KIMONO 03 04

The Kimono rug collection by Marcel Zelmanovitch is an abstract homage to both 19th-century Japanese etchings and the French Art movement of the Nabis. Active in Paris from 1888-1900, the Nabis included Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard - whose work Zelmanovitch found particularly inspiring. Their avant-garde circle played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism, and other early movements of modernism. They believed that a work of art should not be limited to realism or a depiction of nature, but an interpretation of it, or a synthesis of metaphors and symbols created by the artist. With the Kimono collection, Zelmanovitch proposes a series of abstract interpretations of the Japanese etching representations of the Kabuki theatre actors. A fine layering of weaves and colors conveys the sense of movement and evokes the Japanese calligraphic stroke.