Pierre Bonnard The Late Still Lifes and Interiors

continued from front flap
on paper, many of them rarely seen in public Pierre Bonnard

and, in some cases, little known. Although The Late Still Lifes and
Bonnard’s legacy may be removed from the
succession of trends that today we consider
Interiors
the foundation of modernism, his contribu-
tion to French art in the early decades of the Edited by
twentieth century is far more profound than Dita Amory
history has generally acknowledged. In their
insightful essays and catalogue entries the With essays by
authors bring fresh critical perspectives to Dita Amory, Rika Burnham, Jack Flam,
the ongoing reappraisal of Bonnard’s reputa- Rémi Labrusse, and Jacqueline Munck
tion and to his place within the narrative of
twentieth-century art. and contributions from
Nicole R. Myers and Allison Stielau

DITA AMORY is associate curator, Robert
T
Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. he vibrant late paintings of Pierre
Bonnard (1867–1947) are considered
by many to be among his finest
achievements. Working in a small converted
bedroom of his villa in the south of France,
Bonnard suffused his late canvases with radi-
ant Mediterranean light and dazzling color.
Although his subjects were close at hand—
usually everyday scenes taken from his
immediate surroundings, such as the dining
room table being set for breakfast, or a jug of
flowers perched on the mantelpiece—Bonnard
rarely painted from life. Instead, he preferred
to make pencil sketches in small diaries and
then rely on these, along with his memory,
once in the studio. Bonnard’s late interiors
thus often conflate details from his daily life
with fleeting, mysterious evocations of his
208 pages; 146 illustrations, including 125 in full past. The spectral figures who appear and
color; selected chronology; bibliography; index.
disappear at the margins of these canvases,
overshadowed by brilliantly colored baskets of
Jacket/cover: Pierre Bonnard, Corner of the fruit, dishes, or other still-life props, create
Dining Room at Le Cannet, 1932 (detail). Oil an atmosphere of profound ambiguity and
on canvas, 317/8 x 351/2 in. (81 x 90 cm). Centre puzzling abstraction: the mundane rendered
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art in a wholly new pictorial language.
Moderne/Centre de Création Industrielle,
Yale University Press
This volume, which accompanies the first

Paris (State Purchase, 1933)
exhibition to focus on the interior and related
still-life imagery from the last decades of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Bonnard’s long career, presents more than
Yale University Press, New Haven and London seventy-five paintings, drawings, and works
PR I N T E D I N I TA LY The Metropolitan Museum of Art continued on back flap

Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors
Pierre Bonnard
The Late Still Lifes and Interiors
Edited by
Dita Amory
With essays by
Dita Amory, Rika Burnham, Jack Flam,
Rémi Labrusse, and Jacqueline Munck
and contributions from

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Yale University Press, New Haven and London
This volume is published in conjunction with the exhibition “Pierre Bonnard: The Late
Interiors,” held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from January 27 to
April 19, 2009.
The catalogue is made possible by the Janice H. Levin Fund.

The exhibition is made possible by The Florence Gould Foundation.
It is supported by an indemnity from the
Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

John P. O’Neill, Publisher and Editor in Chief
Gwen Roginsky, General Manager of Publications
Margaret Rennolds Chace, Managing Editor
Dale Tucker, Senior Editor
Antony Drobinski, Designer
Christopher Zichello, Production Manager
Penny Jones, Bibliographic Editor
Jane S. Tai, Image Research and Permissions
Cathy Dorsey, Indexer
Typeset in Fournier and Rotis

Color separations by Professional Graphics, Inc., Rockford, Illinois
Printed by Graphicom Srl, Verona, Italy
Jacket and cover illustration: Detail of Corner of the Dining Room at Le Cannet, 1932
(cat. no. 35)
Frontispiece: André Ostier, Pierre Bonnard in the Dining Room of Le Bosquet with a
Basket of Fruit, ca. 1942
Copyright © 2009 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Second printing, 2009
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-58839-308-1 (hc: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

ISBN 978-1-58839-309-8 (pbk: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
ISBN 978-0-300-14889-3 (hc: Yale University Press)
Contents
Director’s Foreword Thomas P. Campbell vi

Acknowledgments vii
Contributors to the Catalogue ix

Lenders to the Exhibition x
Note to the Reader xii
The Presence of Objects: Still Life in Bonnard’s Late Paintings Dita Amory 3
A Desire for Dispossession: Portrait of the Artist as a Reader of Mallarmé Rémi Labrusse 31
Bonnard in the History of Twentieth-Century Art Jack Flam 47
“The Cat Drank All the Milk!”: Bonnard’s Continuous Present Jacqueline Munck 61
Intelligent Seeing Rika Burnham 69
Catalogue 79
Selected Chronology 171

Bibliography 175
Index 189
Director’s Foreword
As I inaugurate my tenure as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is a par-

ticular pleasure to introduce this exhibition of the late still lifes and interiors of Pierre
Bonnard. Presenting more than seventy-five paintings, drawings, and works on paper
selected from a range of public and private collections throughout the United States and
Europe, the present exhibition brings fresh critical perspectives to the ongoing reap-
praisal of Bonnard’s reputation. It also makes a renewed case for his significance as a
modernist in the narrative of early-twentieth-century art. Although Bonnard’s legacy
may be removed from the succession of trends that today we consider the foundation of
modernism, his contribution to French art in the early decades of the twentieth century is
far more profound than history has generally acknowledged.
Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors follows the artist’s trajectory in the
last decades of his life, spent at a small house in the Mediterranean village of Le Cannet,
now a sprawling suburb of Cannes. Many of the complex interiors and related still lifes
that anchor this exhibition were painted in its modest upstairs studio. Bonnard took the
rooms surrounding him and their contents as his subjects. And yet his late paintings, far
from simple interiors imparting some prosaic narrative, are often disquieting in their use
of color as a metaphor for a spectrum of sensations. Taken together, these paintings reaf-
firm the artist’s constant search for compelling imagery and his deep engagement with
the mysteries of optical phenomena.
The planning and execution of this exhibition took place under my predecessor,
Philippe de Montebello, whom we thank for his guidance on this and so many other
endeavors, now that his decades of peerless leadership have come to a close. The exhi-
bition was organized at the Metropolitan Museum by Dita Amory, associate curator,
Robert Lehman Collection, whom I thank for her vision and hard work in bringing this
exhibition to fruition. We are grateful to the many collections and collectors who have
generously agreed to lend their paintings and drawings. I thank especially those private
collectors whose loans mean temporarily parting with prized pictures usually displayed
in their own interiors. Their invaluable commitment has given access to works of art
rarely seen in public and, in some cases, little known. We are also deeply grateful to
The Florence Gould Foundation for its early and enthusiastic support for the exhibition,
a reflection of Mrs. Gould’s abiding appreciation of Bonnard. We can only imagine her
delight in this exhibition, and we thank her trustees for honoring us in her memory.
Thomas P. Campbell
Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
� vi
Acknowledgments
A small and highly focused endeavor such as this exhibition relies on the generosity of
a great many people over the course of several years. Without that generosity, realizing
this finely tuned selection of paintings and drawings would have been impossible. It is
thus a privilege to honor those friends and colleagues who contributed in ways both
tangible and immeasurable to the presentation of the exhibition and its accompanying
publication.
We owe the greatest debt of gratitude to the private and public collections, both
here and abroad, that lent works of art, almost all of which permanently grace the walls of
residences and museums. That these lenders are willing to part with them for several
months is indeed a gesture of immense goodwill. Many colleagues assisted in the search
for works of art, some by negotiating loans on the Museum’s behalf, others by sharing
knowledge and expertise in myriad ways. In particular, I thank Jill Newhouse, Graham
Nickson, and Margret Stuffmann, who deserve special mention. Among the many others
to whom I am deeply grateful are: Frances Beatty Adler, Sarah Andersen, Sofie Ander-
sen, Nathalie Angles, Abigail Asher, Charly Bailly, Pam Bingham, Michael Brenson, Dr.
Benedetta Calzavara, Jean Clair, Alexander Djordjevic, Jean Edmondson, Jeremiah Evarts,
Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon, David Georgiades, Franck Giraud, Izabela Grocholski,
Elizabeth Gorayeb, Claudine Grammont, Charlotte Gutzwiller, Karin Hellandsjø, Jeffrey
Hoffeld, Svein Olav Hoff, Waring Hopkins, Ay-Whang Hsia, Milan Hughston, Jennifer
Jones, Beatrice Kernan, Lorna Kettaneh, Alain Kirili, Emma Kronman, Diana L. Kunkel,
Patrick Legant, Christophe Leribault, Ariane Lopezhuici, Dominique Lobstein, Christina
Mamakos, Charles Moffett, Eric Munos, Christian Neffe, Joyce O’Reardon, Robert
Peirce, Ursula Perucchi-Petri, Ariel Phillips, Cynthia Polsky, Maxime Préaud, Aude
Raimbault, Eliza Rathbone, Jock Reynolds, Neville Rowley, Marie-Pierre Salé, Bertha
Saunders, Christa Savino, David T. Schiff, Manuel Schmit, Dieter Schwarz, Susan
Shillito, Cassandra Smith, Elsa Smithgall, Verena Steiner-Jaeggli, Sachiko Tanaka,
Vérane Tasseau, Anaïs Tastevin, Anne Terrasse, Jennifer Tobias, Guy Tosatto, Rachel
Trudeau, Walter Tschopp, Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Peter van Beveron, Isabelle Varlo-
teaux, Jean-Philippe Vecin, Audrey Vernon, Jayne Warman, Jeffrey Weiss, Tony Willis,
and Alan Wintermute. Without their invaluable assistance, this exhibition would be
lacking in richness and breadth.
It has been a great pleasure to work on this publication with my coauthors, Rika
Burnham, Jack Flam, Rémi Labrusse, and Jacqueline Munck, all of whom have written
evocatively on Bonnard in the past. To this enterprise they brought not only reserves of
knowledge but perspectives on the artist’s late work that distinguish their writings and
mark a well-deserved reassessment of Bonnard’s place in modernism.
At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, three members of the staff of the Robert Leh-
man Collection worked closely on the project for different periods of time over the past few
years, each contributing vital assistance. Lesley Schorpp, former associate administrator,
vii �
ably handled many aspects of the planning of the exhibition. Allison Stielau, former research
assistant, worked tirelessly to secure loans and amass documentation; part of the project
from the beginning, she also contributed a thoughtful chronology to the catalogue. Nicole
Myers, research assistant, coordinated many aspects of both the exhibition and the pub-
lication and fielded queries with efficiency and good cheer; I am also grateful to her for
her insightful contributions to the catalogue. I thank Laurence Kanter for endorsing the
exhibition at its inception. I give my heartfelt thanks to the directors of the Robert Lehman
Foundation, especially Philip Isles, for the privilege of organizing the exhibition. To my
remaining colleagues in the Robert Lehman Collection, I am appreciative as ever of their
support and encouragement, particularly Margaret Black, assistant museum librarian, who
nimbly tracked down elusive publications, and Manus Gallagher, principal departmental
technician, who lent his expertise to the installation of the exhibition.
The catalogue was produced in the Editorial Department under the direction
of John P. O’Neill, publisher and editor in chief. Dale Tucker, senior editor, brought
his extraordinary eye, not to mention his good humor and patience, to every aspect
of the volume. Gwen Roginsky, general manager of publications, and Christopher
Zichello, production manager, guided the book into print. Tony Drobinski created the
elegant design, Penny Jones edited the bibliography, and Jane Tai researched photo-
graphs. Mark Polizzotti ably translated the essays of our French colleagues. Isabelle
Duvernois, assistant conservator, has been an eager participant in this project from
the start, and I am extremely grateful for her revelatory thoughts on Bonnard’s tech-
nical idiosyncrasies. Many other Metropolitan Museum colleagues contributed gener-
ously, and I would like to thank in particular: Michael Batista, Lisa Cain, Cindy Caplan,
Margaret Chace, Aileen Chuk, Ute Collinet, Willa Cox, Martha Deese, Nina McN.
Diefenbach, Aimee Dixon, Kathryn Calley Galitz, Rebecca Herman, Kirstie Howard,
Cynthia Iavarone, Marilyn Jensen, Andrea Kann, Sue Koch, Alisa LaGamma, Joseph
Loh, Nina Maruca, Asher Miller, Nykia Omphroy, Rebecca L. Murray, Christopher Noey,
Diana Pitt, Rebecca Rabinow, Thomas Reynolds, Robin Schwalb, Ken Soehner, Glenna
Stewart, Linda Sylling, Mahrukh Tarapor, Dorie Taylor, Gary Tinterow, Elyse Topalian,
Emily Vanderpool, Emily Walter, Vivian Wick, Florica Zaharia, and Mary Zuber.
This exhibition is one of the last to have taken flight during Philippe de Montebello’s
extraordinary tenure as director, and I remain ever grateful for his commitment and sup-
port. It also represents the first exhibition mounted in the Lehman Wing galleries under
the administration of our new director, Tom Campbell, and it is an honor to share the
stage with him. I also thank the Museum’s president, Emily Rafferty, for the opportunity
to undertake this project.
Last but by no means least, I want to give particular thanks to the families of Pierre
Bonnard and his wife, Marthe. Antoine Terrasse, Bonnard’s grand-nephew, was a gra-
cious colleague in the course of organizing the exhibition, and he gave it his blessing
in the first days of planning. No less supportive were members of the Vernon family,
Marthe’s descendants, who opened their doors and welcomed my inquiries. Thanks to
the invitation of Jacques Terrasse, Bonnard’s great-great-nephew, I had the privilege
several summers ago of visiting Le Bosquet, Bonnard’s house, where his presence is
still felt in every room, where his upstairs studio still bears the tack holes of his paint-
ings, and where some seventy-five years ago he initiated many of the masterpieces that
constitute this exhibition.
Dita Amory
� viii
Contributors to the Catalogue
Di ta A mory (DA)
Associate Curator
Robert Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
R i k a Bu r n h a m (R B)
Head of Education
The Frick Collection, New York
Jac k F l a m
Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History
Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
R é m i L a brus se
Professor of History and Contemporary Art
Université de Picardie, France
Jacqu e l in e M u nc k
Curator
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
N icol e R . M y e r s (N M)
Research Assistant
A l l ison st i e l au
Research Assistant
ix �
Lenders to the Exhibition
AUSTRALIA
Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 74
FRANCE
Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble, 28, 29, 36
Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 12, 13
Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 23
Paris, Musée d’Orsay, 26, 46
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne/Centre de Création
Industrielle, 35, 76
GERMANY
Wuppertal, Von der Heydt-Museum, 6
SWITZERLAND
Basel, Beyeler Collection, 57
Basel, Kunstmuseum Basel, 7
Geneva, Galerie de Rive, S.A., 45
Neuchâtel, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, 11
UNITED KINGDOM
London, Tate, 15
UNITED STATES
Baltimore, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 16
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 60
Little Rock, Arkansas Arts Center, 73
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, 5, 22
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 49
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2, 8
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 41, 56, 59
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 38
Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 71
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 20
�x
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Sylvie Baltazart-Eon, Paris, 75
Anisabelle Berès-Montanari, Paris, 17
Thomas G. Kimble, 63
Mr. and Mrs. Joe R. Long, Austin, 54
Stephen Mazoh, 69
Sebastian Christmas Poulsen, 67
Pilar and Stephen Robert, 65
Henry Silverman, 58
Mr. and Mrs. Warren Stephens, 40
ANONYMOUS LENDERS
1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 14, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, 30, 32–34, 37, 39,
42–44, 47, 48, 50–53, 55, 61, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72
xi �
Note to the Reader
In catalogue entries, references to Jean and Henry Dauberville’s catalogue raisonné of

Bonnard’s oil paintings are indicated with the initial “D.” The titles of Bonnard’s works
generally follow either those provided in Dauberville or those that have otherwise been
established by common scholarly usage. Exhibitions for which no catalogue was published
are indicated with an asterisk (*). Bibliographic citations are abbreviated in the essays and
catalogue entries and provided in full in the bibliography. Dimensions are given in inches
followed by centimeters; height precedes width.
For the sake of consistency, some English translations of Bonnard’s writings and published
remarks have been standardized using previously published translations, which are cited
in the notes. The original French quotations are provided where possible.
� xii
As I inaugurate my tenure as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is a par-
ticular pleasure to introduce this exhibition of the late still lifes and interiors of Pierre
Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors
Bonnard. Presenting more than seventy-five paintings, drawings, and works on paper
selected from a range of public and private collections throughout the United States and
Europe, the present exhibition brings fresh critical perspectives to the ongoing reap-
praisal of Bonnard’s reputation. It also makes a renewed case for his significance as a
modernist in the narrative of early-twentieth-century art. Although Bonnard’s legacy
may be removed from the succession of trends that today we consider the foundation of
modernism, his contribution to French art in the early decades of the twentieth century is
far more profound than history has generally acknowledged.
Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors follows the artist’s trajectory in the
last decades of his life, spent at a small house in the Mediterranean village of Le Cannet,
now a sprawling suburb of Cannes. Many of the complex interiors and related still lifes
that anchor this exhibition were painted in its modest upstairs studio. Bonnard took the
rooms surrounding him and their contents as his subjects. And yet his late paintings, far
from simple interiors imparting some prosaic narrative, are often disquieting in their use
of color as a metaphor for a spectrum of sensations. Taken together, these paintings reaf-
firm the artist’s constant search for compelling imagery and his deep engagement with
the mysteries of optical phenomena.
The planning and execution of this exhibition took place under my predecessor,
Philippe de Montebello, whom we thank for his guidance on this and so many other
endeavors, now that his decades of peerless leadership have come to a close. The exhi-
bition was organized at the Metropolitan Museum by Dita Amory, associate curator,
Robert Lehman Collection, whom I thank for her vision and hard work in bringing this
exhibition to fruition. We are grateful to the many collections and collectors who have
generously agreed to lend their paintings and drawings. I thank especially those private
collectors whose loans mean temporarily parting with prized pictures usually displayed
in their own interiors. Their invaluable commitment has given access to works of art
rarely seen in public and, in some cases, little known. We are also deeply grateful to
The Florence Gould Foundation for its early and enthusiastic support for the exhibition,
a reflection of Mrs. Gould’s abiding appreciation of Bonnard. We can only imagine her
delight in this exhibition, and we thank her trustees for honoring us in her memory.
Thomas P. Campbell
Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Presence of Objects: Still Life in
Bonnard’s Late Paintings
Di ta A mory
“Pierre Bonnard is a great painter today and assuredly in the future.”—Henri Matisse
“That’s not painting, what he does.”—Pablo Picasso
A s one considers the art and life of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), it is remark-
able to find that an artist of such quiet modesty should have been the subject
of so much controversy following his death. As fate would have it, Bonnard’s
estate was held in escrow for sixteen years pending the outcome of a tangled legal contest
between the Bonnard family heirs and those of his inscrutable wife and muse, Marthe
de Méligny.1 This protracted litigation effectively removed from public and commer-
cial circles every work of art found in the artist’s studio. Even the future of his house,
Le Bosquet, nestled in the hills above Cannes (see fig. 65), lay in question. Bonnard
had difficulty bringing paintings to a close. At his death his small split-level studio was
crowded with works from all periods of his career, nearly six decades of uninterrupted
art making.
The misfortune that befell Bonnard’s paintings at Le Bosquet hardly favored his
critical standing. Writers in contemporary French publications dismissed him as a latter-
day Impressionist out of touch with modern trends.2 The most declamatory among them
not only questioned Bonnard’s reputation as a painter, they impugned any contemporary
appreciation of him as philistinism.3 Picasso, by that time solidly enthroned in the mod-
ernist pantheon, leveled a famously unforgiving blow:
That’s not painting, what he does. He never goes beyond his own sensibility. He doesn’t
know how to choose. When Bonnard paints a sky, perhaps he first paints it blue, more or
less the way it looks. Then he looks a little longer and sees some mauve in it, so he adds a
touch or two of mauve, just to hedge. Then he decides that maybe it’s a little pink too, so
there’s no reason not to add some pink. The result is a potpourri of indecision. If he looks
long enough, he winds up adding a little yellow, instead of making up his mind what color
the sky really ought to be. Painting can’t be done that way. Painting isn’t a question of
sensibility; it’s a matter of seizing the power, taking over from nature, not expecting her to
supply you with information and good advice.4
The vehemence of Picasso’s repudiation would suggest that the “indecisive” Bonnard
was in fact a presence to be reckoned with.5 Indeed, Bonnard’s critical stature and
recognition would only grow as art historians took a fresh look (particularly in a
Fig. 1. Detail, The French
Window (Morning at seminal retrospective of 1984) at a body of work far more modern than had previously
Le Cannet), 1932 (cat. no. 42) been acknowledged.6
3�
� bon na r d
It should come as no surprise that in the artistic climate of the early twentieth cen-
tury Bonnard was often misaligned with the Impressionists. His long working life as a
painter veered from the symbolism of the Nabis in the shadow of Gauguin to a wholly
different impulse in his later years, one guided by light and color (light as it affects color,
color as it translates light) and by the transmutation of pigment in the sunlight of the
Midi. If Bonnard’s trajectory was far removed from the avant-garde circles of Fauvism,
Cubism, and Surrealism, his color was nonetheless more radical at times than that of
the Fauves, his imagery more complex and mysterious than that of either Cubism or
Surrealism. More important, his process of looking always remained highly origi-
nal. Bonnard’s life beyond the fray might suggest an unwillingness to join the debate,
a refusal to separate himself from what others saw as an outmoded way of thinking
or seeing. Yet he did not consider his place in art relative to modernism, nor was he
negatively touched by those critics who labeled him an Impressionist manqué. Once he
even described himself to Matisse as “the last of the Impressionists.”7 Perhaps he saw
himself as the last painter in the French grande tradition, a successor to the legacy of
Chardin, Watteau, Delacroix, and Cézanne.
In the 1940s Bonnard’s radiant Mediterranean paintings, saturated with ravishing
color and the appearance of domestic bliss, were thought by some to have had a salutary
effect in a war-ravaged Europe. Writing in 1953, Charles Terrasse, the artist’s nephew,
described the consoling value of his uncle’s paintings8 as a visual salve amid the wide-
spread destruction. Of course it was just this kind of vocabulary—of hope and happi-
ness, of joie de vivre and the pleasures of bourgeois pastimes—that was so out of sync
with the prevailing critical appetite for an intellectually charged aesthetic.
Labeling Bonnard’s paintings “impressionistic” may have had circumstantial merit
given his early friendship with Monet and his later association with Renoir, but doing
so generally belied a misinformed opinion. Bonnard was not by habit a plein air painter.
Although he often recorded weather patterns and nuances of light on his daily walks in
the village of Le Cannet—capturing the effects of atmospheric change on the colors of
his garden in quick pencil notations—these curious jottings in his pocket diaries (or
daybooks) were visual cues for his studio practice. Bonnard’s approach to light, more-
over, differed in basic ways from that of the Impressionists. Of his friend Monet’s decid-
edly plein air working method, Bonnard once remarked, “[He] always took up many
canvases on the same motif, which led him to work several moments on each canvas, as
the weather, the light changed.”9 Bonnard, too, may have worked on many canvases at
once, but never in such a deliberate, sequential order, and never subject to patterns of
rapidly changing light. Instead, he tacked unstretched canvases directly to the warm
white walls of his modest studio, where at any given moment a haphazard combination
of interiors, landscapes, bathers, or still lifes was in process. Today the studio wall at
Le Bosquet still bears the imprints of hundreds of tiny tack holes. This idiosyncratic
method allowed Bonnard to determine the dimensions of his paintings without being
limited to standard-size stretched canvases.10 It also gave him the freedom to make fine
adjustments to their final cropping, resulting in a sense of geometry and proportion with
the specificity and precision of a Vermeer. “To tell the truth,” he once said, “I have
trouble with painting. . . . I work so slowly that I must use paints that can be revised or
added to continually. . . . It would bother me if my canvases were stretched onto a frame. I
never know in advance what dimensions I am going to choose.”11 As the painter Andrew
Forge said, “He lets the painting grow, then he decides where its end is.”12
Where the Impressionists and indeed the Post-Impressionists worked sur le motif,
Bonnard famously resisted the temptations of working from direct observation. That
�4
Still Life in Bonnard’s Late Paintings �
encounter was left to his drawings, watercolors, and small oils, all of which, like the day-
book sketches, were key source material for his studio practice. In an oft-quoted admis-
sion, Bonnard laid out his feelings of frailty in the presence of the object, a distraction,
he said, that led to the loss of the initial idea:
I tried to paint [a bouquet of roses] directly, scrupulously, I was absorbed by the

