"Nude in the Bath and Small Dog"
by Pierre Bonnard
Carnegie Museum of Art,
Pittsburgh
BUY BONNARD PRINTS
Pierre Bonnard {baw-nar'}, b. Oct. 3, 1867, d. Jan. 23, 1947,
began his long painting career in Paris in the early 1890s. He was one of the first artists to use pure color
in flat patterns enlivened by decorative linear arabesques in paintings, posters, and designs for stained-glass
windows and books. Together with his friend Edouard Vuillard and the other members of the group known as the
Nabis (Hebrew for "prophets"), he helped establish a new, modern style of decoration that was important for the
emergence of Art Nouveau in the late 1890s.
The paintings of Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet done in the
late 1880s were the principal source for the new style of the Nabis. Bonnard, "the very Japanese Nabi," also
drew on Japanese prints for his striking simplifications of form and his bold use of bright colors. In 1894,
however, he turned to more somber colors and restricted his subject matter to intimate views of domestic life.
When, around 1900, he again began to use bright hues, he adopted the impressionist broken brushstroke and
abandoned the linear configurations of his earlier work.
Throughout the remainder of his career, Bonnard continued and
expanded the impressionists' concern for depicting the personal environment of the artist. His naturalism,
however, was merely a starting point for striking innovations in color and the construction of perspective.
After 1920 intense colors dissolve forms yet celebrate the painter's sensuous delight in the lush southern
French landscape and, above all, the beauty of the female nude.
Bonnard's entire stylistic evolution offers a transition from
impressionism to a coloristic, abstract art. Critics now recognize the importance of Bonnard's contribution to
the development of abstraction. During his lifetime, however, they often found his work old-fashioned, because
of his commitment to figuration and the narrow scope of his themes. Dining Room on the Garden (1934-35;
Guggenheim Museum, New York) is an excellent example of Bonnard's late style.
CGFA - Virtual Art Museum
Carol L. Gerten maintains an impressive image library of meticulously
scanned works from hundreds of renowned artists, including this collection
featuring 3 of Bonnard's paintings.
Smithsonian Magazine
In its July 1998 article, the Smithsonian explores Bonnard's manipulation of light,
form and focus in his work, offering views of five paintings.
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