Headpiece (folio 42) from Les Amours (The Loves)
Émile Bernard
French, 1868–1941
1915
A small brown woodcut headpiece by Émile Bernard made to introduce a section of his illustrated book Les Amours, showing a reclining nude goddess beside the sea as a decorative preface to the poem.
What strikes you is the flattened, rhythmic carving—tight parallel hatching and a flowing silhouette of a woman with long hair against a low horizon and a tiny walking figure, all above the hand-lettered French verses in the same warm brown ink.
This piece illustrates how Bernard and his generation revived woodcut and the handcrafted book, using simplified, decorative line drawn from Cloisonnist and Symbolist aesthetics to turn the illustrated book into a modern art object.
Medium
Woodcut from an illustrated book with 157 woodcuts and 17 etchings (including wrapper front)
Dimensions
composition (irreg.): 2 7/8 × 6 13/16" (7.3 × 17.3 cm); page (irreg.): 12 5/8 × 9 11/16" (32 × 24.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Louis E. Stern Collection
Accession
679.1964.52
Palette
Exhibitions
