![Madame_Vuillard_Cousant_(1895)_by_Edouard_Vuillard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Madame_Vuillard_Cousant_%281895%29_by_Edouard_Vuillard.jpg)
Intimism () was an artistic movement in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century that involved the depiction of banal yet personal domestic scenes, particularly those within domestic interiors. Intimism was most notably practiced by French painters
Édouard Vuillard
Jean-Édouard Vuillard (; 11 November 186821 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, he was a prominent member of the Nabis, making paintings which assembled areas of pure color, and interior s ...
and
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist ...
after the 1899 disbandment of
Les Nabis
Les Nabis (French: les nabis, ) were a group of young French artists active in Paris from 1888 until 1900, who played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of m ...
.
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...
and
Felix Vallotton have also been characterized as intimists. The main interest of the intimists was their own intimate life such as portraying their family members instead of focusing on more general topics.
French art critic
Camille Mauclair
Séverin Faust (December 29, 1872, Paris – April 23, 1945), better known by his pseudonym Camille Mauclair, was a French poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer, and art critic. Background
Mauclair was a great admirer of Stéphane Mallarmé ...
defined Intimism as:
While the movement is often associated with
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
, the Intimists diverged from the Impressionists in abandoning a focus on formal accuracy in depiction of light, color, and perspective in favor of emphasized texture, exaggerated palette, and merged
figure and ground.
The term "intimism" has since been extended to artists outside of the historical period who utilize similar techniques. Intimist film, for example, refers to cinema that utilizes domestic narratives or places focus on the mundane.
References
{{Les Nabis
Art movements
French art movements
Art movements in Europe
Les Nabis