AN APPRECIATION: Emile Bernard Bernard by Toulouse Lautrec.
Emile Bernard was present at the dawn of the Post-Impressionist movement. Although he never achieved the fame and recognition accorded to some of his colleagues, his thinking and his work impressed both Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. However, like his more famous friends, Bernard had a sensitive personality and fell out with both Van Gogh and Gauguin. The latter falling out eventually led him to turn his back on the avant garde movement that he had helped to create.
Bernard was born on April 26, 1868 in Lille, France. His father was in the wholesale textile trade and the family lived a comfortable bourgeois existence. In 1871, a daughter was born. Madeleine was a sickly child and as a result, received most of her parents attention. Therefore, Emile stayed with his grandmother, who owned a prosperous laundry in the same city. She was also a great supporter of Emile's artistic efforts. Together with his parents and sister, Emile moved to Paris in 1878. Emile enrolled in the Ecole des Arts Decoatifs but was later expelled. The family left Paris in 1879 because of Madeleine's health problems. However, Emile returned to Paris in 1880. By 1884, Bernard was taking lessons at the studio of Fernand Cormon. Although Cormon was an academic painter, he allowed his students considerable freedom and his atelier attracted many young avant garde artists. Among these were Henri Toulouse Lautrec and Louis Anquetin with whom Bernard formed close friendships. It is also possible that Bernard met Vincent Van Gogh in Cormon's studio. Van Gogh arrived in Paris in March 1886 and enrolled with Cormon soon after. Bernard embarked on a walking tour of Brittany in April 1886, having been expelled from Cormon's studio for insubordination. Thus, it is possible that the two artists were students of Cormon at the same time but if so, it was not for very long. Another possibility is that Van Gogh and Bernard met at Pere Tanguy's art supply shop, which was a favorite venue of the young avant garde artists. Yet another alternative is that they met through a mutual friend such as Lautrec. In any event, Van Gogh and Bernard were impressed with each other's art and formed a close association. Like other young artists during this period, Bernard was at first influenced by the Impressionists and took up their style. However, in the mid-1880s, the talk among the avant garde turned to Neo-Impressionism and the work of George Seurat and Paul Signac. Consequently, by 1887, Bernard was exhibiting Pointillist works. Bernard, however, soon found Pointillism too confining and by the end of 1887, he had changed his style once again. Together with Anquetin, the 19 year-old Bernard developed Cloisonism, in which the images were simplified to essentials with large areas of color enclosed by dark outlines. The influence of Japanese woodblock prints, which had become quite popular with the avant garde, is evident in this style. Van Gogh was impressed by Bernard's new style and invited him to exhibit with him, Antequin and Lautrec at an exhibition that Vincent was organizing at the Restaurant du Chalet. Bernard sold his first painting as a result of the exhibition. Another artist who became part of this circle, which Van Gogh called the “Petit Boulevard,” was Gauguin. Bernard had met him during Bernard's 1886 walking tour of Brittany but their close association appears to have begun in Paris where they would talk about art and socialize together with Van Gogh, Anquetin and Lautrec. This association continued to develop in Brittany. Bernard returned to Brittany several times after his 1886 walking tour. He liked the simplicity of the Breton way of life and the spirituality of the people. Gauguin was the unofficial leader of an artists colony that had formed around him in Pon-Aven in Brittany. He liked the way Bernard was able to articulate ideas that both men shared, particularly with regard to simplification and the importance of depicting the artist's emotions and imagination rather than simply trying to reproduce what the eye saw. This led to a form of Symbolism called Synthetism in which forms and color are “synthesized” with the artist's inner vision. Perspective and shadow were excluded in favor of flat images like in a stained glass window. After Van Gogh left Paris for Arles, he maintained a correspondence with both Gauguin and Bernard. Once again, he was very impressed by what his friends were doing. However, in one letter, Van Gogh criticized Bernard's use of the Biblical themes in his works as artificial and affected. This caused Bernard to break off the correspondence. Still, following Van Gogh's death in 1890, Van Gogh's brother Theo asked Bernard to help organize an exhibition of Van Gogh's works. The proposed exhibition did not take place but after Theo's death in 1891, Bernard became the administrator of Vincent's affairs. This involvement led him to write one of the first appreciations of the importance of Van Gogh's work. He praised Van Gogh's work but asserted that his life was cut off before his artistic style fully matured. Bernard also edited the correspondence between Van Gogh and him, which was published in 1893. Bernard also had a falling out with Gauguin. Bernard felt that Gauguin did not give him sufficient credit for developing Synthetism. Indeed, as he became popular, Gauguin denied Bernard's influence. The break with Gauguin led Bernard to eventually turn his back on the avant garde. In its place, he embraced Classicism - - the conservative style that was taught by the Ecole des Beaux Arts. (Bernard would later become a teacher at the Ecole des Beaux Arts). In 1893, Bernard left France bound for Constantinople. Along the way, he toured Italy. Eventually, he settled down in Egypt where he married. Bernard returned to France in 1904. He met with Paul Cezanne, who he had long admired, and they became friends. However, Bernard had become more interested in writing than in producing art. He wrote about Cezanne and other artists including Odilon Redon. Bernard wrote plays and poetry and also founded an art review La Renovation Esthetique. He designed furniture and studied religious mysticism and philosophy. As a result, although Bernard lived until 1941, the bulk of the paintings for which he is remembered was produced before 1900. See our profiles of these other Post Impressionists
Emile Bernard Paul Cezanne Paul Gauguin Henri Toulouse Lautrec Odlion Redon Henri Rousseau George Seurat Paul Signac Vincent Van Gogh |
Above: "Portrait of a Boy in a Hat."
Below: "The Cliffs at Le Pauldu." 
Above: "Breton Women With Umbrellas." The women of Brittany in their traditional clothing were one of Bernard's favorite subjects.
Above: Van Gogh proposed that he, Gauguin and Bernard exchange self-portraits. Bernard's contribution included not only his own face but a picture of Gauguin hanging on the wall.
Below: A portrait of Bernard's sister Madeleine. She accompanied Bernard on his trip to Brittany in 1888 and acted as a muse to both Bernard and Gauguin. It is said that Gauguin fell in love with her. 
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Artist appreciation - Emile Bernard