details. . . . Then I realized that I was floundering, I wasn’t getting anywhere. I had lost
my original thought and couldn’t get it back again; I couldn’t find what it was that had
captivated me, my starting point. I thought I might regain it, if only I could recapture that
initial charm. . . . Through captivation or an initial inspiration, a painter achieves univer-
sality. It’s captivation that tells him which subject to choose and precisely how a picture
should be. Take away that captivation or initial concept, and all that’s left is a particular
subject that overwhelms the painter. From that moment on, he is no longer painting his
own picture. For some painters—Titian, for instance—that captivation is so powerful
that they never lose it, even if they remain in direct contact with their subject for a very
long time. I, however, am very weak. I find it difficult to control myself when my subject
is right in front of me.13
Bonnard’s studio was his refuge from such contact, from the obsessive force of direct
observation. “One always talks of surrendering to nature,” he said, but “there is also
such a thing as surrendering to the picture.”14 These famous remarks carry lasting
import. On the one hand, Bonnard feared that the overwhelming force of nature might
sublimate his initial “idea.” On the other, he sought to resist the corruption of artifice.
If the painting became too much about art making, he risked losing the connection with
the true experience.
Bonnard almost invariably removed himself, physically and temporally, from the
appearance of his subjects, a distance and delay that engaged his memory in the equation
of the painting. Just as the artist deferred to memory—the memory of perception—in
the slow process of recovering his initial seductive vision, so might he expect the viewer
to lose himself in the unraveling of that imagery. Only through prolonged looking does
the beholder draw closer to Bonnard’s first, fleeting perceptions. In the words of Andrew
Forge, to stand and look at a painting by Bonnard, perhaps more so than with most art-
ists, “reminds us that when we are looking at a painting we are making a reading; and a
reading is not a definitive interpretation, a reading is absorbing and formulating what we
understand by it, and then claiming it for ourselves.”15
��
If we consider Bonnard’s oeuvre as part of the grande tradition of French painting, we

easily recognize the links between Watteau’s fêtes galantes and Bonnard’s open-air pic-
nics (fig. 2); between Manet’s asparagus and Bonnard’s cherries; between Gauguin’s Still
Life with Three Puppies (fig. 3) and Bonnard’s Woman with Basket of Fruit (cat. no. 16),
notably in the tilted picture plane, highly compressed space, and emphatic shapes of both
works. Looking more narrowly at the history of the still life, Bonnard may be viewed,
somewhat surprisingly, in relationship to Jean Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), an artist
whose quiet, unorthodox voice in the tumult of eighteenth-century French painting is
oddly analogous to Bonnard’s ill fit among twentieth-century French modernists. Nei-
ther painter conformed to the expectations of his culture. Their respective techniques
and approaches to painting likewise confounded interpretation.
Until the late eighteenth century, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
ranked artists according to the subjects they pursued: history, portraiture, genre, and
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Fig. 2. Pierre Bonnard, The Cherry Tart,

1908. Oil on canvas, 451/4 x 48⅜ in. (115 x
123 cm). Private collection, courtesy
Nathan Fine Art, Berlin/Zurich
still life.16 Artists were keenly aware of their place in this hierarchy, and Chardin was
no exception. Yet his original take on what was considered the minor genre of still life
reinvigorated the practice and called into question the criteria used to uphold those hier- Fig. 3. Paul Gauguin, Still Life with
archical classifications. As Pierre Rosenberg has observed, this decision proved a critical Three Puppies, 1888. Oil on wood,
turning point in French art, beginning “a process of destruction that was eventually to 361/8 x 245/8 in. (91.8 x 62.6 cm). The
demolish an edifice that had been slowly and patiently constructed over Museum of Modern Art, New York;
Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund
two centuries. . . . Without realising he was doing it, [Chardin] rejected
his own time and opened the door to modernity.”17 Where Chardin’s
still lifes challenged the rigid structure of the vaunted French Acad-
emy, Bonnard ignored those critics who derided what they misunder-
stood as his conservatism.
Bonnard’s anxiety over “surrendering to nature” no doubt made
Chardin a useful model. Chardin, who painted from nature, was known
to position his still-life props on a stone ledge, a marvelously archaic
surface, and then spend days searching for an “innocent” encounter
in order to capture their true mass. The artist’s biographer, Charles-
Nicolas Cochin, attributed these words to him: “In order to concen-
trate on reproducing [an object] faithfully I must forget everything I
have seen, and even forget the way such objects have been treated by
others. I must place it at such a distance that I cannot see the details. I
must work at representing the general mass as accurately as possible,
the shades and colours, the contours, the effects of light and shade.”18
By “forget[ting] everything I have seen” Chardin meant that he needed
to cleanse his mind of the influences of other artists, past and pres-
ent.19 He rid his memory of the still life in French art history, whereas
Bonnard, resisting renewed contact with his initial visual experience,
removed from his field of vision the very still-life objects themselves.
�6
What makes Chardin so compelling a compari-

son to Bonnard is how he carefully ordered humble
objects, his so-called kitchen fare, and thereby trans-
formed them into majestic objects. He elevated their
spirituality and status. The plums in A Bowl of Plums
(fig. 4) are heavy and full of form, static and mon-
umental. In this regard, Chardin’s long-considered
objects—whether a copper kettle, a terracotta jug, a
dead rabbit, or a bowl of plums—are truly still, in
that they are effectively timeless, one might even say
“intransient.” It is the weight of things in a Chardin
still life, the gravity and emotion unique to his work,
that becomes in some ways a quest for humanity.
In the late masterpiece Basket of Wild Strawberries
(fig. 5), the artist stacked and then composed a heap-
ing mound of lush red berries into the solid, geomet-
Fig. 4. Jean Siméon Chardin, A Bowl
of Plums, 1728. Oil on canvas, 17 ½ x ric form of a pyramid. He thus movingly contrasted
22 1/8 in. (44.5 x 56.2 cm). The Phillips the containing form, the pyramid, long associated with permanence or immortality,
Collection, Washington, D.C. with the fragile, ephemeral fruit within. Bonnard was acutely aware of the capacity of
large geometric forms to become vessels: to contain or hold in space even the most com-
plex objects or arrangements of objects. His numerous evocations of the basket and its
contents, as in Corner of the Dining Room at Le Cannet (cat. no. 35), can be likened to how
Chardin’s strawberry pyramid is itself made up of smaller geometric groupings.
The connection between Chardin and Bonnard is manifest not only in their still
lifes, but also in their kindred approach to the understated presence of the figure. There
are distinct affinities, for instance, between the seemingly ordinary qualities of Chardin’s
woman stirring tea (fig. 6) and Bonnard’s women at breakfast; between the young boys
in Chardin’s House of Cards (ca. 1736–37, National Gallery, London) and Soap Bubbles
(ca. 1734, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Bonnard’s cropped figures
imposing their presence at the margins of the canvas. For both artists, the mysterious self-
possession or self-containment of a figure totally immersed in a ritualized task or daily
ritual lent a profound ambiguity, an “otherness,” to the scene. Even the dog in Chardin’s
The Buffet (see fig. 60) eases its snout into the space of the table above, piled with fruits
and pies, in a way familiar from many of Bonnard’s like-minded works, such as Still Life
with Greyhound (cat. no. 1) or Woman with Basket of Fruit (cat. no. 16).
Chardin fell from favor following his death only to reemerge decades later as a
model for the Impressionists. By the opening of the Salon des Refusés in 1863, the still
lifes of Manet, Monet, Fantin-Latour, and Renoir were both critically acclaimed and
admired among the elite.20 In the decades that followed, Cézanne reset the bar, as it were,
inventing a new language of still life in masterpieces of surpassing force. These artists
willingly inherited Chardin’s canonical still life—objects arranged at the center of the
picture plane and painted in appropriate, true-to-life hues in an otherwise uninterrupted
horizontal field. Bonnard, by comparison, was less inclined to dwell on the literalness
of an object as object (a still life) than on how diverse objects interrelate and interact
within a pictorial field (an interior). For him, the still life as an assemblage of discrete
parts, artfully and artificially arranged in a harmonious construct, was less interesting
in isolation than as part of an active tableau in which some objects are recognizable,
defined by raking light or dense shadow, while other passages remain amorphous, recede
from view, or vanish almost completely off the canvas plane. That Bonnard relied largely
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Fig. 5. Jean Siméon Chardin, Basket

of Wild Strawberries, 1761. Oil on
canvas, 15 x 181/8 in. (38 x 46 cm).
Private collection
on memory and, to a lesser extent, on perceptual analysis set him farther apart from
the orthodoxy.
There is an unusual democracy of means in Bonnard’s works in which equal atten-
tion is paid to every component of a painting. Negative spaces are as important as posi-
tive forms, table edges are as significant as plates; each part gives expression to the whole.
The transformative qualities of color and light that took hold in Bonnard’s late paintings
rendered even the voids, the often mysterious spaces in between, as engaging as a squat
teapot or one of his “bristled” baskets of bread.21 The repertory of subject matter in the
still lifes and interiors painted in Le Cannet was also unusually modest. We see the same
household objects, some inert, some perishable, again and again. Toward the end of his
life Bonnard acknowledged that for fifty years he had painted the same themes, confess-
ing that “I find it very difficult even to introduce a new object into my still lifes.”22 Cast
in different guises, in variable light and palette, his dining table props convey a comfort-
ing familiarity gained from years of looking. The habits of his daily life and its deco-
rative trappings—picturesque as well as functional—that surrounded Bonnard in his Fig. 6. Jean Siméon Chardin,
A Lady Taking Tea, 1735. Oil on
Mediterranean villa surround us, once removed, in the sum total of the late interiors. canvas, 317/8 x 39 in. (81 x 99 cm).
�� Hunterian Museum and Art
Gallery, Glasgow (43512)
Where Chardin set the stage for still life in the first half
of the nineteenth century, profoundly influencing the
Realist salon painters Bonvin and Courbet, among oth-
ers, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) became the paradigm for
early modernists. Virtually every vanguard painter of the
first quarter of the last century felt obliged to grapple with
his example not only in still life, but in figure, genre, and
landscape as well. Such was his reputation as a still-life
painter that Maurice Denis saw fit to paint a now iconic
group portrait, Homage to Cézanne, showing a gathering
of Nabis admiring the master’s Still Life with Compotier
resting on an easel (fig. 7). While at face value the canvas
anoints Cézanne as the preeminent artist for a younger
generation, in less obvious ways it carries special reso-
nance for our study of Bonnard and his investigations of
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Fig. 7. Maurice Denis, Homage to

Cézanne, 1900. Oil on canvas,
707/8 x 941/2 in. (180 x 240 cm).
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
the still life. Denis positioned Bonnard at right, a shadowy, isolated figure lacking cor-
poreality, lost in thought. Decidedly younger than his fellow artists, Bonnard is the only
one actually looking at the painting—he alone pays true homage.
In 1870–71, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Cézanne abandoned
Paris for Aix-en-Provence, where he had spent his childhood. This flight to the south
of France freed Cézanne from the expectations of Parisian culture. It also gave him dis-
tance from the bourgeois celebrations of Impressionism and from the naysayers who had
no patience for his painting. Cézanne’s life in the Midi during his final decades was one
of solitude, and while he spent much of his time outside painting the local landscape, his
studio practice took on increasing importance. By the time he moved that practice from
his house in Aix to a studio in Les Lauves, on the outskirts of town, he was painting still
lifes as landscapes of form, and landscapes as still lifes. Today the Les Lauves studio still
houses the Provençal bric-a-brac that populates Cézanne’s still lifes, the plaster Cupid
and human skulls, the ceramic jars, tin pots, and milk jugs: all the familiar objects that
in his paintings took on extraordinary value (fig. 8).
Cézanne famously championed the geometry of forms, exhorting a young admirer,
the artist Émile Bernard, to “treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone,
with everything put in perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed toward
a central point” (fig. 9).23 Yet Cézanne was by no means self-circumscribed as a painter
of plastic geometry or abstract theory. Rather, geometry provided him with the “intellec-
tual scaffolding”24 with which to adumbrate nature, or what John Rewald described as the
means “to express his consciousness of structure beneath the colored surface presented by
nature.”25 His justly renowned apples and onions were not emblems of domesticity, nor
did they evoke the “kitchen” still lifes of Chardin. One would be hard pressed to imagine
Cézanne’s vegetables in a casserole or his apples in a fruit salad.26 They brought nature into
the studio, where Cézanne painted them rigorously, in full manipulation of their role in
space. Their relational volumes alluded to the vast natural landscape outdoors.27
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Fig. 8. Cézanne’s
Studio at Les Lauves.
Photograph by
Christophe Duranti
Cézanne turned his custom-built studio at Les Lauves into a labo-

ratory for the investigation of still-life painting, a venue removed from
domesticity and distraction where he could reconfigure an inventory of
familiar shapes and surfaces into what are arguably some of the most
complex works in French art. Bonnard’s resources in Le Cannet were
far less accommodating (fig. 10). It takes only a brief visit to the villa to
appreciate his inventive powers as a painter. The studio, a small room on
the second floor, was clearly an improvised space, possibly a bedroom
at one time, and a surprisingly meager environment in which to pursue
paintings of ambitious spatial constructs. (Bonnard tacked his canvases
to its only large wall.) This quiet refuge of art making, the place where
Bonnard kept his paints and canvases, was the only room in Le Bosquet
where the artist actually painted, and yet many other interiors were just
as integral to his work. Certainly the tesserae-tiled bathroom housing
Marthe’s iconic claw-foot tub is a space that engendered, one might say,
some of the most important paintings in the artist’s oeuvre.
Only after looking at Bonnard’s late interiors for a long period
of time does one slowly recognize their uncanny relatedness: that all of
these unique canvases nonetheless originated from the same few rooms; Fig. 9. Paul Cézanne, Still Life with
that collectively they show many of the same architectural appoint- Plaster Cast, ca. 1894. Oil on paper on
board, 273/4 x 221/2 in. (70.6 x 57.3 cm).
ments. It was from these modest, even cramped domestic beginnings that Bonnard made The Samuel Courtauld Trust,
such extraordinary pictures. The French Window (Morning at Le Cannet) (cat. no. 42), Courtauld Gallery, London
The Breakfast Table (cat. no. 55), and White Interior (cat. no. 36) seem to have little in
common apart from appearing to represent some domestic environment, and yet they
indeed describe the same pictorial field. In room after room, Bonnard manipulated spatial
parameters, skewed perspectives, and amplified or truncated interior architecture; color
values and spatial configurations shift and rotate, and motifs appear and disappear.
� 10
In these well-trodden but evanescent interi-

ors Bonnard discovered infinite possibilities, much
as Cézanne, in his own late period, had found with
Mont Sainte-Victoire. Of his most famous land-
scape subject, Cézanne wrote, “the motifs multiply,
the same subject seen from a different angle offers
subject for study of the most powerful interest and
so varied that I think I could occupy myself for
months without changing place by turning now
more to the right, now more to the left.”28 And
yet the net effect of reading a late Cézanne versus
a late Bonnard yields two very different practices.
Even Cézanne’s most ambitious pictures, with
their spatial complexity and overlapping planes,
concentrate the eye on carefully orchestrated
tableaux: apples and pears, ceramics and tapes-
tries, fully articulated forms in subtle transitions
of temperature and color. Cézanne went to great
lengths arranging his still lifes, setting up visual
problems in terms of the placement of objects and
the artifices of support, wedging coins under cer-
tain props to tilt back or pull forward the planes or
forms (fig. 11). Contrary to classical perspectival
practice, he sometimes placed large objects in the
background and smaller ones in the foreground,
creating visual conundrums.29 He first conceptu-
alized a potential pictorial problem before paint-
ing, perceptually, his experience before the motif.
For Cézanne, to “realize” a painting meant
finding the right metaphor for his sensations. For
Bonnard, it meant finding the right metaphor for
Fig. 10. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Pierre
Bonnard in His Studio, 1944. Gelatin his memory of an observed experience. As Bonnard
silver print. Courtesy Magnum Photos painted his memory of the still life in the other room, he edited out extraneous informa-
tion, uncluttering the composition. What he rendered permanent was the experience of
passing through, say, the dining room set for breakfast. Bonnard said he wanted “to show
what one sees when one enters a room all of a sudden.”30 It is important to remember that
by the time he came to paint them, the objects in his paintings—some identifiable, some
amorphous or vague, many seemingly arranged at random—had been filtered through
his memory, images that had gestated over time. The ambiguity of Bonnard’s motifs,
some of which have never been decoded, reminds us not only of the natural continuum
of clarity that confronts the optic nerve at any given moment, but of the relativity of the
mind’s eye as well.31 Bonnard’s dialogue with his own sensibility was anathema to the
avant-garde, who had little patience for an artist whose works “come true” only after a
long period of looking. To read the space in a late Bonnard, especially in the landscapes,
often requires sustained scrutiny before objects fall into their intended spaces. Yet unlike
the image in a lens slowly being brought into focus, the space in a late Bonnard, even
when ostensibly resolved, pulsates restively back and forth across the picture surface.
Although much has been written on Cézanne’s influence on Picasso and Matisse,
and on his centrality to modernism in general, his influence on Bonnard is less well
11 �
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Fig. 11. Paul Cézanne, Still Life with

