Émile Henri Bernard (28 April 1868 – 16 April 1941) was a French Post-Impressionist painter and writer, who had artistic friendships with Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Eugène Boch, and at a later time, Paul Cézanne. Much 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.

Bernard studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before being suspended for not adhering to the academic style of the era. After leaving school, he travelled to Pont-Aven on the rugged Brittany coast of France, where he met and exchanged artistic theories with Paul Gauguin. Upon his return to Paris, Bernard became a close friend and confidant of the troubled Vincent van Gogh. Bernard would go on to have an impact on establishing the legacy of Paul Cézanne as well as the Symbolist movement.

Bernard died on April 16, 1941 in Paris, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Cloisonnism (1887-88)
During the period 1887–1888, Bernard worked in Paris with Anquetin, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec (the trio were dubbed the School of Petit-Boulevard). Of the three, Bernard was the most clear and forthright about the sort of art he wanted to create - a type of simplified decorative art, accessible to all. This decorative painting, which he developed in company with Anquetin, was labelled Cloisonnism by the critic Edouard Dujardin. Cloisonnist compositions typically featured distorted forms and areas of shadowless, unnatural colour, each edged with heavy outlines reminiscent of medieval stained glass or cloisonne enamels. The main intention was to express an inner world of emotion, rather than exterior objective reality. Bernard also developed a taste for Japanese woodcuts, as well as wood carving and tapestry art.

Synthetism (1888)
In 1888, Bernard developed a close working relationship at Pont-Aven with Gauguin, who had broken with Impressionism and whose latest masterpiece, The Vision After the Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888, Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh) borrowed heavily from the younger man's style of Cloisonnism. Over a period of months, aided by their muse Madeleine Bernard (Emile's sister) they collaborated in founding Synthetism (also called synthetic Symbolism), in which Bernard's decorative painting was strengthened and enriched by Gauguin's injection of vision, symbolism and mood. Meanwhile, on the fringe of their relationship was the talented but restless Vincent van Gogh, who influenced and was influenced by the pair's work.

Symbolism (1889-90)
A poet and a writer, as well as a painter, Bernard studied religious mysticism and philosophy. In 1889 he spent the summer alone in Le Pouldu mixing religious art and symbolism in a series of paintings, while also trying to earn money in design and various types of applied art. All the while his former collaborator Gauguin was attracting more and more recognition as the leader of the visionary colourism practised by avant-garde art groups in Brittany and Paris. (According to some art historians, Bernard's rivalry with Gauguin led him out of spite, some years later, to switch to classicism.) In 1890 he devoted considerable energy to organizing a major exhibition showcasing the life and works of his friend Van Gogh. In 1891 he became associated with Les Vingt, a group of Symbolist artists that included the Bordeaux surrealist-style painter Odilon Redon and the Swiss symbolist and inventor of 'Parallelism', Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918).

In 1893 Bernard started travelling to Spain and North Africa. In 1894 he left France for a trip around Italy, after which he settled in Egypt for ten years. It was during his stay in Alexandria that, like his friend Louis Anquetin, he switched to a more classical style of painting. In 1904 he returned to Paris, where he founded and edited the arts journal La Renovation Esthetique, publishing a wide range of essays and articles on the work of modernists like Georges Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Redon. Devoting himself largely to writing, Bernard lived in Paris until his death in 1941 at the age of 72.


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