Émile Bernard

Émile Bernard (1868–1941) was a French avant-garde painter and writer, noted for his pivotal role in the development of Symbolism and Cloisonnism. Born in 1868 in Lille, France, Bernard studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Early in his career, Bernard experimented with Impressionism and Pointillism and worked alongside fellow artists Louis Anquetin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Bernard’s sources of inspiration for this new approach to modern art were indeed varied. Writing the French Symbolist magazine La Revue Indépendante, the art critic Charles Dujardin coined the term Cloisonnisme to describe Bernard’s style — a reference to the medieval craft of stained glass, inserted into a compositional framework of thick metal. The flat planes of colour in Japanese woodcuts were also important to Bernard’s practice. He had studied these examples of these prints in the Parisian shop of the famed dealer, Père Tanguy, in 1887, together with his friend and colleague Vincent van Gogh.

In the late 1880s, Bernard developed a fascination with the rural landscape of Brittany in northwestern France. Radical simplification was Bernard’s guiding principle in this pivotal phase of his career. In 1888 he met Paul Gauguin in Pont-Aven and the artists spent several weeks collaborating, observing the deep piety and distinctive folk traditions of the region. Together, Bernard and Gauguin also explored a ‘synthetist’ style of painting, which Gauguin described as a ‘synthesis of a form and a colour’. Bernard’s enduring interest in rural Breton subjects was captured in his work from this period and beyond. In 2022 Christie’s sold his 1892 work Bretonnerie (Bretonnes dans une prairie) for US$3,420,000 — an auction record for Bernard.

Bernard was also a prolific writer, contributing essays and critiques on art and aesthetics. His writings provide a valuable perspective on the artistic debates of his time, particularly regarding the Symbolist movement and his contemporaries.