a Ginger Jar and Eggplants, 1893–94.
Oil on canvas, 281/2 x 36 in. (72.4 x
91.4 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York; Bequest of Stephen C.
Clark, 1960 (61.101.4)
known and yet just as potent. Contrary to what Picasso’s famous put-down might imply,
it was not an impressionistic or haphazard “naturalism” that most profoundly affected
Bonnard’s later years,32 it was the organized surface geometry—the spatial back-and-
forth, the impact of the diagonal on composition—that Bonnard took from looking at
Cézanne. By 1913 Bonnard was moving toward a more conscious attitude to describ-
ing form, and by the 1920s he had realized that Gauguin’s flat, decorative color could
be made more powerful through Cézanne’s nuanced modulation. For Bonnard, once
the most Japoniste of the Nabi fraternity, it must have been difficult at first to accept
Cézanne’s injunction to modulate, to break from the way the adherents of Japonisme
“brutally outline their figures . . . and fill in with flat colors all the way to the edges.”33 That
kind of flatness, Gauguin’s flatness, was no longer useful to Bonnard; he needed a more
complex procedure. He needed color modulation and transition, elements that emerged
in his later works and demonstrate his thorough assimilation of what Cézanne meant
when he proclaimed, “When color is at its richest, form is at its fullest.”34 “The objects
closer to us rise towards the eyes,” Bonnard wrote; “distant objects look almost linear,
without volume or depth”; “the foreground . . . gives us our concept of the world as seen
through human eyes, of a world of undulations, convex or concave”; “. . . planes through
color.”35 These remarks, all clearly indebted to Cézanne, affirm Bonnard’s shift from his
earlier Nabi preoccupations.
The uncertainty of Cézanne’s watercolors, with their multiple contours and
accrued decisions both clear and ambiguous, proved a major influence on Cubist imag-
ery. Picasso and Braque, in their Cubist compositions, adopted Cézanne’s volumetric,
lumpy, and densely packed forms—his warm and cool, positive and negative spaces—
and cast this proto-Cubist space in cool, tonal grays and warm browns, reassembling it
into an alternative realism.36 Picasso saw in painting a universe parallel to nature, not
at one with nature.37 Cubism took to the still life in particular for its neutrality; the tra-
ditional objects of the genre served Picasso and Braque as anchor points for the frag-
mentary planes and spatial torsions they cultivated.38 Braque, after his Cubist period
had ended, went on to make a powerful body of large still lifes, many of which show the
interior of his studio or a billiard table. In a sense he, like Bonnard, took up the challenge
of the interior as a still life, seeing the room, the table, and its contents as one (fig. 12).
� 12
Instilled with a gift for plainspoken color, tonal and earthen, from his early years as a
house painter, Braque revisited the jolie-laide power of Cézanne’s early work, with its
thick, troweled surfaces. In a similar vein, Bonnard’s early knowledge of lithography
and printmaking informed his use of color in his own late work. He often applied trans-
parent oils color over color to gain richness without losing density.
Ironically, Picasso’s perhaps willful misreading lays out much of what Bonnard
took from Cézanne. Seeing several colors and changing them, what Picasso mocked as
a “potpourri of indecision,” was for Bonnard “the logic of color,” something he derived
directly from Cézanne’s brushmarks. Following this logic, Bonnard searched for color
echoes throughout the rectangle of the canvas, relating the pink of the rocks to the pink
of the sky, the yellow of the houses to the yellow of the clouds, the purple of the trees
to the purple of the mountains. Particularly in the late paintings, Bonnard’s democratic
application of brushmarks, and the way they are held together by a loose net of negative
spaces and positive forms, recalls the unique quality of Cézanne’s structure and its par-
ticular kind of “overallness.” But where in Cézanne we have the feeling that the marks
respond to each other steadily, as in a high-stakes chess game, move against counter-
move, in Bonnard the overallness is faster, more like checkers, with brisk offensives and
“rapid deployment.” The entire surface of a Bonnard painting is animated with these
multiple color relationships. “When one covers a surface with colors,” Bonnard wrote
in his daybook, “one should always be able to try any number of new approaches, find a
never-ending supply of new combinations of forms and colors which satisfy emotional
needs.”39 This overallness brings Bonnard closer to Abstract Expressionism than to
Picasso, who, inclined toward the linear, drew his painted planes using a relatively lim-
ited tonal palette. Bonnard relied on blobs of color held together in a mesh or grid inher-
ent to the rectangle of the canvas. The effect can be likened to the way a spider’s web
holds raindrops.40 This irregular grid, which makes circular forms appear more square
while rounding off rectangular ones, could be viewed as the common ancestry of all the
marks in Bonnard’s late work.
Fig. 12. Georges Braque, Large Interior

with Palette, 1942. Oil on canvas,
555/8 x 77 in. (141.3 x 195.6 cm).
The Menil Collection, Houston
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Fig. 13. Detail, Bonnard’s daybook, Fig. 14. Detail, Bonnard’s daybook,
August 1932. Pencil on paper, overall January 1933. Pencil on paper, overall
51/8 x 31/8 in. (13 x 8 cm). Département des 51/8 x 31/8 in. (13 x 8 cm). Département
Estampes et de la Photographie, Biblio- des Estampes et de la Photographie,
thèque Nationale de France, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
Paris
��
Because Bonnard was long considered a mediocre draftsman, his drawings have often
been misunderstood. While at Le Cannet Bonnard drew daily in small ruled diaries
(or daybooks) with a tiny, stubby pencil (figs. 13 and 14). The idiosyncratic dots and
dashes and the seemingly casual manner of these drawings no doubt contributed to their
underestimation. Some no bigger than scraps, the daybook drawings were nonetheless
essential to Bonnard’s major paintings.41 Their vivid notations constituted a complex
personal lexicon, and the drawings themselves became the surprising medium for Bon-
nard’s explorations of color.
Bonnard believed that “a painting is a series of marks that join together to form an
object or work over which one’s eyes may freely roam.”42 The dilemma for him was how
to reconcile the black and white pencil and charcoal marks of his daybook notations and
other drawings with the color marks, the brushstrokes, of his paintings. He did so by hav-
ing his marks imply color typologically. The zigs and zags, the fast flecks and slow scribbles,
became for Bonnard red and green, orange and blue, yellow and violet (figs. 15 and 16).
In other words, he read his marks as color equivalents. He could also use them to denote
local and perceptual color, and color temperature, as well as density and changes in tone
and plane, light intensity, and contrast.43 All were conveyed using his shorthand of dots
and flecks, both staccato and languid; diagonal, vertical, and horizontal hatching, nearly
always traveling across the forms (as in Cézanne) rather than parallel to the form (as in
� 14
Fig. 15. Probably study for Nude in

Front of a Mirror, 1931. Pencil on paper.
Private collection
Fig. 16. Detail, Bouquet of Flowers,

ca. 1940 (cat. no. 61)
Manet); curved and rounded curlicues, spirals, loops, and waves;

various zig and zag marks (e.g., continuous Z-shapes), both sharp
and soft, coming from all directions and planes; and T-shapes
and L-shapes. Through the confluence of these horizontal and
vertical marks we are always made aware of the drawing’s orien-
tation and its relationship to the overall rectangular format: that
is, to the invisible grid of the canvas, much as in Piet Mondrian’s
Pier and Ocean drawings (fig. 18). In addition to placing marks,
Bonnard used his counterforce, the eraser, to break the surface
flatness, giving it a jolt of space, and to elucidate atmosphere, turn
forms, and adjust planes. One is reminded again of Cézanne, who
Fig. 17. Pierre Bonnard, Basket of believed that “pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and color
Fruit with Hand, ca. 1935. Pencil on cannot be separated, since all things in nature are colored.” “The
paper, 43/4 x 7 in. (12.1 x 17.8 cm). better the color harmonies,” he added, “the clearer the drawing becomes.”44
Private collection
Drawing was sensation for Bonnard, who, almost echoing Cézanne, wrote in his
daybook, “Sensation leads you to color tones. Tones, in return, bring about a revela-
tion of sensation.”45 Drawing was Bonnard’s first response to experience. It gave him
the means to recognize his potential pictorial subject and the language with which to
translate his experience of that subject into color. The final color image became the true
meaning, both phenomenological and spiritual, of the revelation of the original experi-
ence. Bonnard’s quest was thus a struggle between “the model you have before your
eyes, and the model you have in your head.”46 Abstract in process but figural in the
final result, his paintings and drawings had to work on both terms, without compromise.
Bonnard kept his drawings with him throughout his life. For him the drawing was the
embodiment of the idea, the one constant in the equation of the making of the paint-
ing. Everything else was transient. Often he conflated the information from two or three
drawings in a single painting, extrapolating from their particular data—a nose, a ring
of water meeting the neck, the apex of an orange, the pressure of space between two
peaches (fig. 17)—in order to build tension. Also, because he painted from the drawings,
15 �
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the major part of his editorial process had already taken place.
©2008 mondrian/ holtzman trust c/o hcr international, warrenton, va

The local color was more distant, though never lost, and the
painting’s internal “logic of color” could take over.
The small format of the daybook drawings facilitated
the quick conception of a complete pictorial idea. Unencum-
bered by the artist’s usual paraphernalia, Bonnard could eas-
ily squeeze into the tightest spots in Le Bosquet, pencil and
daybook in hand, and make himself virtually one with a room.
With the tiny pencil grasped in his exceptionally large hand, he
could almost instantaneously cover the small drawing surface
to register an experience. The pencil could act as his eye. “You
must see things once, or see them a thousand times,”47 he wrote,
and if we think of Bonnard’s drawings as for the most part “seen
once” and his paintings as “seen a thousand times,” then we can
Fig. 18. Piet Mondrian, Pier and
understand the distinction. Only in that first moment can the Ocean 2, 1914, 1914. Charcoal, ink,
artist truly see the experience of an image—the pictorial rather and gouache on paper, 195/8 x 243/8 in.
than the narrative subject, or that which makes him want to paint. A drawing captured (50 x 62.6 cm). Collection of Donna
and Carroll Janis, New York
that brief moment for Bonnard, made it permanent, and thereafter became the evidence
from which he worked.
Bonnard’s delight in his first sensations did not translate well into watercolor, whose
transparency proved a stumbling block. There was little capacity for correction, and no
equivalent to his eraser. “Manet could do it,” he said, “I just don’t have the gift.”48 He
preferred instead the opacity of gouache, which allowed him to paint color over color, as
seen, for example, in Still Life on a Red Checkered Tablecloth (cat. no. 54). To adjust, to edit,
to add, to revise: that was Bonnard’s process. A photograph of him in 1944 at work on an
oil painting shows him with the brush in one hand, putting on color, and the rag in the
other, taking it out (fig. 19). The well-known story of Bonnard asking his friend Édouard
Vuillard to distract a guard at the Palais de Luxembourg while he modified a small section
of his own painting in the collection is the ultimate expression of Bonnard’s belief that
Fig. 19. Henri Cartier-Bresson,

Bonnard in His Studio with Brush
and Rag in Hand, 1944. Gelatin
silver print. Courtesy Magnum
Photos
� 16
his work was finished only when, as he put

it, “I can’t see what more to do with it.”
In 1939 Bonnard wrote in his diary,
“The minute one says one is happy, one
isn’t any more,”49 a seeming truism that
takes on deeper meaning in the shadow
of war. Even as he worked on some of his
finest paintings, Bonnard made it abun-
dantly clear that he rejected the easy
reading of his work as purely joyful. He
wrote in his daybook that “the man who
sings is not always happy,”50 and agreed
with Delacroix that “one never paints
violently enough.”51 If Bonnard’s words
at times hint at the psychology underly-
ing his work, unquestionably his mature
paintings reveal an appreciable complex-
ity of feeling. As Giacometti is reputed
to have said, “Bonnard, more fierce than
Fig. 20. Henri Matisse, Odalisque with Pollock.” And yet Bonnard’s “fierceness”
a Turkish Chair, 1928. Oil on canvas,
235/8 x 283/4 in. (60 x 73 cm). Musée was lost on Picasso: “Another thing I hold
d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris against Bonnard is the way he fills up the whole picture surface, to form a continuous
field, with a kind of imperceptible quivering, touch by touch, centimeter by centimeter,
but with a total absence of contrast. There’s never a juxtaposition of black and white, of
square and circle, sharp point and curve. It’s an extremely orchestrated surface devel-
oped like an organic whole, but you never once get the big clash of cymbals which that
kind of strong contrast provides.”52 Perhaps Picasso’s rejection of the overallness of
Bonnard’s paintings was in keeping with his prejudice against Pollock.53 No doubt it
was that very quality that attracted many of the Abstract Expressionists to Bonnard’s
camp. For Rothko, it was also Bonnard’s color—the big passages of abutting bands and
rectangles of color—that proved a major influence. Rothko’s oceanic swaths, his engulf-
ing rich maroons and red-browns as well as his sumptuous oblongs of blue, give meaning
to Bonnard’s words “One can swim in chocolate or in blue sky.”54 Cézanne may have
credited Monet for discovering “that the sky isn’t blue,” but it would take Bonnard to
convince us of chocolate skies and yellow oceans.
��
If we turn our attention to the selection of interior subject matter—to the choice of
motifs and their arrangement—we recognize in the work of Picasso and Matisse the
obvious contrivance of artifice, where in Bonnard there is much less metaphoric distance.
Consider the theme of the odalisque. Matisse exploited her loaded subject matter, her
exoticism, by working in a measured and detached way rather than in an expressionistic
or emotional one (fig. 20). Similarly, he chose his still-life objects for their thematic asso-
ciations, often charged connections to past art—from Ingres and Delacroix to Persian
or Indian miniatures—and painted the lot in a cool, detached manner. The theatrical
nature of Matisse’s studio environment (see fig. 66) and props is strongly evident in his
still lifes from the 1920s. The studio was a stage for Matisse’s painterly investigations. In
terms of the odalisque, it was a place where the artifice of the seraglio provided a cata-
lyst. We are expected not to believe that the odalisque is real but to see the model posing,
17 �
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and allow the spectacle of perceptual activity to

unfold upon the canvas.
For Picasso the odalisque had a fixed
referentiality to art history; the Painter was
his true subject, the ego of the artist. Ampli-
fying this, he often cast the tools of painting
as surrogates, from palettes, paints, brushes,
canvases, stretchers, frames, and easels
to the painter’s stool or chair, symbols of
light (a lamp or candle), or the model’s armchair
(fig. 21). These iconic objects drew connec-
tions to other art—the rich and robust Spanish
still-life tradition, for example, or the making
of sculptural busts, often Picasso’s own works.
As John Richardson has noted, he saw his still
lifes as parables. “Whereas Matisse’s models
have the air of still-life objects,” writes Rich-
Fig. 21. Pablo Picasso, Still Life with
ardson, “Picasso’s still-life objects have the air Palette,Candlestick, and Head of
of women.”55 Minotaur, 1938. Oil on canvas, 29 x
Bonnard’s alignment to his subject matter was notably different. That is not to 351/4 in. (73.7 x 89.5 cm) . The National
Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
say that metaphor is absent from his canvases, but rather that Bonnard painted with
an almost startling lack of theatricality relative to Matisse and Picasso. The quotid-
ian props that found their way into his field of vision were chosen precisely for their
close associations with day-to-day, even banal activities: eating, washing, talking, and
reflecting. Looking at them recalls Vuillard’s touching small narratives of the 1890s and
their poetic visions of an inward life routinely spent. Just as Madame Vuillard’s corset
workshop is now familiar ground to us so, too, are Bonnard’s modest rooms at Le Bos-
quet. Yet this commonality of appearance should in no way suggest that Bonnard’s late
interiors are explications of the rituals of a quiet life in the Midi. Just as the paintings of
Marthe at her bath are not pictures about bathing,56 Bonnard’s isolated figures seemingly
lost in thought are not narratives about idle reflection.
In one of the artist’s last self-portraits (cat. no. 76), where his frail likeness is
reflected in the bathroom mirror, we see an old brush that resembles a Goya-esque set
of blackened dentures, expressly evocative of old age and decrepitude. In Dining Room
Overlooking the Garden (The Breakfast Room) (cat. no. 41), an indecipherable rounded
structure disappears off the right side of the canvas, teasing the eye from its comfort-
able assimilation of breakfast props neatly laid on the table’s striped cloth. Is it Marthe’s
head or a chair? Bonnard’s bathers are similarly tinged with irresolution. In Nude by
the Bathtub (fig. 22), the mosaic of floor tiles merges in planarity with the luminous fab-
rics draped on the chair. The watery dissolution of textures and colors, of overlapping
swaths and disappearing tactility, endows the lower-right quadrant of the picture with
an energetic abstraction: a still life, perhaps, but an illusion that is anything but still.
To look at the interiors from Bonnard’s last decades is to confront contradiction:
that the mundane is not conventional; that inanimate objects are not entirely inert; that
absent humans are very much present. The suggestion of a world in flux, of presence
and absence, is ubiquitous—from a door (a portal of ingress or egress) left half open or
a dog awaiting his meal, to tea steeping in a porcelain pot. There is also a concomitant
feeling of glimpsing forbidden sights or trespassing among private or intimate settings,
perhaps nowhere more explicit than in The French Window (Morning at Le Cannet) (cat.
� 18
no. 42), where Bonnard is easily recognized as the smaller figure, apparently behind
Marthe, in the upper-right corner. Marthe appears oblivious to his presence; she takes
him for granted, almost as if he were not there at all. We sense the spatial and emo-
tional distance between them—Bonnard looks as if he is in an adjoining room—yet we
also feel their closeness. Note how Marthe’s self-engaged stance—her torso is slightly
oblique but essentially positioned toward the viewer, looking inward—is in marked
contrast to that of Bonnard, who looks out toward both Marthe and the viewer. He
is literally distant and detached, objective and analytical: the unobtrusive observer par
excellence. (One is reminded of Monet painting his wife, Camille, on her deathbed.)
Between the heads of the two figures (as we see them) is a small, oblong cushioning form
or shape that holds them together in the picture and, seemingly, in life as well. Slowly
we realize that the shape is the back of Marthe’s head reflected in a mirror, and that Bon-
nard, also seen reflected, is in an altogether separate physical space, outside our field of
vision. Marthe’s reflected head thus seems to be facing Bonnard’s own reflected image,
and thus only through the device of the mirror, through the fictional forms of the
painted image, are the two joined together. We are witnessing the memorable moment
of Marthe’s transition, in Bonnard’s eyes, into an idea, image, and paint. We the viewer,
standing in the artist’s place, see simultaneously the depiction of Marthe and the
Fig. 22. Pierre Bonnard, Nude by

the Bathtub, 1931. Oil on canvas,
471/4 x 431/4 in. (120 x 110 cm). Centre
Georges Pompidou, Musée National
d’Art Moderne, Paris
19 �
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artist in the act of depicting her: conception, process, subject, and result, conflated in a
single image.
As we know, Bonnard resisted verisimilitude in his interiors. He skewed sight lines
in order to intensify the relationships among objects and people alike. In Flowers on the
Mantelpiece at Le Cannet (cat. no. 12), he sliced through his personnages much as Degas
routinely did in his pictures of dancers at the bar, a deliberate asymmetry that is more
pronounced at the peripheries. We have mentioned the indefinable subjects that occa-
sionally disappear off the canvas (see, e.g., cat. no. 41), but we have yet to look broadly at
the phenomenon of peripheral imagery in the late interiors. Among these works is hardly
a single example that encompasses all of the constituent parts of its crowded repertory of
furniture, objects, and people. The green chair in The White Tablecloth (cat. no. 6), the
cocoa dachshund in Woman with Basket of Fruit (cat. no. 16), the barely readable, spectral
presence of a woman in profile tending the dining table in Table in Front of the Window
(cat. no. 37)—all are in the process of vanishing from sight. The tension and torsion of
Fig. 23. Brassaï, Pierre Bonnard

Painting Four Canvases, 1946.
Gelatin silver print. Private collection
� 20
Fig. 24. Pierre Bonnard, The Provençal

