Les Bretonneries: The Return from the Pilgrimage - Émile Bernard
Archival giclée
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Description
A striking etching from Émile Bernard's Breton series, showcasing the bold contours and simplified forms of the Cloisonnist movement.
This etching by Émile Bernard belongs to his series titled Les Bretonneries, produced during his time in Brittany. Bernard was a central figure in the development of Cloisonnism, a style characterised by bold forms separated by dark contours. This approach rejected the naturalistic light and shadow of Impressionism in favour of flat areas of tone and simplified shapes.
The composition depicts figures in a boat, returning from a religious pardon. The heavy, dark lines define the silhouettes of the passengers and the sail, creating a sense of weight and solemnity. Bernard focuses on the rhythmic arrangement of the figures and the boat against the simplified backdrop of the shoreline. The lack of traditional perspective emphasises the two-dimensional quality of the print, a hallmark of the artist's experimentation with Japanese woodblock print aesthetics.
Bernard's work in Brittany was closely linked to his association with Paul Gauguin. Together, they sought a more primitive and symbolic mode of expression. This print captures the quiet, rural life of the region, stripped of unnecessary detail. The stark contrast between the dark ink and the paper surface creates a graphic quality that is both direct and evocative. By focusing on the essential forms of the boat and the weary pilgrims, Bernard conveys the atmosphere of the Breton coast without relying on descriptive realism. This piece offers a glimpse into the stylistic shifts occurring in late nineteenth-century French art, where artists moved away from optical observation toward a more synthetic and decorative interpretation of their subjects.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
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Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Les Bretonneries: The Return from the Pilgrimage - Émile Bernard
Artist Biography
Emile Bernard
He was raised by his grandmother, who owned a laundry in Lille, because his younger sister was ill and required his parents' full attention. He entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris but was expelled for insubordination. At the Academie Cormon he met Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh; his friendship with Van Gogh produced some of the most important letters in art history.
Bernard and Gauguin fell out definitively in 1891 over the paternity of Symbolism and cloisonnism. Bernard believed he had been written out of the story, which he had. He spent years writing criticism and art history to set the record straight, producing first-hand accounts of the period that remain primary sources.
His later work turned conservative. He travelled to Egypt, studied the Old Masters, and repudiated the avant-garde experiments of his youth. The early paintings, made between 1886 and 1897 when he was barely out of his teens, are the ones that matter. He was brilliant too young and spent the rest of his career looking backwards. His correspondence with Van Gogh, preserved and published, is one of the most direct records of how two young painters in the 1880s thought about colour, composition and what painting was for.
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