armène Ohanian, he lived with her in Villeneuve-les-Avignon for three years, where he decorated the church with frescoes. Besides, created woodcuts for Les Amours de Ronsard, Les Fleurs du mal, and François Villon. After Armène had left him, he stayed in Tonnerre until the end of the war; in 1919, returned to Paris and lived with one Mme Duchâteau and Irène.

• 1922-1925 -- Stayed in Italy, where he was well respected: Exhibited at the 1922 Venice Biennale and at the 1923 Rome Biennale. Major paintings created during that period were Le Christ guérissant les malades, Les Héros et les dieux, Le Doute, La Construction du temple. Le Cycle humain is to be mentionned .

• 1927 - Having left Italy by the end of 1925, he travelled the Loire Valley, gave lectures and organized conferences on art.

• 1938 - After the death of his wife Hannénah, in 1937, Bernard married Andrée Fort but preferred living alone in Pont-Aven until 1940.

• 1941 - Bernard died in his Paris studio at 15, quai Bourbon; Maurice Denis delivered an oration, following his funeral at Île-Saint-Lous.

"[…] this creative, avant-garde young man destroyed himself in a fight against that same avant-garde he had helped to create. His rivalry with Gauguin led him out of spite along a different path: classicism. This change took place when he was living in the Middle East, in a period of great crisis. But the fact remains that the young Bernard played an essential part as an initiator for Gauguin, and that he was the inventor of a new artistic vision."

Theories on style and art: Cloisonnism and Symbolism

Bernard 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.

Many say that it was Bernard’s friend Anquetin, who should receive the credit for this “closisonisme” technique. During the spring of 1887, Bernard and Anquetin “turned against Neo-Impressionism.” It is also likely that Bernard was influenced by the works he had seen of Cézanne. But Bernard says “When I was in Brittany, I was inspired by “everything that is superfluous in a spectacle is covering it with reality and occupying our eyes instead of our mind. You have to simplify the spectacle in order to make some sense of it. You have, in a way, to draw its plan.”

"The first means that I use is to simplify nature to an extreme point. I reduce the lines only to the main contrasts and I reduce the colors to the seven fundamental colors of the prism. To see a style and not an item. To highlight the abstract sense and not the objective. And the second means were to appeal to the conception and to the memory by extracting yourself from any direct atmosphere. Appeal more to internal memory and conception. There I was expressing myself more, it was me that I was describing, although I was in front of the nature. There was an invisible meaning under the mute shape of exteriority."

Symbolism and religious motifs appear in both Bernard and Gauguin's work. During the summer of 1889, Bernard was alone in Le Pouldu and began to paint many religious canvasses. He was upset that he had to do commercial work at the same time that he wanted to create these pieces. Bernard wrote about his relationship with this the style of symbolism in many letters, articles, and statements. He said that it was of a Christian essence, divine language. Bernard believed that it “It is the invisible express by the visible,” and those previous attempts of religious symbolism failed. That period of symbolism represented the nature of beauty, but did not find the truth in the beauty. Art until the renaissance was based on the invisible rather than the visible, the idea, not the shapes or concrete. The history of the painting of symbols was spiritual. Everything, meaning symbols, were forgotten with the paganist ideas and doctrines. That is what Bernard was attempting to accomplish with the rebirth of symbolism in 1890. In his idea of the new symbolism, he concentrated on maintaining a grounded art, more authentic in Bernard’s mind meant reducing impressionism, not creating an optical trip like Georges-Pierre Seurat, but simplifying the actual symbol.

His concept was that through ideas, not technique, the truth is found.

Works

• 
  1888-06

• La Grand-Mère (Portrait of the artist's grandmother), ill.
• self portrait

Writings

Art criticism

• Au Palais des Beaux-Arts. Notes sur la peinture

Le Moderniste I/14, 27 July 1889, pp. 108 and 110

• Paul Cézanne

Les Hommes d'aujourd'hui, no. 387

• Vincent van Gogh

Les Hommes d'aujourd'hui, no. 390, (1891)

reprinted in: Lettres & Recueil (1911), pp. 65-69

• Néo-traditionnistes: Vincent van Gogh

La Plume III/57, 1 September 1891, pp. 300-301

• Charles Filliger (!)