Jug, 1930. Oil on canvas, 293/4 x
241/2 in. (75.6 x 62.2 cm). Private
collection, Bern
Bonnard’s peripheries create a kind of cinematic vision of a world in motion.57 Work-

ing as he did from one large length of canvas, he was able to alter the dimensions of his
paintings almost until the moment he closed them. Especially in his later work, Bon-
nard arrived at a final size, scale, and edge through trial and error, expanding here, tak-
ing away there, making a long horizontal into a square or, conversely, adding height
until he found just the right cropping. Notably, the reverse held true for Cézanne and
Matisse, who saw the rectangle of the canvas as inviolate. They changed everything
inside the rectangle to secure the proper image and structure. This was too restrictive
for Bonnard. He needed the freedom to adjust the rectangle, especially its periphery, and
only afterward was the painting given custom stretchers. The strategy was particularly
important in the late still lifes, where the passages around the edges are intensified by the
implied distance of the objects from the viewer, and a critical dialogue emerges between
focus and ambiguity.58 Because Bonnard’s stretches of canvas were big enough so that
he could extend his images at will, he often started, developed, and finished several sub-
jects on one length. In some instances subjects or scenes were packed together, often
with their edges abutting; in other cases Bonnard placed separate canvases alongside
one another (fig. 23). It is highly probable that the proximity of one painted image so
close to another affected both the psychology and the color harmonies of these works. A
still life, in other words, had an increased figural presence having been painted next to
a bathroom nude.
Bonnard crafted understated peripheries to evoke the haphazard, the uncontrol-
lable, the evanescent in daily life. When asked why he introduced a left arm into an
21 �
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Fig. 25. Henri Matisse, Asia, 1946. Oil

on canvas, 453/4 x 32 in. (116.2 x 81.3 cm).
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
Fig. 26. Henri Matisse, Woman in White,

1946. Oil on canvas, 38 x 233/4 in.
(96.5 x 60.3 cm). Des Moines Art Center;
Gift of John and Elizabeth Bates Cowles
(1959.40)
otherwise quiet interior, Bonnard was predictably taciturn, saying only that “he needed
something in that spot.”59 Yet such an intrusion brings to an otherwise quiet subject a
human presence, one that blurs distinctions between stilled objects and those in motion,
between presence and absence, between arriving and leaving. The arm that suddenly
and oddly interrupts The Provençal Jug (fig. 24) on the right leaves the viewer expecting
either entry or exit, whereas in the gouache Marthe Entering the Room (cat. no. 73) this
ambiguity is made explicit (see the essay by Rika Burnham in this volume).
If the transitory reality of Bonnard’s interiors catches his still-life subjects in
often indecipherable poses, his Mediterranean palette and dazzling light added further
abstraction to a corpus of paintings that became less obviously descriptive and more
metaphoric over time. Bonnard may have been reluctant to answer for the errant arm in
The ProvençalJug, but he was forthcoming on matters of color and light. As noted above,
it was through color, not line, that pictures took hold in his imagination.60 The first rev-
elation of color sparked his impulse to begin a painting. Bonnard often linked his color
observations to weather patterns, noting in his daybook, for example, “Vermilion in the
orange shadows, on a cold, fine day.”61 The light always felt true to him, no matter what
liberties he might take on canvas.
In the late spring of 1946, after Matisse had lent Bonnard two of his own Midi
paintings, Asia (fig. 25) and Woman in White (fig. 26), Bonnard wrote to him praising
their shifting colors in the changing light of day: “Your two pictures decorate (that’s the
word) my dining room, against an ocher background that becomes them. Especially the
woman with the necklace—the red there is wonderful late in the afternoon. By day it is
the blue that takes the lead. What an intense life the colors have, and how they vary with
the light! I make discoveries every day.”62 The letter is particularly instructive given
Bonnard’s own preoccupation with light transitions, whose nuances he evidently studied
by pinning small pieces of reflective foil wrappers to his studio wall and watching their
scintillations shimmer back and forth.63 In return, Bonnard lent Matisse one of his own
still lifes, Basket of Fruit (ca. 1946, private collection), prompting the following short
approbation: “I’m still cohabiting with your mysterious and alluring canvas.”64
Bonnard may not have painted outdoors, but clearly he was sensitive to the effects
of natural light as it penetrated the large window to the right of the wall where he tacked
� 22
his canvases. Like Cézanne, who preferred to paint outdoors early in the morning, Bon-
nard sought the clarity of light when shadows are long and clearly defined, be it at dawn or
dusk. Compared to one of his earlier nocturnal paintings, such as The Bowl of Milk
(fig. 27)—which captures evening light in a dark, tonal interior where the implacable
Marthe is seen feeding her cat—Bonnard’s later interiors radiate luminosity, whether natu-
ral or electric.65
In his late work Bonnard was also far more inventive as a colorist. He had truly
transformed himself from a Japoniste Nabi with a palette of grays, browns, and ochers
into a veritable mystic whose colors recall the Persian riddle about saffron: “What is
purple in the earth, red in the market and yellow on the table?”66 Bonnard’s colors came
to embody the emerging, meeting, and passing of forms in the transient world, whose
components he turned into shapes and planes of saffron red, gold light, and violet shad-
ows. The yellows of his Naples yellow walls are infused with saffron; the gray wainscot-
ing becomes violet. The very color of light for Bonnard was yellow, one that describes
light, gives off light, is light. Significantly, yellow was also the color that Bonnard associ-
ated with his former mistress, Renée Monchaty, a flaxen-haired young woman who was
also his model. (When Marthe learned that Bonnard had proposed marriage to Renée,
she protested and prevailed, causing the devastated Renée to commit suicide.67) This
tangled association is vividly illustrated by Young Women in the Garden (Renée Monchaty
and Marthe Bonnard) (cat. no. 72), a painting Bonnard began in 1922–23, soon before
Renée’s death, and reworked in 1945–46, after Marthe died. Renée, radiantly golden in
a white shirt turned violet, stares at the viewer—unusual for Bonnard—while looking
inward as well. To her left is an ominous, dark vertical shape set against the light, per-
haps a foreboding of the dark exit to her short-lived beauty. Behind her, a golden, orange,
red, and magenta plate (basket?) of fruit is touched by a smaller plate of three fruits,
analogous to the overlapping lives of Bonnard, Marthe, and Renée. Foregrounding this
gilded vision is the dark barrier of the chair back, its arc held together by clawlike
spindles that separate Renée from the darker, cropped Marthe, whose presence here is a
formal, as well as a psychological, intrusion. In the lower-left corner a pet dog looks on
at both women, almost as if choosing between them. In this painting, one of Bonnard’s
last, yellow is clearly the color of the sun, of optimism, of life. We know that in Bon-
nard’s final days, when he was too weak even to pick up a brush, he asked his nephew,
Charles Terrasse, to add some yellow over a patch of green in Almond Tree in Blossom,
his last painting (fig. 28). “One cannot have too much yellow,” Bonnard said.68 For him,
yellow was not just a color.
White was another key color for Bonnard. He told his Swiss patrons, Arthur and
Hedy Hahnloser, that he had been trying to understand the secret of white all his life.69
Many colorists dreamed of using white as a color, Matisse included, but white poses two
basic problems. First, it is the ground color of most modernist paintings; placing white
pigment on a white ground has thus been seen by many artists as a formidable chal-
lenge, sometimes famously so, as in the white-on-white works by Kazimir Malevich or
Robert Ryman. Second, white can infiltrate other colors and make them appear chalky
or bleached. Rembrandt, Hals, and Goya, among others, made white powerful by using
it in conjunction with high tonal contrast, as Courbet did memorably in A Burial at
Ornans (1849 – 50, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). Bonnard made notes in his daybook to sur-
round rich color with black or white,70 and indeed he frequently used a rich black in his
late paintings as a counterpoint to strong colors. Bonnard gave white a distinct density
and presence, transforming it from an indefinite field of space into either a strong planar
reality, as in The Table (cat. no. 15), or a substance that establishes weight, such as the
23 �
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Fig. 27. Pierre Bonnard, The Bowl

of Milk, ca. 1919. Oil on canvas,
453/4 x 475/8 in. (116.2 x 121 cm).
Tate, London; Bequeathed by
Edward Le Bas 1967 (T00936)
jug in Dining Room on the Garden (cat. no. 49). The white tablecloth in the exceptional
painting of that title (cat. no. 6) is a metaphor for, or a microcosm of, the canvas itself,
primed but unpainted, on which the arrangement of objects mirrors the organization of
the painter’s rectangle. Here the subjects of Bonnard’s obsession (his still-life objects)
overlay an allegory of his lifelong preoccupation with the genre.
Honoré de Balzac, in his 1831 novel La Peau de chagrin, describes a “tablecloth
white as a layer of newly-fallen snow, upon which the place-settings rise symmetrically,
crowned with blond rolls.” The metaphor famously touched Cézanne, who reportedly
confessed, “All through my youth . . . I wanted to paint that, that tablecloth of new
snow.”71 It is this iridescent white, the freshly fallen snow of Cézanne’s imagination, that
holds so many of Bonnard’s plates, compotiers, and cake stands in place. Yet in nearly all
of Bonnard’s paintings in which white is a major element, he also employed yellow and
violet to heighten its impact. In White Interior (cat. no. 36) it is represented mostly by pale
violets; where white itself is present, we see it vary widely in density as it travels across
the surface of the canvas, intruded upon here and there by yellow. Describing a still life
with peaches Bonnard painted in 1942, the journalist André Giverny noted how “the
peaches, heaped one upon the other, are like a sky at the very end of sunset, when only
the golds and one or two spots of white remain. Surrounding this silent symphony is the
tablecloth, whose white is varicolored gray and pink.”72 The same smoldering colors
placed on a multicolored “white” tablecloth can be seen in another painting of peaches
from 1942 (private collection), a year when, according to Antoine Terrasse, Bonnard
remarked that the “peaches are astonishing. This year I was much struck by them.”73
� 24
Given that Bonnard’s house was in many ways his studio, the color and shape of
his dining table, and of his walls and chairs for that matter, are important to our under-
standing of his work. Time and again he brought together a white linen tablecloth with
an intense red undercloth, a pairing that evidently triggered his imagination, possibly in
connection with Gauguin’s Vision after the Sermon (fig. 29), a favorite painting.74 Onto
this playing field of red and white Bonnard placed his objects, masterfully initiating con-
versation among the yellows, violets, reds, blacks, and whites that animate such works
as Still Life with Greyhound (cat. no. 1), Before Dinner (cat. no. 2), Corner of the Dining
Room at Le Cannet (cat. no. 35), and Still Life with Bottle of Red Wine (cat. no. 65). The
rich colors respond almost as if they were painted on gold, like a Byzantine icon. Matisse
sometimes overpainted dense white on a black ground, as in The Moroccans (1915–16,
The Museum of Modern Art, New York), which in a similar way gives greater presence
to the white as a color, not as an area of tone.
Often in the late paintings the viewer can discern silver-gray or black pencil marks,
final touches to the canvas that help articulate details, clarify forms, or push back space.
More than a quirk of Bonnard’s process, these marks constitute an almost metaphysi-
cal statement by the artist on the origins of the work. Conceived in pencil, he seems to
Fig. 28. Pierre Bonnard, Almond Tree

in Blossom, 1946–47. Oil on canvas,
215/8 x 143/4 in. (55 x 37.5 cm). Centre
Georges Pompidou, Musée National
d’Art Moderne, Paris; Gift of Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Zadok, 1964 (Inv. AM
4230 P)
25 �
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Fig. 29. Paul Gauguin, Vision after the

Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel),
1888. Oil on canvas, 283/8 x 357/8 in.
(72.2 x 91 cm). National Gallery of
Scotland, Edinburgh; Purchased 1925
(NG 1643)
be saying, they are concluded by the touch of the same. This small act not only rein-
forced the ties between Bonnard’s drawings and his paintings, it demonstrated the last-
ing importance to him of the drawings, particularly as they informed color.
��
We can read and interpret Bonnard’s still lifes in much the same way we do his figures,
as not still at all, but quietly transient. A master of presence, Bonnard transformed dis-
crete, often mundane moments of time—the act of pouring tea, bending over, walking
through a doorway, getting out of a bathtub—into timeless images. A toweling Marthe
will always look young; the golden-haired Renée will never lose her radiance. And yet
Bonnard was also a master of absence. We glean from many of the inanimate objects in
his interiors a sense of those who have laid the table, moved a plate, or taken a fruit. The
possibility of reentry—that someone who is absent will once again intrude onto our
field of vision, or into our mind’s eye—is always left open.
In all his waking moments Bonnard was searching for the shock of an image, for
its potential to become a painting. In that sense he was not a voyeur but a silent witness,
someone simultaneously inside and outside of any given moment. His discreet presence
in the room where he worked gave him status equal to that of the objects he painted; he
was one with the chair, the sugar bowl, the teapot, the saltcellar. In order to paint an
object he needed to be familiar with it, to see it sympathetically, or as having its own
personality. Once, when asked to consider some charming ensemble as a potential still
life, he responded simply, “I haven’t lived with that long enough to paint it.” Bonnard’s
sometimes long journey to complete his paintings—from the initial image, surrepti-
tiously stolen from his personal life and then encoded in quick scribbles, to its resplen-
dent, final expression in oil—was an undertaking at once humble and heroic.
� 26
1. Born Maria Boursin, she adopted this name later the Conférences de l’Académie royale de peinture et de
in life. sculpture that he published in 1669.”
2. See, e.g., Laprade 1944 and Fargue 1947. 17. Rosenberg 1999–2000, pp. 34, 35.
3. Zervos 1947, p. 6. 18. Ibid., pp. 28–29.
4. Gilot and Lake 1964, pp. 271–72. 19. Although the still life as a type of life study was
5. In a summary and critique of critical evalua- not well regarded in the seventeenth century, it
tions of Bonnard from 1943 to 1986, Philippe was considered an appropriate enterprise in the
Le Leyzour (1986, pp. 30–31) registers his own training of artists since it brought them closer to
dismay toward intolerant critics: “Ce qui est très nature.
frappant dans tous ces articles cités jusqu’à présent, 20. A number of the Impressionists “retreated” to
c’est la manière très perverse par laquelle Bonnard still life as a haven from critical mockery. Manet,
est célébré ou condamné. Chez les uns, il est le for example, focused on still life in 1866–67 in
peintre qui nous repose des extravagances cubistes response to his negative reception at the 1865
ou abstraites; chez les autres, il est le représentant Salon. Przyblyski 2001–2, p. 29.
d’une peinture de délectation totalement dépassée 21. See Bryson 1990, p. 92, where he discusses Char-
ou qu’on tente abusivement de réhabiliter. Dans din’s evenness of regard: “He gives everything
presque tous les cas, l’œuvre n’est pas analysée the same degree of attention—or inattention; so
pour elle-même mais par rapport à une évolution that the details, as they merge, are striking only
que l’on condamne ou que l’on prône. Bonnard because of the gentle pressures bearing down on
n’est jugé que comme un pion sur l’échiquier de them from the rest of the painting.”
l’art moderne et contemporain, il n’est perçu qu’en
22. “Depuis cinquante ans je reviens toujours aux
fonction d’autres peintres, dans une sorte de rap-
mêmes sujets. Il m’est très difficile même d’intro-
port de forces dont il sort dans tous les cas vaincu,
duire un nouvel objet dans mes natures mortes.”
soit par la célébration maladroite et intellectuelle-
Terechkovitch 1947, quoted in Whitfield 1998,
ment courte de certains de ses admirateurs, soit par
pp. 20, 31 n. 84.
l’éreintement jubilatoire de critiques souvent plus
avertis mais injustes.” 23. To Émile Bernard, Aix-en-Provence, April 15,
1904, quoted in Paris, London, and Philadelphia
6. The 1984 retrospective “Bonnard” was organized
1995–96, p. 18.
by the Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National
d’Art Moderne, Paris, and traveled (as “Bonnard: 24. The phrase is Roger Fry’s. See Fry 1927, p. 53.
The Late Paintings”) to The Phillips Collection, 25. See Rewald 1986, p. 226, where he continues: “But
Washington, D.C., and the Dallas Museum of Art; nowhere in his canvases did Cézanne pursue this
see Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, b. abstract concept at the expense of his direct sen-
Other exhibitions that contributed to his critical sations. He always found his forms in nature and
rehabilitation include London and New York 1998 never in geometry.”
and Washington, D.C. and Denver 2002–3. 26. In this regard, one earlier artist who comes to
7. Wheeler 1964–65, p. 18. mind is the Spaniard Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560–
8. Charles Terrasse, in Rotterdam 1953, unpaged. 1627), whose vertiginous subjects show even less
regard for the qualities of sustenance.
9. As quoted in Bernard 1953, p. 9.
27. See Sylvester 1962, p. 95.
10. See, e.g., London 1990–91, p. 46; Callen 2000,
p. 15. 28. Paul Cézanne, letter to his son Paul, September 8,
1906, in Cézanne 1995, p. 327.
11. Rydbeck 1937. Translated into English and
reprinted in Terrasse, A. 2000b, pp. 124, 123. 29. For example, in Still Life with Plaster Cast (fig. 9),
For an examination of Bonnard’s methodology is the plaster cast of the crouching figure at top
as regards the dimensions of his canvases, see right an object in this painting or a cast in another
Hollevoet 1998. painting that itself is a prop? Similarly, is the still
life behind the onion part of a painting leaning
12. Forge, Benci, and Stucky 1985, p. 33.
against the wall, or does it represent part of the
13. Lamotte and Bonnard 1947. Translation by I. Mark arrangement of objects in this work? Bonnard
Paris, in Anthonioz 1988, pp. 170, 178. makes use of comparable conundrums in many
14. “On parle toujours de la soumission devant la of his paintings.
nature. Il y a aussi la soumission devant le tableau.” 30. To “montrer ce qu’on voit quand on pénètre sou-
Daybook, February 8, 1939. Paris, Washington, dain dans une pièce d’un seul coup.” Quoted in
D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 198; translation from Clair 1984a, p. 19, translation from Clair 1984b,
Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 70. p. 32.
15. Forge, Benci, and Stucky 1985, p. 33. 31. See Elderfield 1998.
16. See, e.g., McTighe 1998, p. 23: “the explicit rank- 32. As Bonnard himself noted, “When I and my
ing of subjects that were ‘lesser’ than history friends adopted the Impressionist colour pro-
painting was first set out in Félibien’s Preface to gramme in order to build on it, we wanted to go
27 �
� bon na r d
beyond naturalistic colour impressions. Art after 51. “Delacroix l’a écrit dans son Journal: ‘on ne peint
all is not nature. We wanted a more rigorous com- jamais assez violent.’” Daybook, 1946. Paris,
position. There is also so much more to extract from Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 203;
colour as a means of expression.” Interview with translation from Paris, Washington, D.C., and
Ingrid Rydbeck (1937). Quoted in Mann 1994, p. 38. Dallas 1984b, p. 70.
33. Cézanne to Joachim Gasquet, in Doran 2001, p. 134. 52. Gilot and Lake 1964, p. 272.
34. Cézanne to Maurice Denis, in ibid., p. 176. 53. Ibid., pp. 268–69.
35. For these remarks in context, see n. 58 below. 54. “On peut nager dans le chocolat ou dans l’azur.”
36. For Picasso on Cubism, especially with regard to Daybook, May 2, 1936. Paris, Washington, D.C.,
Braque, see Gilot and Lake 1964, pp. 75–77. and Dallas 1984a, p. 194; translation from Paris,
Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 70. For a
37. Richardson 1996, pp. 103, 105.
discussion of Bonnard and Rothko, see New York
38. Bryson 1990, p. 84. 1997a.
39. “Quand on couvre une surface avec les couleurs, 55. Richardson 2007, pp. 74, 467.
il faut pouvoir renouveler indéfiniment son jeu,
56. The famously delicate Marthe suffered most of
trouver sans cesse de nouvelles combinaisons de
her life from an indeterminate illness or, perhaps,
formes et de couleurs qui répondent aux exigences
from what could be described as pathological mal-
de l’émotion.” Daybook, 1945. Paris, Washington,
aise. Bathing (or hydrotherapy) was a fashionable
D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 202; translation from
regimen in Marthe’s day, one she looked to as a
Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 70.
panacea.
40. Patrick Heron conceived of this abstract structure
57. Bryson (1990, pp. 92–93) cites the same phenom-
as a “large scale fish-net drawn over the surface of
ena in Chardin, suggesting that “Chardin’s most
the canvas.” Heron 1998, p. 23.
significant innovation” may have been the deliber-
41. We are still discovering remarkable correspon- ate blurring of forms, “as though he were trying
dences between the daybook drawings and the to paint peripheral rather than central vision.” In
paintings they informed. “Chardin’s fiction of how the eye moves,” the eye
42. Bonnard 1947, unpaged. Translation by I. Mark “conveys the idea of vision moving in unhurried
Paris, in Anthonioz 1988, p. 174. fashion over a familiar scene; not tensely vigilant
43. It should be noted that Bonnard usually avoided ([like] Cotán, Zurbarán, [or] Caravaggio) but with
straightforward tonal drawing (i.e., using a range a sense of having enough time to take the scene in
of grays, scaling from black to white, to denote without strain.”
tone). 58. Bonnard’s interest in conundrums of visual per-
44. As remarked to Léo Larguier, in Doran 2001, p. 17, ception is reflected in comments such as these,
nos. XXVIII, XXIX. made to Charles Terrasse in 1927: “I am standing
in the corner of the room, next to this table bathed
45. “La sensation amène aux tons. Dans les tons, il y in light. The eye perceives the masses that are far
a en retour une révélation sur la sensation.” Day- away, under an almost linear aspect, without relief
book, April 27, 1937. Paris, Washington, D.C., or depth. But the objects closer to us rise towards
and Dallas 1984a, p. 195; translation from Paris, the eye. The sides slip away. These escapes are
Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 70. sometimes rectilinear—at least those that are far
46. “Le modèle qu’on a sous les yeux, et le modèle away—but curved, in the case of those that are
qu’on a dans la tête.” Daybook, July 3, 1935. Paris, closer. Perception of that which is far away is a flat
Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 190; vision. It is those things close at hand that give
translation from Paris, Washington, D.C., and an idea of the universe as the human eye sees it, a
Dallas 1984b, p. 69. universe which can be undulated, convex or con-
47. “Il faut voir les choses une fois, ou les voir mille.” cave.” Author’s translation; quoted in Winterthur
Daybook, October 25, 1931. Paris, Washington, 1999–2000, p. 100.
D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 183; translation from 59. In conversation with Hedy Hahnloser, Bon-
Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 69. nard replied: “Rien du tout. Il m’a fallu quelque
48. Vaillant et al. 1965, p. 184. chose à cet endroit. On pourrait aussi bien accro-
cher un fétiche au mur. J’y ai mis ce bras, voilà
49. “A l’instant où l’on dit qu’on est heureux, on ne
tout.” Quoted in ibid., p. 70.
l’est plus.” Daybook, February 12, 1939. Paris,
Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 198; 60. In a wonderful and often-told story, an old blue
translation from Paris, Washington, D.C., and jacket worn by Hedy Hahnloser became the inspi-
Dallas 1984b, p. 70. ration for the marine portrait of the Hahnloser
family, Sailing (1924, private collection, Switzer-
50. “Celui qui chante n’est pas toujours heureux.”
land). See ibid., p. 101.
Daybook, January 17, 1944. Paris, Washington,
D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 199; translation from 61. “Vermillon dans les ombres orangées, par un jour
Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 70. froid de beau temps.” Daybook, February 7, 1927.
� 28
Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 182; both
p. 182; translation from Paris, Washington, D.C., translations from Paris, Washington, D.C., and
and Dallas 1984b, p. 69. Dallas 1984b, p. 69. When the gallerist Aimée
62. Pierre Bonnard to Henri Matisse, May 1946, in Maeght asked Bonnard to tone down a sharp black
Bonnard and Matisse 1992, p. 126. diagonal brushmark slicing through a saucepan
lid in the late still life Cooking Utensils (cat. no. 75),
63. For a concise discussion of these, see Elderfield
the artist resolutely refused to modify the image,
1998, p. 51 n. 101.
and Maeght reluctantly accepted the picture for
64. Henri Matisse to Pierre Bonnard, May 7, 1946, sale. Some years later, Maeght assembled an exhi-
quoted in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, p. 130. bition of “black” paintings, including Bonnard’s
65. Cézanne’s comment “One doesn’t make light, one utensils. Sylvie Baltazart-Eon, conversation with
reproduces it” (Doran 2001, p. 87) comes to mind. the author, Paris, March 2008.
66. Finlay 2003, p. 202. 71. Balzac and Cézanne quoted in Merleau-Ponty
67. Marthe asked Bonnard to destroy many paintings 2004, p. 280.
for which Renée had modeled. 72. Terrasse, A. 2000a, p. 107.
68. Vaillant et al. 1965, p. 150. 73. Ibid.
69. See Whitfield 1998, pp. 24, 31 n. 110, and Winter- 74. A postcard of Vision after the Sermon was tacked
thur 1999–2000, p. 100. to Bonnard’s studio wall in Le Cannet along with
70. Daybook, May 4, 1927: “Rendre possibles des postcards of paintings by Seurat, Cézanne, and
couleurs fortes dans la lumière par le noir et le Vermeer, a Greco-Roman sculpture, and a large
blanc voisins” (Make possible strong colors in the reproduction of a Picasso Cubist painting; all were
light through the proximity of black and white). side by side with postcard photographs of land-
He made a similar notation on April 16: “Voi- scapes and marine views. Only one of Bonnard’s
sinage du blanc rendant lumineuses des taches own pictures appears in the mix: the 1925 interior
très colorées” (Proximity of white, lending a Window at Le Cannet (Tate, London).
luminosity to some bright colored spots). Paris,
29 �
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� 30
A Desire for Dispossession: Portrait of
the Artist as a Reader of Mallarmé
R é m i L a brus se
[I]
O n January 27, 1896, just days after the death of Paul Verlaine, Stéphane
Mallarmé was elected “prince of poets,” an honorific coined several years ear-
lier by the Symbolist coterie.1 There was little about the man to inspire such
a following. He led a quiet bourgeois existence, teaching English in a Paris lycée and
spending most of his leisure time boating on the Seine from his small summer home
in the Paris suburb of Valvins. Nonetheless, in this final period of his life (he died in
1898 at the age of fifty-six), Mallarmé had become the object of a veritable cult that had
spread beyond French literary circles and into the worlds of music and visual art. Indeed,
one of the things his devotees most admired in him was this very subordination of per-
sonal life to the painstaking construction of an oeuvre that stood resolutely apart from
any literature yet produced. The contrast between his writings and the banality of his
daily life only heightened the aura surrounding his extraordinary creation: a poetic
language beyond most people’s grasp, radically emancipated, as the poet said, from
“universal reporting.”2
If Mallarmé’s wish to “confer purer meaning on the words of the tribe”3 was
branded hermetic or obscure by some, among poets it had garnered the status of a philo-
sophical doctrine with Neoplatonic overtones. By systematically doing away with lin-
guistic conventions, Mallarmé had managed to restore and unveil a fundamental link
between sign and meaning. More than this, he had revealed that “pure notion” and pure
signifier were one and the same, and that an extreme kind of formalism was the truest
path to an epiphany of essence. Mallarmé believed that once we “atone for the sins of
languages,” “imperfect insofar as they are many,”4 poetry and ontology become one.
The Word, refined by poetic use, reveals Being; in return, Being attains absolute fulfill-
ment in the Word. Otherwise put, for many, Mallarmé was not so much a “prince” as a
mystic, a magus who concealed the ultimate ontological meaning of his message behind
a rampart of abstruseness, making it accessible only to an artistic elite.
Like certain of their elders—Paul Gauguin, for one, or Odilon Redon, who was
probably Mallarmé’s closest painter friend after Manet’s death in 1883—the young Nabi
painters professed an unconditional admiration for the poet. In 1891 Maurice Denis
asked Mallarmé to “be sure to visit” the Nabi room at an exhibition in the château of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which also included works by Bonnard.5 Not long after that,
Édouard Vuillard became a friend of the poet’s, painting several views of the Valvins
house (fig. 31) and winning his enthusiastic consent when in 1897 the dealer Ambroise
Vollard commissioned him to illustrate “Hérodiade,” the poem on which Mallarmé had
Fig. 30. Detail, Self-Portrait,
1930 (fig. 41)
worked for more than thirty years.6 Bonnard, more retiring, kept his distance, even
31 �
� bon na r d
Fig. 31. Édouard Vuillard, Mallarmé’s

