Private Lives

by Mary Weaver Chapin

"In 1889, avant-garde artists in Paris formed a brotherhood to promote a radical new direction in art. Adopting the name Nabis-Hebrew for "prophets"-they aimed to capture subjective experience and emotion in their paintings, prints, and drawings. This volume focuses on intimate views of home and family by four Nabi artists: Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Maurice Denis (1870-1943), Felix Vallotton (1865-1925), and Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). For Bonnard and Denis, this arena was ideal for depicting small pleasures and modest acts of life; Vallotton and Vuillard, however, hinted at the...