Les Nabis | Art history and Sitemap

Ambitious decorative painting enjoyed a resurgence in Europe from the late 1880s through the early twentieth century.

In Paris, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis and Édouard Vuillard were among the most influential artists to embrace decoration as painting’s primary function.

Their works celebrate pattern and ornament, challenge the boundaries that divide fine arts from crafts, and, in many cases, complement the interiors for which they were commissioned.

Disaffected with the rigidly representational painting methods taught at the Académie Julian, Bonnard and Denis joined with other like-minded students in the fall of 1888 to form a brotherhood called the “Nabis”, a Hebrew word meaning “prophets”.

Vincent van Gogh | Still lifes of Shoes

Vincent van Gogh painted several still lifes of shoes, primarily between 1886-1888.

He found beauty in worn-out, mud-covered boots, viewing them as symbols of the "scars of life" and the long journeys of the working class.

Step into Van Gogh’s world, one shoe at a time Shoes were an unusual subject in Van Gogh’s time.

Most artists painted elegant still lifes, often symbolizing wealth.

Modern Masters of 20th Century | Art Quotes

Salvador Dalí:

• "The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot".

"Il primo uomo a paragonare le guance di una giovane donna a una rosa era ovviamente un poeta; il primo a ripeterlo era forse un idiota".

Salvador Dalí | Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages, 1937

Paolo Troubetzkoy | Sculptor of the Belle Époque

The Italian sculptor and painter Paolo (prince) Troubetzkoy / Павел Петрович Трубецкой (1866-1938), born on the shores of Lake Maggiore, was the illegitimate child of a Russian diplomat and an American pianist and singer, living under an assumed identity until he was acknowledged with his brothers at the age of five.

He would succeed in transforming the circumstances of his birth into assets that would lead to a dazzling international career.

Kim Roberti, 1950 | The Lovers

Vietnamese-born American painter Kim Roberti immigrated to the United States in 1966 at the age of 16.

Since that time she has lived in many areas of the US and other countries around the world.

All the while, Kim had a love for art and longed to paint.

In 1999 she gave up another career and began the path to becoming an artist.