House at Valvins (Winter), 1896.
Oil on wood, 51/2 x 153/4 in. (14 x 40 cm).
Private collection
though he and the poet had much in common. Both men frequented the area around
the Gare Saint-Lazare, one of the new bourgeois neighborhoods created by Georges-
Eugène Haussmann’s renovation of Paris in the 1860s, and both shared a love of nature
and enjoyed lazy summer afternoon walks in the garden. Professionally, their main
common ground was the office of La Revue blanche, published by the brothers Alexandre,
Alfred, and Thadée Natanson, who had made the periodical a mainstay of the literary
and artistic avant-garde in fin de siècle Paris. Bonnard first published a drawing in it in
1892, followed by many others throughout the decade; in 1894 he designed a well-known
poster for the magazine. Mallarmé, for his part, contributed some of his “Variations on a
Subject” in 1895 and 1896, prose texts in which he pushed his syntactical impermeability
to the limit.
When the weather turned warm and vacation season arrived, Mallarmé and the
Natansons were neighbors in Valvins. Bonnard stayed there with friends for a few weeks
in the summer of 1896, and it is highly likely that he, like Vuillard, had many occasions
to frequent the poet and amateur boatman. We know, in any event, that he attended
Mallarmé’s funeral, in September of 1898, from a rather melancholic photograph that
shows him from the back in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne the day after the poet was bur-
ied (fig. 32). A single canvas by Bonnard from early 1899, taking up the theme of
Mallarmé’s celebrated eclogue “The Afternoon of a Faun,” constitutes a clear homage to
the deceased writer (fig. 33). A vacant, slightly futile, but moderately luxurious world of
bourgeois quietude and comfort: for both men this kind of milieu seems to have been, if
not the precondition, then at least the elective setting in which their metaphysical explora-
tions could flourish. It was also what nourished their particular melancholy, one linked to
a philosophy of the Void and leavened by a penchant for verbal or visual games.
There are many indications that Bonnard reflected seriously on the theoretical
implications of Mallarmé’s oeuvre, of which he was a well-informed reader. At least one
of the painter’s friends mentioned his early and abiding taste for philosophy—he was
particularly well versed in the ancient Greeks7—which surely helped Bonnard navigate
the ontological underpinnings of passages in Mallarmé such as this famous one from
“Crisis of Verse”: “What good is the marvel of transposing a fact of nature into its vibra-
tory near-disappearance according to the play of language, however: if it is not, in the
absence of the cumbersomeness of a near or concrete reminder, the pure notion. I say:
a flower! And, out of the oblivion where my voice casts every contour, insofar as it is
something other than the known bloom, there arises, musically, the very idea in its mel-
lowness [l’idée même et suave]; in other words, what is absent from every bouquet.”8 The
� 32
Portrait of the Artist as a Reader of Mallarmé �
musicality of the “pure notion” of the flower, the “very idea in its mellowness,” which
eludes us in the actual flower but blooms in the poetic enunciation of the word itself, was
something the young Bonnard could easily relate to Plato’s sunlight illuminating ideali-
ties, which are perceived only as shadows on the walls of the cave of reality. Such an
intuition of absolute being can only be obtained by rejecting mainstream perceptions—
something that language or drawing allows one to do on the condition that their purely
mimetic function of denotation or depiction is stripped away. The gap between the lat-
ter state and easy intelligibility is the space through which one reaches the absolute;
hermeticism of form (or obscurity) goes hand in hand with purity of being (or quintes-
sence). Bonnard was already saying as much in 1895, when he complimented his friend
Vuillard’s drawing in La Revue blanche by comparing it to Mallarmé: “I saw two of your
drawings in La Revue blanche. One . . . is like a Mallarmé in its initial obscurity and the
purity of workmanship that becomes apparent afterward.”9 Several months later, the
same periodical published Mallarmé’s defense of the philosophical legitimacy of hermet-
icism, which the young Marcel Proust had recently mocked: “There must be something
occult deep inside everyone, decidedly I believe in something opaque, a signification
sealed and hidden, that inhabits common man.”10
The Nabis’ use of line, especially Bonnard’s, suggests a direct affinity with Mal-
larmé’s thinking, at least as it was understood by his disciples of the time. The contours
of the drawings are so skillful they seem almost to act autonomously, and the viewer,
through “an accumulation of opacities” (to use Yve-Alain Bois’s expression),11 must
abandon ordinary ways of seeing and view the object as if it were a riddle. This tangle of
Fig. 33. Pierre Bonnard, Faun,

early 1899. Oil on wood, 125/8 x
87/8 in. (32 x 22.5 cm). Private
collection
Fig. 32. Pierre Bonnard, Auguste Renoir,

Ida and Cipa Natanson, and Misia and
Thadée Natanson at Villeneuve-sur-
Yonne, September 11, 1898. Archives
Annette Vaillant
33 �
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snaking lines—weaving in and out, vanishing and then

reappearing—is the marvelous space wherein the sub-
stance of things seems to decant into an evanescent yet
paradoxically ineffable essence, assuming, of course, that
one resists becoming discouraged and perseveres in decod-
ing the initial obscurity. What the ideogrammatic, or hiero-
glyphic, character of Bonnard’s Nabi drawings and, more
concretely, his taste at the time for abecedaries (fig. 34)
seem to say is that this essence is semiotic in nature: that
the ultimate destiny of the real would be fulfilled in signs,
and, consequently, that the artist’s task was to display an
ontology of the sign. The oft-made comparison between
Bonnard’s drawings and the Impressionist aesthetic
ignores this aspect of the artist’s connection to Mallarmé.
By 1864 the young Mallarmé was already announcing
Fig. 34. Pierre Bonnard, A is for Amitié
to his friend Henri Cazalis that he had made a crucial
(Friendship), from Sentimental Alpha-
discovery: “a very new poetics” that would, he stressed, bet, 1893. Pencil and watercolor on
“paint, not the object, but the effect it produces.”12 But this youthful insight, though daring paper, 95/8 x 117/8 in. (24.5 x 30 cm).
at the time, had become commonplace by the end of the century, and it is not what Bon- Private collection
nard would have been seeking so avidly in the poet’s writings. What he did find—which
coincided with his philosophical readings—was a critical investigation of the power of
the image at the boundary of perceived reality and pure form. Like many of Mallarmé’s
poems, a number of Bonnard’s canvases explore the subtle point at which perception
shifts, at which the reassuring and consistent activity of decoding forms referentially is
suddenly shattered, forced to reconstruct itself, and then veers toward a different hori-
zon. The question of where that leaves us is one both men posed, and which they hoped
to answer by revealing the essence underlying the multiform aspects of reality, or of the
“absolute.” It is an investigation that goes to the heart of creation (poetic or visual) and
that helps to explain Bonnard’s lifelong predilection for mirror effects—see, for example,
Vase of Flowers on the Mantelpiece (1930, private collection) or Basket of Fruit Reflected in
a Mirror (cat. no. 56)—effects that echo many lines by Mallarmé, such as the following,
which could almost caption many of Bonnard’s “scintillating” but morbid nudes from
the 1930s, among them The Toilette (Nude at the Mirror) (cat. no. 31):
Elle, défunte nue en le miroir, encor

Que, dans l’oubli fermé par le cadre, se fixe
De scintillations sitôt le septuor
[Though she in the oblivion that the mirror frames

Lies nude and defunct, there rains
The scintillations of the one-and-six.]13
At the same time, there is a less evident but equally intense bond linking Bonnard
and Mallarmé: a poetics of failure, and the disillusioned melancholy that goes with it.
The Mallarméan utopia of the complete fulfillment of Being via poetry (which he called
the Book) goes hand in hand with a fundamental awareness of its impossibility and, cor-
relatively, of its constant devolvement into “resonant inanity,” to use Mallarmé’s phrase
(you could also say they are like two sides of a coin).14 In the papers found after his death,
� 34
next to the proposition “the book abolishes time,” the poet wrote the word “ashes,” as if
to acknowledge that his highest aspirations were doomed or obliged to go up in flames.15
He had already said as much to Verlaine; in a letter from 1885 he confessed that “the
Book,” of which he had “always dreamed” and that he intended as the “orphic explana-
tion of the Earth,” was ultimately no more than a “vice,” one that his “bruised or weary”
spirit had often tried to repudiate but that possessed him nonetheless.16 We cannot help
but sense a moment of self-reflection in a remark he made to Redon the same year, when
he wrote that what he especially admired in his friend’s recent lithograph (In My Dream
I Saw in the Heavens a FACE OF MYSTERY, the first plate in the Homage to Goya) was
the figure of “the great, inconsolable Magician, the obstinate seeker after a mystery he
knows does not exist, and which he’ll pursue, eternally, for that very reason, with the
bereavement of his lucid despair, for that mystery would have been Truth!” Mallarmé
added, “I know of no drawing which communicates so much intellectual fear and ter-
rible sympathy as this grandiose countenance.”17
If the “pure notion,” like the idea of God, is but a “glorious lie”;18 if the “mystery
in letters” goes no deeper than the “signifier,” without incorporating the ultimate cipher
of Being; if, in other words, the metaphysical perspective no longer acts as a spur to
artistic creation, and if all hope of an “orphic explanation of the Earth” via the poem
should vanish, then the devastated terrain left behind risks being overrun by specters,
produced by a mind shut in on itself and subject to melancholy. Both Mallarmé and
Bonnard struggled all their lives against such specters, which were engendered by their
unconscious and fostered by the collective neurosis of bourgeois life and its trappings:
claustrophobic interiors laden with furniture and “trinkets” (fig. 35), men and women
bound by social position (fig. 36) and paralyzed by sexual and other taboos (cat. nos. 2
and 41). A number of Mallarmé’s writings allude to this sense of repression: “. . . seeing
the mirror horribly null, seeing himself surrounded by rarefaction, all atmosphere gone,
Fig. 35. Dornac (Paul François

Arnold Cardon), Stéphane
Mallarmé in His Apartment on
the Rue de Rome, Paris, 1880–98.
Bibliothèque Nationale de
France, Paris
35 �
� bon na r d
Fig. 36. Pierre Bonnard, The Bourgeois

Afternoon (The Terrasse Family), 1900.
Oil on canvas, 543/4 x 831/2 in. (139 x
212 cm). Musée d’Orsay, Paris
and the furnishings twist their phantoms in the void, and the curtains tremble invisibly,
uneasily. Then he throws open the cupboards that they might shed their mystery, their
unknown, their memory, their silence: human faculties and impressions.”19 Bonnard’s
compositions often give off the same feeling: that were it not for the color that mysteri-
ously lifts them from within, the figures and motifs would blur the boundaries between
caricature and nightmare (fig. 37, especially the passage at bottom center). To ward off
this phantasmal, threatening disharmony, the painter used color, but he also cultivated a
kind of playfulness not unlike that adopted by Mallarmé in the many so-called circum-
stantial poems (vers de circonstance), some of which turned his friends’ mailing addresses
into eccentric puzzles (“postal amusements,” he called them) or accompanied gifts of
fruits, flowers, and fans:
Le Temps
nous y succombons
Sans l’amitié pour revivre
Ne glace que ces bonbons
A son plumage de givre
[Time
in which we’re lost
Without friendship to revive it
Glazes only these sweets
With its plumage of frost]20
Mallarmé’s linguistic games found an echo in Bonnard’s visual games, as the Japan-
obsessed Nabi soon became famous for imbuing his line with a playful virtuosity analo-
gous to that of a Japanese master printmaker. An unexpected stroke or two might suggest a
� 36
poodle chasing after a hoop, a baby climbing out of its crib (fig. 38), or champagne bubbles
escaping from a bottle—simultaneously evoking and dismissing the strange, often disturb-
ing potentialities lurking within these motifs. Having given up trying to unite Sign with
Being, the image wittingly pursues a game of its own, with the Void as backdrop: a joy-
ously nihilistic game in which line self-consciously mocks its ability to capture a motif and
thereby recognizes its own inanity. This recognition results from the line’s very acuity, and
the derisory point of it all—these futile little scenes, sometimes so hard to make out—only
underscores its vanity, with a disillusionment that paradoxically lends it more energy. For
Bonnard’s viewer (as for the reader of Mallarmé’s circumstantial verse), solving the puzzle
yields neither a mystical revelation of the absolute nor an obsessive metaphor of the uncon-
scious, only a brief smile. The pride and anxiety of creation are replaced by a lighthearted
admission that perception is dubious and that the ancient dreams of possessing Being are but
an illusion, here recognized as such. Creatures, things, images, words: these are nothing but
ephemeral flashes in the metaphysical void, momentary verbal or visual arabesques.
We see further proof of this in some of the photographs Bonnard took between
Fig. 37. Pierre Bonnard, Pleasure:
Decorative Panel, or Games, 1906–10.
1897 (about the time of Mallarmé’s death) and 1916. The bucolic allegory of Antiquity
Oil on canvas, 96 7/8 x 1181/8 in. (246 x comes to life, but as a joke, in the diminutive theater of a bourgeois garden, and it often
300 cm). Private collection
37 �
� bon na r d
Fig. 38. Pierre Bonnard, Family Scene,

