In the filiation thus formed, we see how an artistic tendency comes into being, scatters and merges again like quick-silver.  Puvis de Chavannes had been the first to use colour in unified planes; young Emile Bernard had arrived at this practice by his own devices; Gauguin seized on the intuition and carried it to its highest point of intensity, while Serusier finally passed it on to his friends, forming with them the group known as Nabis . We can thus perceive the first steps of an approach which, by an entirely "phylogenetic" logic was  to lead to Fauvism and the art of  Henri Matisse . Matisse acknowledged that his painting Luxury I was in direct line of descent from Puvis de Chavannes' Young Girls at the Seaside.  Nabi is the Hebrew word for prophet. The group designated themselves prophets with a hint of irony; the term at first referred to a group of friends who met once a month, first in a cafe in the passage Brady, then, after Paul Ranson married, in his town house at, 22 Boulevard du Montparnasse, which they dubbed "the Temple". Paul Ranson (1862-1909) came of wealthy stock; his father was the Mayor of Limoges in 1861. A portrait by Paul Serusier   shows Ranson as a "Nabi", wearing a chasuble and clutching a bishop's crook while reading from an illuminated manuscript; around his head is a red halo. Ranson drew tapestry cartoons for his wife to embroider. Matisse appreciated his sinuous line and is said to have been influenced by it. Maurice Denis decided at only fourteen years of age that he wanted to be a "Christian painter". His mild-toned paintings with their flat areas of colour and sinuous line show formal similarities with those of Ranson. In 1918, Denis and Georges Desvallieres (1861-1950), founded the Ateliers de l'Art Sacre. Edouard Vuillard (1868 - 1940), french Symbolism, studied in Paris at the Academie Julien alongside Pierre Bonnard. As a result of their admiration of Serusier and Gauguin’s color theories, the pair formed the Nabis in 1889. His early works were small-scale prints, primarily color lithographs of Parisian life. His mother, with whom he lived with until her death, was a dressmaker, which inspired Vuillard’s interests in textiles and patterns. He began to paint intimate interior scenes, incorporating these decorative aspects into his work. Another hobby of Vuillard’s was photography, which he used to study the innate movements of his friends and family in their everyday life. He gained more recognition after 1900 and was commissioned as a portrait artist. Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard  also chose to treat the canvas as a flat surface. But at the same time they favoured a novel form of tension between the two-dimensional arrangement they created and the spectator's inclination to interpret the picture as a three-dimensional space. Both artists avoided the ornamental quality from which Denis' paintings sometimes suffer, but it was Bonnard who made perhaps the most original use of the revelation afforded by The Talisman, creating an illusion of depth exclusively through the interplay of colours. This is why a Bonnard always seems two-dimensionsal at first glance. To the viewer's delight, space unfolds only gradually, as though another world were unfolding before his eyes. But his lyrical, intimate work lies outside the scope of Symbolism proper, as does that of Vuillard.
Emile Bernard meanwhile felt that he had been cheated of his undeniable originality. He painted a few more paintings in the manner he had devised, including a group of Spanish Musicians (1897).  Did the young Picasso see this painting? The dominant blue tone and the attitudes of the figures strongly suggest that he did, a presumption that gains in strength when we compare it to Picasso's painting Life (1903).
Emile Bernard Spanish Musicians 1897 Pablo Picasso Life 1903
Bernard then sailed for the Middle East where he remained for ten years, painting in a more traditional idiom. Long afterwards, he grumbled to Renoir: "I was twenty years old, he (Gauguin) was forty. It was easy for him to pass for the creator of something he had merely stolen."  He was unaware that his had been the spark that had set off a great conflagration, and that he could not have kept it to himself if he had wanted to.
Ranson Paul (see collection)
Paul Ranson Nabi Landscape 1890
Georges Lacombe (1868-1916), french painter. Much influenced by Gauguin, he became a member of the Nabis. 1892 met Serusier. Gauguin's influence is particularly clear in his wooden sculptures. These treat symbolic (sometimes esoteric) subjects illustrating the cycle of life and death.
Lacombe Georges (see collection)
Georges Lacombe The Gray Sea 1896
Nabis (Encyclopaedia Britannica)  Group of artists who, through their widely diverse activities, were a majorinfluence on the art produced in France during the late 19th century. Preaching that a work of art is the end product and visual expression of an artist's synthesis of nature into personal aesthetic metaphors and symbols, they paved the way for the early 20th-century development of abstract and nonrepresentational art. The Nabis were greatly influenced by Japanese woodcuts, French Symbolist painting, and English Pre-Raphaelite art. Their primary inspiration, however, stemmed from the so-called Pont-Aven school which centred upon the painter Gauguin Paul. Under Gauguin's direct guidance, Serusier Paul, the group's founder, painted the first Nabi work, “Landscape at the Bois d'Amour at Pont-Aven” (also called the “Talisman,” 1888). Armed with his painting and the authority of Gauguin's teachings, Serusier returned to Paris from Pont-Aven and converted many of his artist friends, who received his aesthetic doctrines as a mystical revelation. Assuming the name Nabis (from Hebrew navi, “prophet,” or “seer”), the original members of the group were the French artists Denis Maurice (with Serusier the group's main theoretician), Bonnard Pierre, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Roussel Ker Xavier, Ranson Paul, Vuillard Edouard, and Rene Piot. Later, a Dutch painter, Jan Verkade, and the Swiss-born Vallotton Felix  joined the group, as did two French sculptors, Lacombe Georges and Maillol Aristide. In 1891 the Nabis held their first exhibition, attempting in their works to illustrate Denis's dictum: “A picture, before being a war horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered by colours in a certain order.” They soon began to apply this idea to such varied works as posters, stained glass, theatre sets, and book illustrations. But dissensions and desertions quickly occurred within the group, which finally disbanded in 1899. Only Vuillard and Bonnard, who came to call themselves Intimists, and Maillol continued to produce major works of art.
Bonnard Pierre (see collection)
Pierre Bonnard The Palm
Intimism (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Intimism - variety of late 19th- and early 20th-century painting that made an intense exploration of the domestic interior as subject matter. It was practiced principally by Bonnard Pierre and Vuillard Edouard, the two most distinguished members of the Nabis. To convey the warmth, comfort, and quiet isolation of interior scenes, Bonnard and Vuillard used the Impressionist broken-colour technique of capturing the light and atmosphere of the fleeting moment. But unlike the Impressionists, who derived their colours from precise observation of the visual world, these painters exaggerated and distorted natural colour to expressmood. Both Bonnard and Vuillard displayed a strong decorative sense in the arrangement of dense areas of colour. Using rich, subdued colours, Vuillard produced paintings characterized by harmonious composition and exquisite form. Bonnard, somewhat less concerned with formal structure, infused a playful tenderness into his bright, gently coloured scenes (which usually included the unobtrusive figure of his wife). Although Intimism did not attract a wealth of followers as a movement, its achievements were considerable enough to give it an influential place in the art of the period. The term Intimism is best characterized by Andre Gide's description of Vuillard's four-panel Figures and Interiors (1896) as art “speaking in a low tone, suitable to confidences.”
Denis Maurice (see collection)
Maurice Denis Nazareth 1905