Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890-1930 - Hardcover

Gloria Groom; Nicholas Watkins

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300089252 ISBN 13: 9780300089257

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2001

Synopsis

The contributions of artists Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and Ker-Xavier Roussel to the avant-garde of the 1890s as members of the group known as the Nabis are widely recognized. What is less known about these artists' careers is their work in decorative painting—work on a large or unusual scale. This gorgeous book reproduces 85 decorative works carried out by the four artists between 1890 and 1930. During this time each moved beyond the illusionism of easel painting and applied his wholly untraditional aesthetic of décoration to a traditional wide range of works for domestic interiors, from wall-size ensembles to screens. The book also examines the tastes and the role of the patrons who made these works possible.

Bringing together works from public and private collections, this book introduces and reunites paintings that have long been dispersed and presents to contemporary viewers bold and evocative works that literally expanded the role of painting as part of the modern experience

About this title

About the Author

Gloria Groom is David and Mary Winton Green Curator of European Painting at The Art Institute of Chicago. Nicholas Watkins is reader in the history of art at the University of Leicester and a widely published authority on Bonnard. Jennifer Paoletti is research assistant in the European Painting Department of The Art Institute of Chicago. Thérèse Barruel is an independent scholar and specialist on Denis.

Reviews

Accompanying an exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this attractive catalog is the first study to focus on the decorative painting of French artists Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and Ker Xavier Roussel, members of the Nabis in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Curator Groom chronicles the formal development of each artist's style as well as the involvement of patrons who commissioned murals and screens for their homes. In his essay, scholar Nicholas Watkins demonstrates how the four artists applied the aesthetic principles of the mural to all types of painting, thus subverting the academic hierarchy of the fine and decorative arts. Drawing parallels with William Morris's Arts and Crafts movement and acknowledging the influences of both Japanese art and the 18th-century French rococo style, Watkins traces the absorption of these artists' abstracted decorative style into early 20th-century modernism and post-World War II avant-garde painting. With beautiful illustrations and a thoughtful text, this book is recommended for all libraries with art collections. Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll. Lib., MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300089252
• ISBN 13: 9780300089257
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 289