1892. Lithograph, 11 x 155/8 in. (27.9 x
39.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art,
New York; Lillie P. Bliss Collection
(by exchange) (570.1951)
verges on the grotesque, suggesting almost casually the death and nothingness lurking
within these playful little skits (notably in how the nude bodies, so dazzlingly white that
they appear flattened out, their heads sometimes cut off by shadows, seem pinned like
insects to a background teeming with grasses and foliage [fig. 39]). Here again Bonnard
Fig. 39. Pierre Bonnard, Marthe Stand-
is like Mallarmé, who considered that the advent of photography revealed our destiny ing in the Sunlight in the Garden at
as “empty forms of matter”;21 who observed it closely (in photographs by his friend Montval, 1900–1901. Albumen silver
Degas, for instance [fig. 40]) and made it resonate in his poems—as if, to quote Yves print from film negative, 11/2 x 13/8 in.
(3.8 x 3.5 cm). Musée d’Orsay, Paris;
Bonnefoy, he “wanted to return via the photographic ‘effect’ to the mute appearance of
gift of the children of Charles Ter-
things, performing an experiment in which the meaningless, hopeless absolute would rasse, with a life interest (inv. PHO
then be absorbed in his self-consciousness, now penetrated by its own Void.”22 Which 1987 31 34)
brings us to level two.
[ II ]
A different reading of Mallarmé,
a second level, shows through in
the works from the final period of
Bonnard’s life. But before get-
ting to that, let us acknowledge
the artist’s lifelong fidelity to the
poet, for even in Bonnard’s way
of living we can detect some of
Mallarmé’s delicate frailty (fig. 42)
and taste for reclusion, which sur-
face in a number of Bonnard’s
self-portraits (fig. 41). Both men
seem to have retreated from life in
order to delve more deeply into
a task at once humble and regal,
without being able to decide if it
was an ideal or merely a dream.
� 38
Bonnard was clearly aware of the parallel. In the fall of

1940 (which is to say, in exceptionally desperate historical
circumstances), he explicitly likened his endeavor to Mal-
larmé’s: first, on September 1, in his notebook (“Mallarmé.
Searching for the absolute”);23 then, on November 6, in
a letter to Matisse (“My work is not going too badly, and
I dream of seeking the absolute.”)24 We should note that
Bonnard was reading very little at the time, and that Mal-
larmé’s work (at least according to Thadée Natanson) was
practically all that still appealed to him. “Mallarmé is his
one true companion, whom he meets up with every day and
who gives him a pleasure equivalent to the one he gets from
his walks. The rest of his time is devoted to painting.”25 In
1944, the painter asked his nephew, Charles Terrasse, to
send him a volume by Mallarmé and another by Verlaine
from his Paris apartment. The following year, when the
first edition of Mallarmé’s complete works was published,
he read them avidly, including the texts that seemed the dri-
est and least meaningful. “He wrote me last year,” Thadée
Natanson noted in 1946, “about how much he was enjoying
it and how all of it enchanted him, even the English exer-
cises” (Les Mots anglais, the philology textbook the poet
had composed in 1875).26 Despite this, and to the surprise
of both Terrasse and Natanson, Bonnard never illustrated a
Fig. 40. Edgar Degas, Mallarmé and work by Mallarmé with those “vague and whimsical figures”
Renoir, 1895. Gelatin silver print,
15 x 11 ⅜ in. (38 x 29 cm). Bibliothèque that had earned him success as an illustrator during his Nabi
Littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris period.27 To regret this means not understanding that the late Bonnard was no longer
the young Nabi he once had been; it means not heeding the deep echoes of his thought
when he confided that reading Mallarmé was for him the “equivalent” of walking in his
Mediterranean garden.
What was the nature of this change? In 1911, Bonnard, writing to Maurice Denis
to thank him for sending his collection of articles, Théories, confessed his “melancholy
when I think of the days when theories had a certain importance for us.” And he added:
“The fact is, not only are those years long past, they no longer have any relation to us.”28
Alongside this, Bonnard’s drawings had clearly lost the “purity of workmanship” he had
once admired in his friend Vuillard; the quality of his line no longer expressed the desire
to possess reality in a single stroke and play with it (either to celebrate its hidden essence
or to reveal the Void within). Instead, the later drawings took on a muddled, fumbling
quality, the oddity of which was not lost on his friends. From the confident, master-
ful renderings of his Nabi period the artist had moved on to an intentionally weak,29
impoverished style, most often withdrawn in its own private sphere and ill suited for
exhibition or publication. Bonnard was no longer taking firm graphic stances but, rather,
shaping hesitation, imprecision, and indirection into a working method. From then on,
he “avoided drawing with a sustained line, preferring to stumble rather than draw too
fast or use embellishments,” and he developed a “horror of calligraphy.”30 At the same
time, his painting did not tip into Impressionism (which also eschewed firm contours).
More than ever, in fact, he continued to paint at a remove from his subjects, facing the
wall to which his unframed canvases were nailed, working on them for weeks or even
months at a time, in a ponderous meditation and secluded atmosphere that ran counter to
39 �
� bon na r d
Fig. 41. Pierre Bonnard, Self-

Portrait, 1930. Watercolor, gouache,
and pencil on paper, 255/8 x 195/8 in.
(65 x 50 cm). Triton Foundation,
The Netherlands
the Impressionists’ haste and love of the outdoors. What we can glean from this creation
by trial and error, in which Bonnard, enclosed in an interior space (both physical and
mental), decanted the essence of his first impressions, is that his painting never stopped
oscillating between an exaltation of the outdoors—the result of “constant contact with
nature” (flowers and fruits, landscapes, nude bodies)—and an anxiety, a feeling of dis-
tance or separation manifested in the uncanny strangeness of the ghostly shapes that
are latent in most of his compositions.31 Indeed, his flowers and fruits often seem about
to rot, his trees and bushes assume strangely clawlike shapes, grimaces appear unex-
pectedly on faces, and bodies strike often jarring postures of tragic struggle or huddled
panic. The terrors of the unconscious appear constantly to be prowling on the fringes
of reality, however graciously that reality might be transfigured by the use of color. We
might say, then, that Bonnard’s color, with its superimposed layers luminously blurring
the distinctive outlines of the motifs, aimed to reveal (but not to resolve) the contradic-
tion between the epiphany of nature as pure sensation and the constant contamination of
that sensation by phantasms, in a place where unconscious fears and desires obscurely
blend together.
It is hard not to see Mallarmé as an ally of Bonnard as he faced that contradiction: as
encouraging the artist to look at nature with a gaze devoid of subjectivity (and to develop
his aesthetic accordingly), and to equate this gaze with a kind of metaphysical salvation
that Bonnard called the “absolute.” The term is distinctly Mallarmé’s; the poet even
used it in his private correspondence, as when he wrote to J.-K. Huysmans in May 1884:
“And those flowers! It’s an absolute vision of everything which can reveal . . . the paradise
of pure sensation.”32 For this reason, it is imperative to recognize that in reading Mal-
larmé, Bonnard might well have understood “the search for the absolute” as something
other than a Neoplatonic quest for the “pure notion.” He might intuitively have grasped
what Yves Bonnefoy, bucking the usual interpretations, has been saying repeatedly for
the past fifteen years: that Mallarmé’s poetics, rather than passing through appearances
� 40
Fig. 42. Paul Nadar, Stéphane

Mallarmé in a Shawl, 1880–98.
Bibliothèque Littéraire Jacques
Doucet, Paris
to extract the ideal structure of Being via language, instead consists of an effort to reach
“pure perception, the perception of nothing but pure sensory data, of an appearance so
pure that it remains completely untouched by the reckonings of language.”33 Accord-
ing to Bonnefoy, Mallarmé suddenly came to this realization about 1866 following a
“uniquely radical” crisis, which left him convinced that every religious or metaphysical
proposition—indeed, the very principle of signification by means of language—was
misleading and vain.34 The resultant, dizzying experience of the Void, eroding any
horizon of meaning, laid the foundation for Mallarmé’s poetics: “an approach to Beauty
(what he will name Beauty) through a philosophy of the Void”—so long as we recog-
nize that this beauty, which the poet stripped of any conceptual dimension, remains at
a strictly sensory level. “So radical is the erasure of any conceptualization or verbaliza-
tion that intellect might impose on objects,” says Bonnefoy, “that these objects, now
liberated, appear to him in their fullest, most immediate sensory aspect.”35 Mallarmé’s
discovery of the Mediterranean in the spring of 1866 allowed him to complete his path
from the ordeal of the Void to a celebration of the beauty of appearances, independent
of metaphysics. In a letter to his friend Henri Cazalis on his return from Cannes, he first
admits that “we are merely empty forms of matter,” but then exclaims, “Oh, my friend,
how divine that earthly sky is!”36
We must underscore this new poetic duty of Mallarmé’s, which consisted of “try-
ing to be only his gaze”37 and, by bringing language to a point of extreme tension, of
revealing the external world as “absolute strangeness emanating from appearance.”38 As
such, Mallarmé’s work takes on a different cast: either one reads it as the collapse of all
meaning, or one discerns (but only fleetingly, like a horizon glimpsed and then concealed
anew) the “glory of the obvious that appears when phantoms dissipate,”39 when words
seem, paradoxically, to evoke the “silent obviousness” of “relations of beauty,” even if
there is “nothing to say” about them.40 Although Bonnard’s interpretation of Mallarmé,
more intuitive than logical, was probably not conceived in precisely these terms, we can
41 �
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assume that many texts by his favorite poet caught his attention precisely for this reason:
for their glorification of the purely visual, their ability to untie the knots of dreams and
thus to block the proliferation of meanings rising from the unconscious. As it is with the
eponymous hero of “The Afternoon of a Faun”—who having “sucked the brightness
out of grapes” and lifted “the empty cluster to the sky” blows “in laughter through the
luminous skins,” looking through them “till evening has drawn nigh”41—so it is with
the “pure poet” of the “Funereal Toast,” who “with large and humble gesture . . . must
stand guard against the dream as enemy to his trust,” preserving “those true groves”
from it.42 Hence these lines, in which Bonnard might have heard echoes of the same vic-
tory he sought in painting:
Oui, dans une île que l’air charge

De vue et non de visions
Toute fleur s’étalait plus large
Sans que nous en devisions.
Telles, immenses, que chacune

Ordinairement se para
D’un lucide contour, lacune
Qui des jardins la sépara.
[Yes, on an isle the air had charged

Not with visions but with sight,
The flowers displayed themselves enlarged
Without our ever mentioning it;
And so immense, each burgeoning shape,

It was habitually adorned
In such clear outline that a gap
Between it and the gardens formed.]43
Appealing to simple “sight” rather than to mental “visions” means undermining the
very integrity of creative subjectivity. It means that one could “drown” in the imperson-
ality of nature—but conversely, for both poet and painter, it could also mean surpassing
the “glorious lies” of ordinary language or academic depiction, to attain what Mallarmé
called “authenticity”44 and Bonnard, in a 1940 letter to Matisse, called being alive, or life
itself: “I see things differently every day, the sky, objects, everything changes continu-
ally; you can drown in it. But that’s what brings life.”45 By the same token, it means hop-
ing for the unadorned manifestation of a form of beauty independent of all knowledge,
bathing objects in an inexpressible strangeness that (as Mallarmé wrote) adorns them in a
“clear outline” and forms “a gap” between them and their surroundings. We see the same
phenomenon in the secular haloes shimmering around the subjects of certain Bonnard
canvases, such as The Table of 1925 (cat. no. 15). To quote David Sylvester: “Each plate
or dish or basket is an ellipse, a self-contained form, a form that is, so to speak, wrapped
up in itself. . . . And this emphasis on their self-containment is reinforced by the fact that
the brushstrokes of the tablecloth at the periphery of some of the ellipses also follow their
form, making a sort of aura round them.”46 We see it yet again when Mallarmé describes
the ability of Manet and the Impressionists “to make us understand when looking on the
� 42
most accustomed objects the delight that we should experience could we but see them for
the first time,”47 or when Bonnard expresses his desire “to show what one sees when one
enters a room all of a sudden.”48
The point here is not to ascribe the similarity between Mallarmé and the late-
period Bonnard merely to a mutual inclination for Impressionist aesthetics, but rather to
delve farther back and locate its origin in a shared philosophical intuition that predated
any aesthetic preference. Late in his life, the “pure notion” of the flower in “Crisis of
Verse,” the “very idea in its mellowness,” interested Bonnard not for its Neoplatonic
virtuality (as it had in his youth) but because Mallarmé placed it outside of all knowledge
(“insofar as it is something other than the known bloom”) even if designating this pure
appearance meant risking verbal aporia.49 In Bonnard’s canvases a visual aporia often
manifests itself in the difficulty (or impossibility) the viewer encounters when trying to
relate a given motif to a precise referent, even though the areas in question are not inten-
tionally abstract: nothing too problematic, at first blush; just small, indistinct areas that
keep one from identifying the layers of rumpled clothes over the back of a chair (Nude by
the Bathtub, 1931; see fig. 22); or that make a chair stand out where one least expects it to,
awkwardly and at a disproportionate scale (Still Life, ca. 1935, Centre Georges Pompi-
dou, Paris); or that cause the fruits in a basket (Basket of Fruit, 1936, Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge) or the trees and buildings seen through a window (Window Overlooking the
Garden at Le Cannet, ca. 1944, private collection) to blend together. Nonetheless, as most
commentators have pointed out,50 this is enough to slow our gaze, subtly yet durably,
to the point where we can no longer be sure of perceiving a clearly articulated series of
objects in space. This latent, unstable referentiality, which interferes with our instinc-
tive mimetic reading of images, is not so different from Mallarmé’s hermeticism, par-
ticularly at those moments when “his labyrinthine phrasings discourage intellection and
approach silence.”51 But in that case we must interpret Bonnard’s pictorial hermeticism
in terms different from the Nabis’ love of “obscurity.” We could say that the enigmatic
forms in Bonnard’s late work do not ask to be decoded, unlike his ironic and melancholic
rebuses from forty or fifty years before. Their indecipherable strangeness results from
the painter’s attempt to suppress anything that might contaminate the exercise of a pure
gaze devoid of conceptualization. It is an experience of willful impoverishment vis-à-vis
the real; a desire for dispossession that diametrically opposes five centuries of capturing
appearance by mimetic depiction, with all its techniques (perspective more geometrico
first and foremost); the emergence of a presence so overwhelmingly intense that it could
defeat any impetus forms might offer to help us read our world.
That said, Bonnard’s painting is not utopian. It does not aim, like “the Book” Mal-
larmé never wrote, to “abolish time,” but rather to mark a discreet pause: “the work of art,
a moment in time,” the painter noted in 1936.52 If reading Mallarmé helped convince Bon-
nard that a certain obscurity in expression was equivalent to the celebration of immediate
appearance, it was ultimately because he sought to excavate the contradiction inherent in
the process of creating a painted image—just as, before him, the poet had endeavored
to “quarry out the lines” of verse.53 His chronic difficulty finishing canvases—not unlike
Mallarmé’s meticulous and endless reworking of his major poems54—is explained by his
deepening awareness of the unbridgeable gap between the interiority of immediate sensa-
tion and the exteriority of the image. Bonnard’s paintings, particularly the later ones, mark
a “moment in time” in the sense that slowly, obstinately, they were developed on a stage
that hosts an eternal conflict: between the nocturnal density of unconscious representation,
where monsters prowl, and the transparency of a sensory being drowning in light.
43 �
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1. Verlaine had been elected in 1894. Upon his death, [unfinished work], in Mallarmé 1998–2003, vol. 1,
Léon Deschamps, editor of the Symbolist periodi- p. 563.
cal La Plume, organized a vote. Mallarmé was 16. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Paul Verlaine,
elected with a plurality of 27 votes out of 167. See November 16, 1885, in Mallarmé 1988, pp. 143–44.
Mallarmé 1998–2003, vol. 2, p. 1742.
17. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Odilon Redon, Feb-
2. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Crisis of Verse” [Divagations, ruary 2, 1885, in Mallarmé 1988, p. 140.
1897], in Mallarmé 2007, p. 210.
18. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Henri Cazalis, April
3. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe” 28, 1866, in Mallarmé 1988, p. 60: “I want to gaze
[E. Allan Poe: A Memorial Volume (Baltimore, 1877)], upon matter, fully conscious that it exists, and
in Mallarmé 1998–2003, vol. 1, pp. 38, 1456. yet launching itself madly into Dream, despite its
4. Mallarmé, “Crisis of Verse,” in Mallarmé 2007, knowledge that Dream has no existence, extolling
p. 205. the Soul and all the divine impressions of that kind
5. Maurice Denis, letter to Stéphane Mallarmé, July which have collected within us from the beginning
27, 1891, in Mallarmé 1981, p. 372. of time and proclaiming, in the face of the Void
which is truth, these glorious lies!”
6. See in particular Mallarmé’s letter of September
15, 1897, to Ambroise Vollard: “Yes, I would be 19. Stéphane Mallarmé, Igitur [unfinished work], in
delighted to have Vuillard illustrate that poem Mallarmé 1998–2003, vol. 1, pp. 498–99.
[“Hérodiade”]; why don’t you suggest it and just 20. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Dons de fruits glacés au
maybe he’ll give in to temptation, since he can do nouvel an,” in Mallarmé 1998–2003, vol. 1,
everything.” Mallarmé 1998–2003, vol. 1, p. 817. pp. 294–95.
7. Thadée Natanson, notably, mentions learning 21. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Henri Cazalis, April
“only much later that in school he had been passion- 28, 1866, in Mallarmé 1988, p. 60.
ate about philosophy, especially Greek.” Natanson 22. Yves Bonnefoy, “Igitur et le photographe” [1998],
1951, p. 20. in Bonnefoy 2002, p. 236.
8. Mallarmé, “Crisis of Verse,” in Mallarmé 2007, 23. “Mallarmé / La recherche de l’absolu.” Pierre
p. 210. Bonnard, September 1, 1940, in Paris, Washington,
9. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Édouard Vuillard, Septem- D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 199; translation from
ber 17, 1895, in Bonnard and Vuillard 2001, p. 34. Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 70.
10. Stéphane Mallarmé, “The Mystery in Letters” [La We can also attribute Bonnard’s rediscovery of
Revue blanche, September 1, 1896], in Mallarmé Mallarmé to the death of Vuillard on June 21, 1940.
2007, p. 231. In the July 15, 1896, issue of La Revue 24. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Henri Matisse, Novem-
blanche, Marcel Proust had published an article ber 6, 1940, in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, p. 73.
titled “Against Obscurity” [“Contre obscurité”], 25. Natanson 1951, p. 91.
which poked fun at Mallarmé’s Symbolist disciples.
26. Ibid., p. 169. Mallarmé’s complete works, edited
11. Bois 2006, p. 63. by Henri Mondor and Georges Jean-Aubry, were
12. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Henri Cazalis, Octo- published by Gallimard in 1945.
ber 30, 1864, in Mallarmé 1988, p. 39. 27. Charles Terrasse, letter to Pierre Bonnard, Febru-
13. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Her pure nails on high dis- ary 19, 1944, quoted in Terrasse, A. 1988, p. 297:
playing their onyx . . .” [“Ses purs ongles très haut “I’m amazed you never thought of illustrating Mal-
dédiant leur onyx . . .”], in Mallarmé 1994, p. 69. larmé’s poems with your vague and whimsical fig-
See also the famous lines from “Hérodiade”: “Ô ures. But maybe I’m mistaken . . . ” See also Thadée
miroir! / Eau froide par l’ennui dans ton cadre Natanson: “Nor, to date [1946], has Bonnard inter-
gelée / Que de fois et pendant des heures, désolée / preted either the complete works or even a single
Des songes et cherchant mes souvenirs qui sont / sonnet by Mallarmé. At least, not to my knowl-
Comme des feuilles sous ta glace au trou profond, / edge. Still, he has devoted not inconsiderable time
Je m’apparus en toi comme une ombre lointaine, / to the writer, even though, when the poet was still
Mais, horreur! des soirs, dans ta sévère fontaine, / alive, he saw him much less than Vuillard did.”
J’ai de mon rêve épars connu la nudité!” [“Mirror, Natanson 1951, p. 169.
cold water frozen in your frame / Through ennui, 28. Pierre Bonnard, undated letter to Maurice Denis
how many times I came, / Desolate from dreams [1911], quoted in Munck 2006, p. 85 n. 5.
and seeking memories / Like leaves beneath your
29. See this remark by Bonnard from 1943: “I, how-
chill profundities, / A far-off shadow to appear
ever, am very weak. I find it difficult to control
in you: / But, oh! Some evenings in your austere
myself when my subject is right in front of me.”
pool, / I’ve glimpsed the Ideal in all its naked-
Lamotte and Bonnard 1947, unpaged, translation
ness!”]. Mallarmé 1994, pp. 30–31.
from Anthonioz 1988, p. 178.
14. Mallarmé, “Her pure nails on high . . . ,” in Mal-
30. Natanson 1951, p. 200. Later (p. 202) Natanson
larmé 1994, p. 69 [translation revised].
again stresses: “From among the lines in which
15. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Notes en vue du ‘Livre’” he conceals the disorder of his feelings, Bonnard
� 44
carefully chooses the most expressive, which are A parallel with Bonnard’s feeling of drowning
not the best rendered; moreover, he doesn’t so (in other words, of disintegration of the Self) can
much command them as he lets himself be led. be found in Mallarmé, when, during his crisis of
He is ever on guard against fatal reminiscences 1866–67, he told his friend Cazalis: “I am now
and the dangerous example of so-called elegant impersonal and no longer the Stéphane that you
penmanship.” knew—but a capacity possessed by the spiritual
31. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Henri Matisse, end of Universe to see itself and develop itself, through
February 1941, in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, what was once me. My earthly being is so fragile
pp. 80–81. Bonnard states that contact with nature that I can bear only those developments which are
“constitutes the basis of [his] existence.” absolutely necessary if the Universe is to find, in
me, its own identity.” Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to
32. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Joris-Karl Huysmans,
Henri Cazalis, May 14, 1867, in Mallarmé 1988,
May 18, 1884 [regarding Huysmans’s novel À
pp. 74–75.
rebours], in Mallarmé 1988, p. 135.
46. Sylvester 1962, p. 107. See also Bois 2006, p. 54.
33. Yves Bonnefoy, “Igitur et le photographe,” in
Bonnefoy 2002, pp. 222–23. 47. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Les Impressionnistes et
Édouard Manet” [The Art Monthly Review (Sep-
34. Ibid., p. 211. On this crisis, see also Yves Bonnefoy,
tember 30, 1876)]. The original French text was
“L’unique et son interlocuteur” [1995], in Bonnefoy
lost; the passage is quoted as it appeared in English
2002, pp. 285–86.
translation in 1876; Mallarmé 1998–2003, vol. 2,
35. Yves Bonnefoy, “Igitur et le photographe,” in p. 466.
Bonnefoy 2002, p. 209.
48. Remark quoted in Clair 1984a, p. 19; translation
36. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Henri Cazalis, April from Clair 1984b, p. 32; see also Elderfield 1998,
28, 1866, in Mallarmé 1988, pp. 60–61. p. 49 n. 12.
37. Yves Bonnefoy, “La clef de la dernière cassette” 49. I am basing these remarks on Yves Bonnefoy’s
[1992], in Bonnefoy 2002, p. 202. analysis in “La clef de la dernière cassette,” in
38. Yves Bonnefoy, “Igitur et le photographe,” in Bonnefoy 2002, pp. 190–91.
Bonnefoy 2002, p. 216. 50. See, especially, Bois 2006, p. 59, where he dis-
39. Ibid., p. 233. cusses Basket of Fruit.
40. Yves Bonnefoy, “L’or du futile” [1996], in Bon- 51. Yves Bonnefoy, “Igitur et le photographe,” in
nefoy 2002, p. 251. Bonnefoy 2002, p. 226.
41. Stéphane Mallarmé, “The Afternoon of a Faun” 52. “L’oeuvre d’art: un arrêt du temps.” Pierre Bonnard,
[“L’Après-midi d’un faune”], in Mallarmé 1994, November 16, 1936, in Paris, Washington, D.C.,
p. 40. and Dallas 1984a, p. 195; translation from Paris,
42. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Funereal Toast” [“Toast Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 70.
funèbre,” in Le Tombeau de Théophile Gautier, 53. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Henri Cazalis, April
1873], in Mallarmé 1994, p. 45. 28, 1866, in Mallarmé 1988, p. 60: “Unfortunately,
43. Stéphane Mallarmé, “Prose (for des Esseintes)” in the course of quarrying out the lines to this
[“Prose (pour des Esseintes),” La Revue indépen- extent, I’ve come across two abysses, which fill me
dante, January 1885], in Mallarmé 1994, pp. 46–47. with despair. One is the Void, which I’ve reached
without any knowledge of Buddhism.” The second
44. See his definition of poetry from 1886: “Poetry is abyss Mallarmé alludes to concerned his physical
the expression, by human language reduced to its health.
essential rhythm, of the mysterious meaning of
aspects of existence: as such, it endows our earthly 54. Mallarmé worked sporadically on “Hérodiade”
sojourn with authenticity and constitutes the sole from 1865 until his death, and on “The Afternoon
intellectual endeavor.” Stéphane Mallarmé, reply of a Faun” from 1865 to 1876. Most of the poems
to the survey “Définissez la poésie” [La Vogue, included in the 1887 Poésies had also undergone
no. 3, April 18, 1886], in Mallarmé 1998–2003, extensive revision, to which we can add countless
vol. 2, p. 657. unfinished drafts and posthumous works.
45. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Henri Matisse, early

