Portrait of Émile Bernard at Florence - Paul Sérusier

A portrait of fellow artist Émile Bernard by Paul Sérusier, featuring the bold colours and flattened perspective characteristic of the Nabis movement.

This portrait depicts the painter Émile Bernard, a contemporary and associate of Paul Sérusier within the Nabis circle. The composition reflects the group's interest in Synthetism, a style characterised by flat planes of colour, bold outlines, and a departure from traditional naturalistic representation. Sérusier prioritises decorative harmony over anatomical precision, using simplified forms to construct the figure of Bernard against a backdrop of the Florentine cityscape.

The background features the Ponte Vecchio, rendered with a deliberate lack of depth that brings the architectural elements into the same visual plane as the sitter. The palette is dominated by strong, non-naturalistic tones, including a deep blue for the water and a warm, golden yellow for the buildings. This choice of colour is typical of the Nabis, who sought to express subjective experience rather than objective reality. Bernard is shown in a contemplative state, holding a book, which suggests an intellectual engagement with his surroundings. The brushwork is controlled and deliberate, reinforcing the flat, graphic quality of the image.

Sérusier was a central figure in the Nabis movement, which emerged in the late 1880s and drew inspiration from Paul Gauguin. This work demonstrates the influence of Japanese woodblock prints on the group, particularly in the use of cropped perspectives and the emphasis on two-dimensional patterns. By flattening the space, Sérusier forces the viewer to engage with the painting as a constructed object rather than a window into a scene. The portrait serves as a record of the artistic exchange between Sérusier and Bernard during their travels in Italy, capturing the intellectual atmosphere of their collaboration. The work remains a clear example of the shift towards abstraction that defined the late nineteenth-century French avant-garde.