Paul Sérusier was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabi movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism. He was a Post-Impressionist painter, a part of the group of painters called Les Nabis. They originated as a rebellious group of young student artists who banded together at the Académie Julian. Paul Sérusier galvanized Les Nabis, and provided the name and disseminated the example of Paul Gauguin among them. Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis became the best known of the group. By the mid-1890s, the Nabis—most of whom remained friends—had developed individual styles, and Sérusier himself had become deeply involved with theosophy. He was influenced by the concepts of religious symbolism and geometry and sacred proportions in composition. Sérusier continued to develop his philosophy and to paint and sketch according to it. During this time he crystallized the principles he laid out in his ABC de la peinture (1921).