spring 1940, in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, p. 62.
45 �
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� 46
Bonnard in the History of
Twentieth-Century Art
Jac k F l a m
[I]
A lthough Pierre Bonnard is one of the most familiar names among modern
painters, his place in the history of twentieth-century art remains uncertain.
There are, as we shall see, a number of reasons for this—one of which was
nicely suggested to me by Pierre Courthion, the author of numerous books and articles
about both Bonnard and Henri Matisse. Courthion described an encounter with each of
the two artists. The first was with Bonnard, whom he was supposed to meet in the lobby
of a hotel. He took special pains to arrive on time, but when the hour of their appoint-
ment passed, Bonnard did not appear. Courthion, fearful that he had misunderstood the
time or gone to the wrong place, began to walk around the lobby. And there, off in a
corner, he came upon Bonnard, who had been quietly sitting and waiting for him, nearly
invisible. Courthion’s meeting with Matisse, in the lobby of the Hotel Regina in Nice,
was a completely different affair. Prompt as ever, Courthion arrived early and seated
himself in an armchair. At exactly the appointed hour, he caught sight of Matisse sweep-
ing down the grand staircase with seigneurial self-assurance and remarkable presence,
an elegant cape trailing in his wake. There was no way of missing or overlooking Henri
Matisse, Courthion remarked, noting that it would be hard to imagine two men who
made such different impressions.1
Something of the effect that the two artists had on Courthion is apparent in their
works. The ways they present themselves in their self-portraits, for example, are so dif-
ferent in spirit that they appear almost to embody opposing attitudes to self-awareness
and self-definition. Matisse’s self-portraits, even the slightest pencil drawings, are full
of self-assertion. Although he catches himself in different moods and is fascinated by
the variety of ways in which his physical appearance and inner identity can be presented
to the eye, our sense of his personality and presence remains firmly fixed. In Bonnard’s
images of himself, by contrast, the artist explores his physical appearance in the most
tentative manner, and you come away from these images not quite sure of what he actu-
ally looks like. It is as if the “invisibility”of Bonnard is apparent even in his self-portraits,
where we sense a strong human presence but do not see an easily recognizable or memo-
rable visage. In some of them, such as Self-Portrait of about 1938–40 (cat. no. 74), the
forms of his face take shape right before our eyes. In effect, he is questioning rather than
declaring the nature of his identity, as if asking himself whether he really exists.
This, it seems to me, is directly related to another way in which Bonnard is
invisible—from the history of twentieth-century art. He just does not fit into the master
Fig. 43. Detail, The Studio narrative, which was constructed by critics and historians who saw modern art largely
with Mimosa, 1939–46 (fig. 45) in terms of a succession of movements that implied a progressive evolution. As a result,
47 �
� bon na r d
although Bonnard is highly regarded by painters—and painters working in many dif-

ferent styles—his work is usually marginalized in written histories, where discussion
of it is often limited to his early pictures and his association with the Nabis. He receives
no better treatment in the academy, where many people who teach general courses in
twentieth-century art simply leave him out.2
In terms of historical evaluation, there are some interesting parallels between the
careers of Bonnard and Matisse. Perhaps this is because they stand apart from those pro-
gressive painters who expunged narrative subjects from painting early in the last century
for having done so primarily with color, and for having made painting breathe in a new
way: not in distinct, constructed sections, but organically, as if infused by a respira-
tory system. The skins of their paintings have lives of their own, almost independent of
what is represented, creating a fluid, synergistic relationship among forms, objects, and
empty spaces. Hence, although both painted many still lifes, the inanimate objects in
their paintings do not remain “still.” They breathe, they vibrate, they interact with each
other and with the spaces around them; they seem at times to be livelier than the figures
that cohabit the rooms in which they are placed.
Both Bonnard and Matisse were preoccupied with expressing themselves largely
through the process of painting itself. So when we view their paintings, we have to pay
close attention to technical details—to the subtleties of touch, to the body and texture
and layering of the paint—as well as to the placement of the forms. We also have to
be alert to the ways in which visual echoes and rhymes can modulate and enrich both
the formal and psychological relationships among the various things represented. For
Bonnard and Matisse, more than for most artists, the physical substance of the colored
pigment, and the visible evidence of the resistance that the act of painting gives to repre-
sentation, are integral parts of the “subject.” The deeply pictorial qualities of their works
have tended to blind viewers to their more than “merely visual” meanings and have had
a deleterious effect on their critical reception.
Both artists had unfortunate critical myths built around them during their own
lifetimes. In Matisse’s case these myths began to be challenged seriously only during the
1970s, and in Bonnard’s case they have survived more or less intact until the present. In
the same way that Matisse was for many years thought of as the painter of “the good arm-
chair,” a mere decorator whose work was charming but in no way profound, Bonnard,
too, was regarded as an “easy” painter, a lightweight. His painting, moreover, was seen
as anachronistic—a blend of Impressionist brushwork and bland domestic subjects that
seemed to reflect a quaint and compromised modernism outside the significant develop-
ments in the history of modern art. (In fact, as we shall see, he was anomalous rather
than anachronistic, and it is this oddity that even now makes him so hard to place.)
“How to explain the growing reputation of Bonnard’s work?” Christian Zervos
wrote in Cahiers d’art shortly after Bonnard’s death. “When carefully examined, it is
obvious that this reverence is shared only by men who know nothing about the grave
difficulties of art and cling above all to what is facile and agreeable.”3 In response to this
statement, Matisse, who had been especially friendly with Bonnard during the war years,
wrote an angry rebuttal; Pierre Matisse said that he had seldom seen his father so angry.
And although Matisse’s heated defense of Bonnard was surely motivated by friendship,
respect for his work, and a sense of justice, it was probably also fueled by his memory of
the many similar statements that had been made about his own art.
The mixed critical receptions accorded both Bonnard and Matisse, I believe, were
related to the particular, often unexpected, demands that looking at their works make
on the viewer, and to the way they both stood apart from the major “isms” of twentieth-
� 48
Bonnard in the History of Twentieth-Century Art �
century art. To make matters worse, both were also saddled with clichéd stylistic desig-
nations based on their early work (Bonnard with the Nabis, Matisse with the Fauves) that
followed them throughout their lives. At a time when so much critical and art historical
thinking was framed in terms of movements, both artists were notably difficult to relate
to the “major currents,” and both appeared to have missed the boat with regard to Cub-
ism, the most influential and most aggressively “modern” of all those movements. As a
result, both were long associated with what appeared to be an ingrained conservatism. If,
as Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote in 1912, “at present Cubism is painting itself,”
then Matisse, and especially Bonnard, were clearly not practicing the current version of
“painting itself.”4 In somewhat different ways, neither seemed to be completely modern.
Their reputations were also affected by the paradigm of Pablo Picasso as the
“greatest artist of the century,” as he was then widely acknowledged to be. Compared
with the direct, narrative quality of so much of Picasso’s work, the subject matter of
both Matisse and Bonnard struck many observers as quite bland. While Picasso’s work
often employed overtly symbolic forms and subjects and was deeply engaged with the
contemporary world, with history in the making, Bonnard and Matisse seemed to be
content with representing the banal surface of everyday life, apparently as oblivious of
symbolic form as of the political and social issues that troubled the world around them.
And whereas Picasso’s work inspired a great deal of varied and articulate commentary,
the paintings of both Bonnard and Matisse were so intensely visual they were difficult to
talk or write about; an adequate vocabulary for doing so had not yet been invented.
Clichés about the three men’s personalities also played a significant role in the
evaluations of their art. Picasso was hailed as the socially engaged philosopher, whose
art faced up to the major spiritual conflicts of his time, while Bonnard and Matisse were
considered solitary aesthetes who painted only life’s pleasures. They were painters of
“happiness,” as was often said.
If Matisse was for a long time overshadowed by Picasso, Bonnard, in turn, was
eclipsed by Matisse. Once again, judgments about the work were influenced by the dif-
ferences in their personalities: Matisse apparently so sure of himself, Bonnard so excru-
ciatingly timid and retiring. Such evaluations also involved the ways in which their work
developed: Matisse inventing greatly varied pictorial languages, Bonnard working in a
fairly narrow stylistic range; Matisse constantly renewing himself, constantly evolving
(even at times, as during the 1920s, when he seemed to be evolving backward), Bonnard
cautious and tending to repeat himself. In contrast to Matisse, whose artistic stature and
historical importance have grown steadily during the past fifty years or so, Bonnard is
generally still seen as a painter who somehow managed to produce good work despite
his historical irrelevance, his timidity, and his Post-Impressionist style. In brief, a gifted
minor artist.
Several factors lie behind this judgment. Some are art historical, some aesthetic,
and some ideological.
[ II ]
The art historical situation is the one that is perhaps most easily described. Although
Matisse was only two years younger than Bonnard, he came to his first artistic maturity
several years later, about 1905, somewhat after what is often regarded as the “height” of
Bonnard’s career. Matisse, a late starter and slow developer, was literally still a student
at the time Bonnard had his first one-artist show. (And around the turn of the century,
Matisse was quite clearly influenced by the flat patterning, high viewpoint, and dense
paint application of the pictures Bonnard had done during the 1890s.)
49 �
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By 1905, however, about the time the two artists first met, their relative status
began to change. While Bonnard was still associated with the painting of the fin de
siècle, Matisse moved into a position of avant-garde prominence, especially after the
1905 Salon d’Automne, where he showed such radical works as The Woman with the Hat
(San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and Open Window, Collioure (National Gallery
of Art, Washington, D.C.). The rising of Matisse’s star at this time, and the decline of
Bonnard’s, was related to the inventive way that Matisse reacted against the kind of late
Impressionism that Bonnard was practicing, which was based on detailed rendering of the
fleeting effects of light and on the evocation of a specific moment in time. By 1908, when
Matisse published “Notes of a Painter,” he had formulated a very different approach to
painting, which involved rendering the “essential character” of things and representing
them out of time: “Underlying this succession of moments which constitutes the superfi-
cial existence of beings and things,” Matisse wrote, “and which is continually modifying
and transforming them, one can search for a truer, more essential character, which the
artist will seize so that he may give to reality a more lasting interpretation.”5 Matisse’s
dissatisfaction with Impressionism led him to distill the essential properties of things
into abbreviated, abstracted images of them—what he called “that state of condensation
of sensations which constitutes a picture.”6 He sought a kind of timeless absolute.
But since Matisse’s pictorial imagination needed the stimulation of direct con-
tact with objects, he continued to paint directly from nature, reconceiving the essential
character of the objects he was painting in accordance with the pictorial dynamics and
demands of each individual work. Hence the essentialized image of the same thing could
be very different in different pictures. If the forms that he was inventing were in a sense
absolutes, they were, paradoxically, “relative absolutes”: shaped by the demands of each
individual picture. Between 1907 and 1917, Matisse produced paintings of astonishing
force, inventiveness, and variety. But that same period also witnessed the rise of Cubism
and of the related, overtly conceptual styles that came to dominate avant-garde thought
and practice. As a result, by 1912 Matisse’s approach to painting was widely regarded as
superseded, even though for the rest of his life he was periodically admitted back into
the avant-garde orbit.
About the same time, in 1912, Bonnard started to take stock of the pictorial revolu-
tion that was taking place around him and began to seek a different balance between the
color and compositional structure of his paintings. But he did so in such an idiosyncratic
way that it escaped the attention of most observers. Although his compositions became
more austerely structured, and his paint application more varied, he remained associ-
ated with a kind of bourgeois “drawing room” painting. To most observers, he seemed
locked within the same historical bubble as Édouard Vuillard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, and
other artists associated with La Revue blanche.
Despite the increased attention that has been given to Bonnard’s work in recent
years, this retrograde stature is still expressed in a number of different ways. In Paris,
for example, several of his later works, from the 1910s or 1920s, are exhibited not at the
Centre Pompidou but at the Musée d’Orsay, thus emphasizing his connection to the
nineteenth century.7 Exhibitions of his work often reinforce this impression. The retro-
spective exhibition “Bonnard: The Late Paintings,” which was shown in Paris, Wash-
ington, D.C., and Dallas in 1984, and which was an implicit response to this state of
affairs (that is, the need to affirm that there was a significant “late” Bonnard), nonethe-
less included works from as early as 1900, when, according to the catalogue, his “late”
work was deemed to begin: that is, about the time that he began to be forgotten by
history. Although the catalogue for that show made it clear that Bonnard’s position
� 50
among twentieth-century artists needed to be reevaluated, after an initial flurry of

