Iron Bridges at Asnières - Emile Bernard
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Description
A 1887 oil painting by Emile Bernard, featuring the industrial railway bridges at Asnières rendered in the flat, outlined style of Cloisonnism.
Painted in 1887, Iron Bridges at Asnières captures the industrial transformation of the Parisian suburbs during the late nineteenth century. Emile Bernard, a central figure in the development of Cloisonnism, employs a distinct approach to form and colour in this work. The composition relies on flat areas of pigment separated by dark, bold outlines, a technique that rejects the traditional modelling of light and shadow found in earlier Impressionist works.
The scene depicts the railway infrastructure crossing the Seine, with a train passing overhead. Two figures stand on the riverbank, their silhouettes rendered with minimal detail, which directs the viewer's attention to the geometric arrangement of the bridges and the water. The palette is restrained, utilising muted greens, greys, and earthy tones to convey the atmosphere of a working industrial site. By simplifying the visual elements into distinct shapes, Bernard creates a sense of order and stillness that contrasts with the mechanical motion of the train.
This painting reflects the broader shift in French art towards synthetic styles, where the artist prioritises the arrangement of shapes and colours over the literal representation of a scene. The influence of Japanese woodblock prints is evident in the flattened perspective and the deliberate cropping of the foreground elements. As a representative example of Bernard's early period, the work demonstrates his departure from naturalism in favour of a more decorative and structured visual language. It remains a clear record of the artist's experimentation with the boundaries of form and colour during his formative years in the Pont-Aven circle.
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Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Iron Bridges at Asnières - Emile Bernard
Artist Biography
Emile Bernard
He was raised by his grandmother, who owned a laundry in Lille, because his younger sister was ill and required his parents' full attention. He entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris but was expelled for insubordination. At the Academie Cormon he met Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh; his friendship with Van Gogh produced some of the most important letters in art history.
Bernard and Gauguin fell out definitively in 1891 over the paternity of Symbolism and cloisonnism. Bernard believed he had been written out of the story, which he had. He spent years writing criticism and art history to set the record straight, producing first-hand accounts of the period that remain primary sources.
His later work turned conservative. He travelled to Egypt, studied the Old Masters, and repudiated the avant-garde experiments of his youth. The early paintings, made between 1886 and 1897 when he was barely out of his teens, are the ones that matter. He was brilliant too young and spent the rest of his career looking backwards. His correspondence with Van Gogh, preserved and published, is one of the most direct records of how two young painters in the 1880s thought about colour, composition and what painting was for.
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