Sérusier, Paul - Portrait of Paul Ranson (1890)

The Prophet in the Flat Room

Paul Sérusier painted Paul Ranson because the old world was rotting and the Nabis were ready to set it on fire. It was 1890. Paris was loud and crowded but Sérusier and his circle were looking for something quieter and much more dangerous. They called themselves “prophets” (Les Nabis) because they thought they could see what the average person couldn't.

Ranson sits there in a ritualistic robe. It looks like a costume but to them it was a uniform. They were a secret brotherhood bound by a shared disgust for the way the French Academy told them to paint. They didn't want light, they wanted meaning. Sérusier had just come back from Brittany where he met Gauguin and learned that reality was a suggestion. If you see a blue shadow, make it the bluest thing anyone has ever seen.

The space is flat and unapologetic. Sérusier was looking at Japanese prints and realizing that depth was a lie we told ourselves to feel safe. He used pure color theory to build a world that didn't need a horizon line. The cryptic text floating in the background isn't there for decoration. It’s a signal to those who know the code, about the occult and the hidden layers of the soul.

When this hit the Salon des Indépendants the public saw a weird man in a dress. They missed the point entirely. Sérusier was handing them the future of modernism wrapped in a robe and they just blinked in confusion.

References

Sérusier, Paul. Portrait of Paul Ranson. 1890. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Frèches-Thory, Claire and Antoine Terrasse. The Nabis. Flammarion, 2002.

Chassé, Charles. The Nabis and Their Period. Lund Humphries, 1969.

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