Émile Bernard(1868-1941)

Émile Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugène Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and Synthetism, two late 19th century art movements.

Émile Henri Bernard was born in Lille, France in 1868. The family moved to Paris in 1878, where Émile attended the Collège Sainte-Barbe. He began his studies at the École des Arts Décoratifs. He is very intelligent at a young age, so Bernard goes to the Académie Cormon in 1884 where he meets Louis Anquetin (1861-1932), Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901), and Van Gogh (1853-1890).

In 1884 he joined the Atelier Cormon where he experimented with impressionism and pointillism and befriended fellow artists Louis Anquetin and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. After being suspended from the École des Beaux-Arts for "showing expressive tendencies in his paintings", he toured Brittany on foot, where he was enamored by the tradition and landscape.

In 1887, he invents Cloisonnism with Anquetin. This movement is the opposite of Impressionism because the subjects are more simplified, the surfaces in the compositions are outlined in black, the colors are pure and juxtaposed, and they tried to make the placements of their subjects unordinary/original.

1893 is a very important year in Bernard's life: he paints his famous Enterrement de Vincent Van Gogh, and his first exhibition is dedicated to that painting. In the same year he leaves France to go to Italy, and then he goes to Egypt where he will stay there for ten years.
Emile Bernard (1868-1941)

Émile Bernard (28 April 1868 – 16 April 1941)

Émile Henri Bernard was born on April 28, 1868 in Lille, France. Located in the north near the Belgian border.

Lille is famous for its textile industry. Lille had many places for Émile to explore, one of his favorite was an art studio that made stained glass windows.

In 1877 Émile attends the College de la Monnaie in Lille and lives with his maternal grandmother, Sophie Bodin-Lallement, who runs a successful laundry business. He is encouraged to draw by his grandmother’s lodger.

The spirited 18 year old decided to study on his own by taking a six month tour of the French countryside - on foot. His plan was to explore the regions of Normandy and Britannic sketching the landscape and painting canvases along the way.

Van Gogh met Bernard in 1886 at the Cormon studio, where they were both studying painting, Bernard was intelligent and very talented young artist at that time. Bernard had completed many paintings by the time he returned to Paris that autumn.

Bernard seems to have had a stimulating effect on his great colleague but thereafter his work as painter declined in importance and he became of interest chiefly for his activities as a writer.
Émile Bernard (28 April 1868 – 16 April 1941)