Vase with Flowers

Art was Pierre Bonnard’s only option. After failing his entry examination to practice law, he fell in with a group of disparate but commonly ambitious young artists who soon became known as the Nabis. They were unified by a common idea – that a work of art was not about a depiction of nature but rather a synthesis of metaphors and symbols into a unified aesthetic work. Their name derived from the Hebrew term for prophet, as this group of radical young creatives were, even in their contemporary age, ushering in a new way of understanding. Bonnard was the greatest of the Nabis, a prophet among prophets who unified a love of Japanese art, graphic illustration and Gaugin’s paintings into works of decadent, detailed, simple beauty.

<div data-height="90" data-width="100%" data-frameborder="no" data-scrolling="no" data-publicuser data-playerurl="https://elevenlabs.io/player/index.html" data-project >Loading the <a href="https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elevenlabs Text to Speech</a> AudioNative Player...</div><script src="https://elevenlabs.io/player/audioNativeHelper.js" type="text/javascript"></script>