The Prophets of the Wallpaper
Paul Ranson didn't paint a garden just for the sake of decoration. In 1899, he and his circle of friends called themselves the Nabis, which means “prophets” in Hebrew. They were young and convinced that the old ways of painting three-dimensional space were dead. They wanted to turn a living room into a sanctuary.
Look at the Aurum Lilies and Irises. It is a long and vertical stretch of canvas that feels more like a window than a painting. Ranson threw out the rules of depth. There are no shadows here to tell you where the ground ends, only the rhythm of the stems. He was looking at Japanese prints and the way they used flat planes of color to create a world that felt both modern and ancient.
The lines are sinuous and organic. This was the birth of Art Nouveau but with a heavy dose of mysticism. For Ranson, these flowers were part of a sacred geometry. He wasn't trying to capture nature. He was trying to distill it into a pattern that could live on a wall and change the energy of a room.
It was 1899 and the world was changing fast. The Nabis thought that if they could fix the walls of a house, they might just save the souls of the people inside. It is a bold claim for a few lilies and some yellow irises, but they were never known for their humility.
References
Ranson, Paul. Violet and Yellow Aurum Lilies and Irises. 1899. Oil on Canvas. Private Collection.
Humbert, Jean-Paul. The Nabis and the Decorative Arts. Paris. 1990.
Frèches-Thory, Claire. The Nabis. Bonnard, Vuillard and their Circle. London. 1991.