Nabis

Group of artists, predominantly French, active c. 1888-1900. Dedicated to pursuing the Synthetist example of Gauguin, the Nabis were a disaffected group of art students at the Acad?mie Julian in Paris who formed themselves into a secret brotherhood in 1888-9. The movement's first adherents were PAUL S?RUSIER, the group's founder, Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard, PAUL RANSON and Henri-Gabriel Ibels. Returning to Paris from Pont-Aven in the autumn term of 1888, S?rusier revealed to his friends a new Synthetist use of colour and design exemplified in the Bois d'Amour at Pont-Aven (Paris, Mus. d'Orsay; for illustration see S?RUSIER, PAUL), a boldly simplified landscape painted on a cigar-box lid under Gauguin's directions that later became known as The Talisman. Already drawn together by their common interest in idealist philosophy and in recent Symbolist developments in literature, they adopted their esoteric name from the Hebrew word for prophets

See the Abbreviations for further details.