Le Nabi Oublie Mysticism, Primativism and the Feminine in the work of Paul Elie Ranson

Eadaoin McDonagh
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2018
BA

Subject: Painting
Country: France
Period: 19th and 20th Century

10,000 words

Mystical figures roam through brillantly coloured landscapes, brimming with peculiar symbols, while cascading arabesques mirror elegant outlines of a female silhouette. The Imaginative work of Paul Elie Ranson has the power to captivate the attention of any viewer. Active within the bustling creative centre of Paris during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ranson’s work is truly demonstrative of his environment. Ranson was one of the founding members of the Nabis, a group of Symbolist artists who broke the confines of academicism through their unique pictorial program. It is strange then, that over the course of the last century, Ranson has come to be the least well documented of all the group’s members. This dissertation acts as an enquiry into the life and work of this seemingly forgotten Nabi.

Irish Georgian Society

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Le Nabi Oublie Mysticism, Primativism and the Feminine in the work of Paul Elie Ranson