La Plume III/64, 15 December 1891, p. 447

• Vincent van Gogh

Mercure de France VII/40, April 1893, pp. 324-330

reprinted in: Lettres & Recueil (1911), pp. 45-52

• Note

Mercure de France VII/44, August 1893, pp. 303-305

reprinted in: Lettres & Recueil (1911), pp. 53-57

• Avant-propos pour le premier volume de la correspondance de Vincent

dated June 10, 1895

first published in: Lettres & Recueil (1911), pp. 59-63

• Notes sur l'école dite de "Pont-Aven"

Mercure de France XLVIII, December 1903, pp. 675-682

• Julien Tanguy dit le "Père Tanguy"

Mercure de France LXXVI/276, 16 December 1908, pp. 600-616

• Preface

Lettres de Vincent van Gogh à Émile Bernard & Recueil des publications sur Vincent van Gogh faites depuis son déces par Émile Bernard, précédées d'une preface nouvelle par le même auteur, Ambroise Vollard, éditeur, Paris, 1911, pp. 1-43

• La méthode de Paul Cézanne. Exposé critique

Mercure de France CXXXVIII/521, 1 March 1920, pp. 289-318

• Une conversation avec Cézanne

Mercure de France CXLVIII/551, 1 June 1921, pp. 372-397

• Souvenirs sur Van Gogh

L'Amour de l'Art, December 1924, pp. 393-400

• Louis Anquetin

Gazette des Beaux-Arts VI/11, February 1934, pp. 108-121

• Le Symbolisme pictural, 1886-1936

Mercure de France CCLXVIII/912, 15 June 1936, pp. 514-530

• Souvenirs inédits sur l'artiste peintre Paul Gauguin et ses compagnons lors de leur séjour à Pont-Aven et au Pouldu

Nouvelliste du Morbihan, Lorient, (1939)

• Note relative au Symbolisme pictural de 1888-1890

first published in:

reprinted in: Lettres à Émile Bernard, Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Belgique, Brussels 1942, pp. 241-257

Letters

His correspondence with other artists is of great art historical interest. Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Bernard traded ideas and art. Many letter sent from Van Gogh and Gauguin to Bernard give historians a better idea of the artists lives and connection to their artwork.

• Lettres à Émile Bernard de Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Odilon Redon, Paul Cézanne, Elémir Bourges, Léon Bloy, G. Apollinaire, Jori-Karl Huysmans, Henry de Groux, Editions de la Nouvelle Revue Belgique, Brussels 1942

Influence

It was always Émile 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 South that put Émile Bernard's contribution in perspective.

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

References

• Alley, Ronald. The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 133, No. 1056 (Mar., 1991)
• Dorra, Henri: Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 1955. Vol. 45.
• Druick, Douglas W., and Seghers, Peter Kort: Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Workshop of the South -Art Institute of Chicago Museum Shop, Paperback, 2001
• Luthi, Jean-Jacques: Émile Bernard, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Editions SIDE, Paris 1982 ISBN 2-86698-000-X
• Morane, Daniel: Émile Bernard 1868-1941, Catalogue de l'œuvre gravé, Musée de Pont-Aven & Bibliothèque d'Art et d'Archéologie - Jacques Doucet, Paris, 2000 ISBN 2-910128-20-2
• Russell T. Clement, Annick Houzé, Christiane Erbolato-Ramsey: A Sourcebook of Gauguin's Symbolist Followers: Les Nabis, Pont-Aven, Rose + Croix - Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, 941 pages. ISBN 0313312052, ISBN 9780313312052.
  The article on Bernard is on pp.159--172, followed by a ~40 pages bibliography.
• Stevens, MaryAnne, et alt.: Émile Bernard 1868-1941, a pioneer of Modern Art / Ein Wegbereiter der Moderne, Waanders, Zwolle 1990 ISBN 90-6630-151-1
• Waschek, Matthias: Eklektizismus und Originalität. Die Grundlagen des französischen Symbolismus am Beispiel von Émile Bernard, Ph.D. Bonn 1990 ISBN 3-89191-342-7
• Welsh-Ovcharov, Bogomila: Vincent van Gogh and the Birth of Cloisonism, Toronto & Amsterdam, 1980

External links

• the-artists.org
• Van Gogh Letters to Bernard, The Morgan Library online exhibition (facsimiles and translations).

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