NABIS

died 192 BC last ruler (207192) of an independent Sparta. Nabis carried on the revolutionary tradition of Kings Agis IV and Cleomenes III. Since ancient accounts of him are mainly abusive, the details of his laws remain obscure, but it is certain that he confiscated a great deal of property and enfranchised many helots (Spartan serfs). He undoubtedly was not the monster depicted by the Greek historian Polybius. Overshadowed by the struggle between Rome and Philip V of Macedonia, Nabis adroitly maintained his power. After the Peace of Phoenice (205) between Rome and Macedonia, he went to war with the Achaean League. The league's general, Philopoemen, rescued Messene from him and later defeated him at Scotitas in Laconia. In 197 Nabis acquired Argos from Philip V of Macedonia, who was then at war with Rome, and kept it by coming to terms with the Roman commander Titus Quinctius Flamininus. But Flamininus, having defeated Philip, proclaimed the Greek states autonomous, accused Nabis of tyranny, took Gythium in Laconia, and forced Nabis to surrender Argos. He tried to recover Gythium when the Romans left in 194 but was badly defeated by Philopoemen north of Sparta. Eventually the Aetolians, as part of their scheme to precipitate war between Rome and Antiochus III of Syria, murdered Nabis and temporarily occupied Sparta. group of artists who, through their widely diverse activities, were a major influence on the art produced in France during the late 19th century. Preaching that a work of art is the end product and visual expression of an artist's synthesis of nature into personal aesthetic metaphors and symbols, they paved the way for the early 20th-century development of abstract and nonrepresentational art. The Nabis were greatly influenced by Japanese woodcuts, French Symbolist painting, and English Pre-Raphaelite art. Their primary inspiration, however, stemmed from the so-called Pont-Aven school which centred upon the painter Paul Gauguin. Under Gauguin's direct guidance, Paul Srusier, the group's founder, painted the first Nabi work, Landscape at the Bois d'Amour at Pont-Aven (also called the Talisman, 1888). Armed with his painting and the authority of Gauguin's teachings, Srusier returned to Paris from Pont-Aven and converted many of his artist friends, who received his aesthetic doctrines as a mystical revelation. Assuming the name Nabis (from Hebrew navi, prophet, or seer), the original members of the group were the French artists Maurice Denis (with Srusier the group's main theoretician), Pierre Bonnard, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Paul Ranson, douard Vuillard, and Ren Piot. Later, a Dutch painter, Jan Verkade, and the Swiss-born Flix Vallotton joined the group, as did two French sculptors, Georges Lacombe and Aristide Maillol. In 1891 the Nabis held their first exhibition, attempting in their works to illustrate Denis's dictum: A picture, before being a war horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered by colours in a certain order. They soon began to apply this idea to such varied works as posters, stained glass, theatre sets, and book illustrations. But dissensions and desertions quickly occurred within the group, which finally disbanded in 1899. Only Vuillard and Bonnard, who came to call themselves Intimists, and Maillol continued to produce major works of art.