More about Émile Bernard
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Émile Bernard was a bit of an outsider among outsiders.
Bernard is most famous for his friendships with artists like van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, and Odilon Redon. He also may have started the artistic movement Cloisonnism, which was based on the use of large sections of bright colors separated by definite lines. It was an offshoot of Post-Impressionism and didn’t catch on very well. One of the only artists who did get on board was Gauguin, even though he never claimed that Bernard had an any impact on his work.
Bernard was born in 1868 in Lille, France. His little sister was a sickly kid, so Bernard was somewhat neglected by his parents. At one point he was sent to live with his grandmother, who was his number one fan, as grandmothers are wont to do. In 1978, the Bernards moved to Paris. Émile studied first at the École des Arts Décoratifs, then the Atelier Cormon where he met and befriended Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Eventually he was kicked out for “insubordinate behavior” but it was great while it lasted.
After his dismissal, Bernard went to Pont-Aven, Brittany to make it on his own. This is where he developed a close friendship and workshop with Gauguin and van Gogh. Of course because they are all artists, this ended in complete and utter disaster, but much like his time at Atelier Cormon, it was great while it lasted and resulted in some incredible works of art from all three artists. Bernard is said to be the first one to actually recognize the genius of van Gogh and after van Gogh’s suicide in 1890 and Theo van Gogh’s death shortly thereafter, Bernard became the executor of van Gogh’s work. He organized an exhibition and compiled all of van Gogh’s letters, which are still popular reading today.
Bernard may not have had the sexiest story of all of the Post-Impressionist artists - he didn’t get syphilis in Tahiti , he didn’t cut off any part of his body - but he was a great artist and a great friend and it’s high time we see dependability as sexy.
Sources
Sources
- Cotter, Holland. "Painted With Words: Vincent Van Gogh’S Letters To Emile Bernard - Art - Review." Nytimes.com. N.p., 2007. Web. 23 Oct. 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/arts/design/28vinc.html
- "Émile Bernard | French Painter." Encyclopedia Britannica. N.p., 2018. Web. 23 Oct. 2018. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emile-Bernard
- "Émile Henri Bernard Overview And Analysis." The Art Story. N.p., 2018. Web. 23 Oct. 2018. https://www.theartstory.org/artist-bernard-emile.htm
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Here is what Wikipedia says about Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard (28 April 1868 – 16 April 1941) was a French Post-Impressionist painter and writer, who had artistic friendships with Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Eugène Boch, and at a later time, Paul Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and Synthetism, two late 19th-century art movements. Less known is Bernard's literary work, comprising plays, poetry, and art criticism as well as art historical statements that contain first-hand information on the crucial period of modern art to which Bernard had contributed.
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