Young Breton Woman
Emile Bernard French
Not on view
With its bold blue outlines and simplified fields of color, this monotype—one of only two the artist produced—represents the Synthetist style Emile Bernard developed in collaboration with Paul Gauguin during the summer of 1888. For Bernard, it evolved out of "Cloisonnisme," an aesthetic that drew upon various sources, including stained glass, with its lead border lines framing flat planes of color, as well as Japanese woodblock prints and popular Epinal woodcuts. The rural life and religious rituals of Brittany in northwest France furnished subject matter filled with spiritual symbolism, suggested here by the presence of the white lily, associated with the Virgin Mary in the Catholic tradition.