activity he sank back to his ambivalent and rather middling position within the hier-
archy of twentieth-century painters, despite the publication of important texts by Jean
Clair and, later, by John Elderfield that reevaluated his position.8 A similarly dispersed
effect was created by the recent, thematically arranged Bonnard exhibition at the Musée
d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, where emphasis was given to his early decorative
compositions, and which projected little sense of his artistic importance or chronologi-
cal development. Although the catalogue contained an excellent text on the late work by
Yve-Alain Bois, the exhibition itself did not make a compelling case for the paintings
done after the mid-1920s, which are arguably Bonnard’s greatest works.9
��
What we might call the aesthetic situation is somewhat more complicated. To begin with,
we generally expect painting to direct our attention, but Bonnard disperses it. Moreover, he
does so in a way that is especially difficult because the sense of dispersion and ambivalence
in his paintings forces us to slow down our viewing and to regard his works in meticulous
detail; they resist being taken in at a single glance. They seem to be not only delimited
in space, but enveloped in time. This is one of the principal differences between Bonnard
and Matisse. Matisse’s paintings, despite their painterly complexity, make an immediate
overall impression and can be taken in quickly as a whole. Bonnard’s paintings can rarely
be taken in so quickly; they force us to navigate painstakingly through their intricate
spatial construction, their dense layerings of sometimes opaque, sometimes translucent
marks, and through the complexity of their implied temporal constructs. This difference
between the two artists has been nicely described by John Elderfield, who notes that our
first impression of a Matisse painting goes on “resonating even as the beholder continues
to contemplate the image; indeed, even after he has ceased to contemplate it. For Bonnard,
the image is more important as a present experience than it is for Matisse, which is why his
paintings are the more difficult to remember.”10 As a corollary to this, I find that when I
look at Matisse’s paintings, I want to see them from very close up and also from a distance.
When I look at a Bonnard, even a large one, I find that I rarely want to back very far away
from it; to do so would be to move outside the self-contained temporal envelope that the
painting creates for itself and which extends outward only so far as to encompass the
viewer. Bonnard’s paintings either engulf us in their own world or leave us indifferent;
casual viewing is not a very rewarding alternative.11
As may be imagined, the qualities that I am describing do not reproduce very well,
either in black and white or in color. (Matisse, on the other hand, reproduces reasonably
well even in black and white.) And since so much art writing is done from reproduc-
tions, the intricate nature of Bonnard’s work puts him at a great disadvantage. Moreover,
given the blandness of Bonnard’s subjects—a bowl of fruit in front of an open window,
a woman seated at a table, some people in a garden—on first viewing his pictures seem
to be entirely predictable; as a result, many of them initially lull us into a feeling of com-
placency. Only after extended looking does it become apparent how strange and surpris-
ing they are. Only then does their effect of suspended resolution begin fully to resonate.
Only then do you realize that the obsessive proliferation of brushstrokes that constitutes
the picture will never achieve closure, that what appears at first to be an accumulation of
meticulous detail is to an equal degree a deconstruction of detail, and that the carefully
calibrated relationships between spaces and objects are meant to pull things apart as well
as bring them together. Only after prolonged looking do you realize how complex, con-
tradictory, and difficult Bonnard’s paintings actually are.
51 �
� bon na r d
Often, when you stand before one of Bonnard’s paintings, the whole spatial struc-
ture seems to buckle; empty spaces can appear to bulge forward, while solid objects
appear almost concave; space itself is virtually warped by the dense presence of time
made visible in the throbbing presence of the paint film.12 In The Breakfast Table of 1936
(cat. no. 55), for example, the window view, the adjoining wall, and the open door appear
to undulate irregularly toward and away from the table and the picture plane. Only after
a while do you realize that there are two figures in the painting, and that both of them—
the woman seated next to the window and a spectral person who seems inseparable from
the blazing luminosity of the picture plane—are at the same time disturbingly stiff and
elusively ethereal. Here, as in so many of Bonnard’s works, the world that he presents
to us is oddly provisional, and in a curious way the tremulous facture both carries aloft
and muffles the cri de coeur that it contains. His paintings have a dense, numinous qual-
ity that makes them seem to be evocations not only of the things we see, but also of the
memories and specters of other presences, which we intuit but that are not clearly visible.
In Bonnard’s paintings, real time and memory are intermingled in such a way as to be
nearly indistinguishable.
A sense of memory captured within ongoing time, as if caught in the process of
formation, plays a capital role in Bonnard’s later pictures.13 Often, it seems as if the pic-
ture itself is an accumulation of fragments of evolving consciousness. It is this tension
between our sense that we are looking at representations of real things and our feeling
that we are also looking at the apparitions or memories of things that gives his paintings
such a haunting quality and such a strong feeling of incertitude, both spatial and psycho-
logical. Bonnard’s paintings are in a sense entropic constructions, where the constituent
elements appear to be in constant flux, and in which the things of the world are repre-
sented as if they are continually coming into and fading from our conscious awareness.
The relationship between color and drawing in Bonnard’s late paintings is a
crucial part of his achievement, for he balanced them in a way that is unique among
modern artists. In his late pictures especially, the limits of things abut each other
in a pliant, contingent, somewhat approximate way. The forms ebb and flow at
their edges so that the boundaries between things, and between things and empti-
ness, are constantly modulated and qualified. This makes it difficult to distinguish
between the processes of painting and drawing per se, and it also calls into ques-
tion the whole notion of finish, since drawing and color are often set in an unre-
solved—and indeed in a willfully unresolvable—tension. The linear descriptions
of the objects are carried just so far, to the point where they verge on asserting
themselves but are constantly held in check by the uneven way that pressures are
exerted by the colored paint film. The graphic definition of the things depicted is
reduced, but not quite effaced. It reasserts itself in an oddly irregular way, so that
linear definition never entirely disappears, causing us constantly to wonder, Where
do things begin and end?—and, frequently, to puzzle over exactly what is being rep-
resented. (Bonnard’s pictures are full of mysteriously unidentifiable objects, often
set in the foreground, right under our noses.) The “drawn” content of Bonnard’s
paintings is thus inextricable from the painted elements. The world so depicted seems
caught up in a cyclical process of formation and disintegration, in which there is little
place for the kinds of stable representations that lend themselves to purely graphic
delineation.
It is no wonder that Matisse addressed his most elaborate complaint about the rela-
tionship between painting and drawing to Bonnard, in his now famous letter of January
13, 1940, in which he tells his friend that his drawing and his painting are separating:
� 52
My drawing suits me because it renders what I specifically feel. But my painting is ham-
pered by the new conventions of flat areas of color, which I must use exclusively to express
myself, with local tones only, no shadows or surface relief that might react on each other
to suggest light and spiritual space. That hardly suits my spontaneity, which makes me
discard a time-consuming work in a minute because I reconceive my picture several times
as it’s being painted without really knowing where I am going, relying on my instinct.
I’ve found a way of drawing that, after preparatory work, has a spontaneity that releases
just what I feel, but this method is exclusively for me, as artist and as viewer. A colorist’s
drawing is not a painting. One must produce an equivalent in color. And that’s what I’m
not managing to do.14
The search for such an equilibrium was a problem that had vexed Matisse for
decades. Throughout his career, he moved back and forth between two polarities: the
first, a painterly, modeled procedure in which he painted and drew at the same time; the
second, a planar approach where the color was applied in relation to already established
linear boundaries. Bonnard’s late paintings appeared to have resolved this issue in a
seamless way, but one that was closed to Matisse, for whom drawing was always an inci-
sive act rather than the tentative, somewhat digressive procedure it was for Bonnard.15
Very likely, it was Bonnard’s example that helped push Matisse toward the interiors of
the late 1940s, which often contain their own kinds of spectral presences, as in Large
Interior in Red (fig. 44), and which eventually led to the new kind of “cutting directly
into color” that he achieved in the paper cutouts.16 In return, a good deal of Matisse’s
Fig. 44. Henri Matisse, Large Interior
boldness rubbed off on Bonnard during the 1940s, as seen in the expansive design and
in Red, 1948. Oil on canvas, 571/2 x
381/4 in. (146 x 97 cm). Centre Georges resonantly bright colors of paintings such as Bouquet of Mimosas (cat. no. 58) and,
Pompidou, Musée National d’Art especially, The Studio with Mimosa (fig. 45).
Moderne, Paris The suspensions of formal resolution in Bonnard’s pictures
help to create the subtle psychological shifts in consciousness
that are unique to them. These suspensions also set the stage for one
of their most striking features: the way that as you look at one of
his paintings, you often suddenly become aware of the presence
of a human figure (or of an animal) whom at first you did not see,
and who appears to look back at you, quietly mirroring your own
silent act of contemplation. (This unsettling effect is built right
into the structure of the paintings; each time we regard such a
picture, the same figure reappears, as if from nowhere, with the
same surprising, catlike suddenness.) Such a tangible manifesta-
tion of the tension between what is consciously seen and what is
unconsciously felt has the uncanny effect of making the world
seem somehow to be inhabited by spectral presences who only
intermittently show themselves. (I think again of Bonnard sitting
quietly in the hotel lobby, initially lost to view.) The painter, we
sense, is using his banal, everyday subject matter not so much
to celebrate the commonplace as to show how strange it really
is. Moreover, if we look carefully at the way people are drawn in
Bonnard’s paintings, we are often struck by the monstrousness of
their faces—mouths awry, features nearly obliterated—and by the
extreme awkwardness of the poses: bodies possessed by preter-
natural stiffness or made menacing by being darkly silhouetted.
Because Bonnard paid so much attention to specific details
and to what appear to be the fleeting effects of light, his paintings
53 �
� bon na r d
look as if they were painted from nature. He

did not, however, work directly from life, but
from a combination of memory, imagination,
drawings, and photographs—with occasional
sidelong glances at his motifs. (This is quite
the opposite of Matisse, whose boldly brushed
works, though painted from nature, often seem
to be entirely made up.) Bonnard professed a
real aversion to standing before the objects he
was painting, and to ensure that he would not
be distracted by the real world as he worked,
he painted on pieces of unstretched canvas
that were tacked to the wall.17 This allowed
him to adjust the sizes and proportions of his
pictures as they developed, and to disassoci-
ate his canvases physically from the world they
depicted by not being placed on an easel in the
middle of it (see the essay by Dita Amory in
this volume).
Knowing that Bonnard’s paintings are
imaginative constructions, not transcriptions
of things he was looking at directly, reinforces
Fig. 45. Pierre Bonnard, The Studio
my conviction that in painting these unex- with Mimosa, 1939–46. Oil on canvas,
pected combinations of things and presences, Bonnard was interested not so much in the 501/4 x 501/4 in. (127.5 x 127.5 cm).
fleeting, aleatory aspects of visual experience as in the interactions between conscious Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée
National d’Art Moderne, Paris
thought and unconscious perception. The more one looks at Bonnard’s late paintings
(and a number of the earlier ones, too), the more they seem like evocations of a dream
state, or in any case of a kind of reverie, which wanders back and forth between—and
inextricably mixes—conscious and unconscious thought. The way his paintings slow
down our process of viewing, the perspectival and structural contradictions they con-
tain, even the difficulty we have in identifying certain objects, suggest another level of
consciousness, a mental world that imposes its own structure of time and memory upon
the objects of everyday life.
��
Important aspects of the meaning and depth of Bonnard’s work were for a long time
overlooked precisely because they are so subtly expressed, and so evanescent. His indi-
rectness, which is such an integral part of his means of expression, was often seen simply
as evidence of his indecisiveness. Picasso, exemplar of a very different kind of painting,
famously criticized Bonnard for such an approach, which he saw as weak and indecisive:
“He doesn’t know how to choose.”18 For Picasso, painting was a matter of making declar-
ative statements, as firmly and as strongly as possible, and the indirectness of Bonnard’s
work was anathema: “That’s not painting, what he does.”19 What Picasso and a number
of like-minded critics found least tolerable in Bonnard’s painting was in fact one of its
greatest strengths: an openness to that which is undecipherable in the world, to the con-
tingency not only of vision but of existence itself. It is this balance between the haltingly
achieved illusion of light and atmosphere and the painstakingly digressive accretion of
the paint substance that imbues Bonnard’s depictions of commonplace scenes with their
enduring mystery and existential disquiet.
� 54
Picasso himself, of course, was a master of ambiguity, and so presumably what

annoyed him was not that Bonnard was being ambiguous, but that his ambiguity was—
if one can put it this way—not clearly stated. That is, Bonnard’s ambiguity was not
graphic or semiotically evident; it did not announce itself, and was not clearly definable.
While Picasso was a master of graphic ambiguity, the inventor of complex linear sign
languages, to which color is often merely incidental, Bonnard was something like the
opposite. In his paintings, the color field ebbs and flows against the graphic notations
that delineate objects and, ultimately, holds them at bay. In a very real sense, Bonnard’s
paintings are purposely not resolved. If they look as if he could keep adding to them
indefinitely, it is because their openness is an essential part of their meaning. (Matisse, by
contrast, stopped work on a painting just before it was done, producing a very different
kind of open effect.)20
��
If Bonnard’s paintings propose a different kind of modernity from the main movements
of the early twentieth century, they also created a rather different legacy: the art of Mark
Rothko, color-field painting, and postpainterly abstraction all owe a good deal to him. (Per-
haps not coincidentally, the latter two are also currently considered marginal to the history
of late-twentieth-century art.) What might be called the ideological situation of Bonnard’s
art is in good measure related to this. His painting does not conform to the criteria that the
history and criticism of modern art have found useful to further their own enterprise.
Bonnard’s painting does not reproduce very well, and it does not easily lend itself
to purely formal description, semiological analysis, or easily summarized ideas; Bon-
nard, moreover, was not an inventor of “signs.” In effect, his painting fairly defies the
whole notion of visual signs. A sign condenses into a single form complex elements of
perceptual and conceptual experience; it synthesizes them into discrete, graspable forms,
based on what Matisse called their “essential character, which the artist will seize so that
he may give to reality a more lasting interpretation.” But Bonnard’s entire enterprise is
based on something like the opposite: not on seizing things but on dispersing them; and
on permanently delaying—even foiling—a unifying synthesis by keeping things fluid,
by keeping contradictions actively unresolved, choices indefinitely postponed.21
A sense of the unexpected permeates Bonnard’s oeuvre and keeps us constantly
a bit off balance: not only the unexpected viewpoints or the unexpected presence of
people or dogs or cats, but most especially the unexpected contrast between the bland-
ness of what is being represented and the intense way the paint itself is applied. A great
deal of the considerable intensity of Bonnard’s late paintings is quite literally carried
by the film of paint into which the images are embedded. The formal qualities of his
pictures (such as paint texture, relative translucency, color, and surface pattern) are
played against their descriptive elements in a finely balanced way. As a result, the
specific figures and things represented in his pictures seem to be suspended in a kind
of rarefied, incandescent single substance that is not quite light, not quite matter, nor
anymore quite just paint.
[ III ]
When we judge recent art we implicitly face the question of what we see as the main
direction or thrust of the art that has come before and after it, and thereby what we see as
its place in what we call “history.” Here, as we have seen, Bonnard occupies a somewhat
curious position. For if history is seen as a progression forward along paths that have
55 �
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already been charted—say, from Realism through Impressionism to Cubism, Futurism,

and Surrealism—then Bonnard indeed appears to be outside the mainstream of history.
But if the patterns of history are more complex than that—if what has lingered at the
side of the flow, and which may seem idiosyncratic or obsessional, is also part of living
history—then Bonnard’s place needs to be reconsidered.
That Bonnard’s work does not fit into the history of twentieth-century art as it
is now written tells us something about the limitations inherent in the usual narrative
of that history, which has not wanted to leave much room for accounts of modesty and
deflected attention; or for art that insists on rendering the tangible world with great
complexity, or that reproduces poorly, or that demands the kind of concentrated atten-
tion that comes only from prolonged viewing. The standard historical narrative, based
on a succession of supposedly progressive formal developments, is hard pressed to make
room for certain kinds of “mentalities.” As a result, it keeps works such as Bonnard’s
self-contained and separated from the flow of the rest of “art history” by imposing rig-
idly defined preconceived boundaries.
It is now clear that both Bonnard and Matisse, so long characterized—one might
better say caricatured—as painters of happiness, were preoccupied with something
very different. Their works belie that easy characterization, projecting as they do such
a strong feeling of melancholy, alienation, and disquiet that they seem to propose some-
thing more like a critique rather a simple affirmation of happiness. But, given the appar-
ent neutrality of their subjects, realization of this among critics and historians has been
slow in coming.22
The obsessive, private quality of Bonnard’s paintings intensifies their deep sense
of sadness, and of struggle—quite the opposite of the “discreet charm of the bourgeoi-
sie” with which he is usually associated. The sonorous, muffled, claustrophobic feeling
of many of his best pictures is quite startling if one comes to them expecting to find the
received idea of what his work is supposed to be like. Some of his paintings, in fact, have
a feeling of desolation that recalls the work of Edvard Munch. In others, such as The
Sun-Filled Terrace (fig. 46), the spatial structure is full of bold inconsistencies and dis-
orienting jumps in proportion. In this painting, the overbearing flat planes of the walls
dwarf the people who move amid them and give the picture a remote, ironic, almost
Surrealistic quality. In fact, the perspectival inconsistencies and shifts between different
levels of consciousness in many of Bonnard’s paintings reflect concerns that are usually
associated with Surrealism, with which Bonnard had historical as well as psychological
affinities.23 Similarly, Bonnard’s intense concern with the unconscious and the uncanny,
as well as the strong and often disturbing kind of sexuality that runs through his work,
suggest aspects of artistic expression, and of human awareness, that are usually placed
in the domain of Surrealism, which often treats those phenomena in a rather schematic
and distinctly literary way.
Bonnard’s intuitive and unschematic approach to these aspects of human experi-
ence suggests a new field of exploration. One might say that the Unspeakable, which
provided so much grist for the Surrealists—and about which they were so outspoken—
remains obdurately unspoken in Bonnard’s work. But the way in which Bonnard is
able to evoke the Unspeakable, without making it overt, may actually provide a better
mechanism for expressing it than does a good deal of Surrealist painting, which often
only illustrates the unconscious and the uncanny. Bonnard, in contrast, builds these
impenetrable aspects of human experience into the very fiber of his pictures.
��
� 56
Fig. 46. Pierre Bonnard, The Sun-

Filled Terrace, 1939–46. Oil on canvas,
28 x 927/8 in. (71 x 236 cm). Private This brings us back to the question of whether or not Bonnard is a major artist, and to
collection the issue of what this question actually means. Clearly, such a question is more easily
answered in the positive for Matisse, who meets four of what might be considered the
main criteria for such standing:24 (1) we sense a sustained body of work, and a develop-
ment within it; (2) the work conveys a strong sense of authenticity of experience; (3) we
feel that when we look at a single work, we have to know the other work in order for the
work that we are looking at to take on its full meaning; (4) the total body of work is part
of a larger continuum.
If we apply these same criteria to Bonnard, the verdict is more uncertain, especially
on the first and fourth points, which have to do with a certain lack of a sense of develop-
ment, and with the difficulty of placing his work within the larger continuum, as discussed
above. Perhaps we should frame the matter somewhat differently by saying that to see
Bonnard as a major artist, you have to put him not into a history of styles but into a history
of mentalities. This is meant not as an excuse but as a way of redirecting attention. In fact,
a similar reevaluation of twentieth-century artists has already had some compelling prec-
edents, most notably Marcel Duchamp. Largely marginalized until the 1960s, Duchamp’s
work subsequently underwent a radical reappraisal that was based not on a pictorial style
but on a shift in mentality, which swept him from the outer margins to the very center.
Bonnard and Duchamp, in fact, have more in common than the historical repo-
sitioning they both seem to require. They share what might be described as a common
desire to find a “strategy [with] which [to play] with the persistent mystery of matter,” a
phrase that has been used to describe Duchamp’s notion of the “infra-thin” (infra mince),
the ineffable illuminations that he cast against the mystery of existence.25 Among the
forty-six instances of the infra-thin published in Duchamp’s Notes, perhaps the closest
he himself came to defining, rather describing, his concept was the elusively expressed
essence of the idea in the first instance: “Le possible est / un infra mince.”26
Aside from the interesting literary parallels between the recondite quality of
Duchamp’s forty-six randomly scribbled notes on the infra-thin and their echoes in sev-
eral of Bonnard’s own randomly scribbled, enigmatic notes, it seems to me that the most
profound and unique aspects of Bonnard’s paintings have a distinctly and even willfully
infra-thin quality. We might even say that, quite paradoxically, Bonnard’s late paintings
are deeply engaged with the same sort of ineffable play of sensory feeling and memory
found in Duchamp’s examples of the infra-thin, such as “the warmth of a seat (which has
just / been left) is infra-thin.”27 (Bonnard’s famous daily notations about the weather,
which he used to trigger his memory and to connect with unconscious feelings, were for
him, as they remain for us, infra-thin.)
57 �
� bon na r d
Unlikely as this pairing may at first seem, the affinities are quite real and offer
another kind of insight into the infra-thin complexity of Bonnard’s paintings. This is
just another illustration, perhaps, of Bonnard’s dictum, “The unlikely is very often the
truth itself.”28 The art of Bonnard reminds us that a great deal of art history is written
in terms of our expectations about what constitutes acceptable sensibility and acceptable
visual language at a given moment in time. This is why Matisse’s reputation suffered
for so long; he was, in effect, not yet expected. It is also why, in a different way, the full
significance of Duchamp’s achievement was not adequately recognized until the 1960s.
Now, in accord with the endlessly fascinating ways in which our ideas about history
regroup and revise and reorganize themselves, Matisse has been placed at the center of
the mainstream of twentieth-century painting, and Duchamp dominates the current of
contemporary artistic thought that is involved with non-painting. Perhaps sometime
soon that mysterious personage named Pierre Bonnard—no longer invisible in quite
the same way that he has been for more than a century—will come to occupy the place
of the artist who was able to provide the equivalent in painting for a sensibility that has
been thought to belong only to the realm of non-painting.
But is this, we might ask, really possible?
In 1942, during the height of his friendship with Bonnard, Matisse told Louis Aragon
that “the importance of an artist is to be measured by the number of new signs he has
introduced into the plastic language.”29 If this oft-repeated statement were to be taken
literally, then Bonnard would continue to be judged as a minor artist.30 But if an artist
can be judged by other criteria—by how deeply, for example, he makes us reassess our
relationship to the fabric of the world around us—then Bonnard must be reckoned as
one of the major artists of the twentieth century. And the history of twentieth-century
art, in turn, must be reckoned in a different way.
1. Pierre Courthion, conversation with the author, 7. In contrast, the latest painting by Matisse currently
Paris, December 1979. on view at the Musée d’Orsay is Luxe, calme et
2. This remark is based on my conversations with volupté (1904–5). Another curiosity is that in the
several colleagues in the United States and France, standard slide cataloguing system used for univer-
most of whom said they rarely, if ever, discussed sity teaching, Bonnard (born in 1867) is classified
Bonnard in surveys of twentieth-century art. I among nineteenth-century artists. Some years
should add that I myself have been guilty of a ago, when I asked why, I was told that the rule of
similar neglect. thumb was that the twentieth-century category
began with artists whose year of birth was 1870 or
3. “Comment s’expliquer alors la fortune de l’oeuvre
later. While exceptions were made for artists such
de Bonnard, en honneur et en faveur auprès d’un
as Matisse (born on the last day of 1869) and Kan-
nombre croissant de gens? À regarder de près, il
dinsky (born in 1866), Bonnard remains stuck in
est évident que cette révérence est partagée seule-
the nineteenth century.
ment par les hommes qui n’ont aucune information
des graves difficultés de l’art et tiennent avant tout 8. Clair 1984a; Clair 1984b; Elderfield 1998.
à la facilité et à l’agrément.” Zervos 1947, p. 6. 9. Bois 2006.
4. “. . . dans le présent, le Cubisme est la peinture 10. Elderfield 1998, p. 47.
même.” Gleizes and Metzinger 1912, p. 42. 11. Bois (2006, p. 58) makes the interesting observa-
5. “Sous cette succession de moments qui compose tion that, contrary to expectation, when you back
l’existence superficielle des êtres et des choses, et away from Bonnard’s paintings the disparate ele-
qui les revêt d’apparences changeantes, tôt dispa ments tend to pull apart rather than come together,
rues, on peut rechercher un caractère plus vrai, as they do in Impressionist paintings.
plus essentiel, auquel l’artiste s’attachera pour don- 12. Clair (1984a, 1984b, passim) has described what
ner de la réalité une interprétation plus durable.” he calls curvilinear perspective or “centrifu-
Henri Matisse, “Notes d’un peintre,” La Grande gal vision,” referring to the way that objects in
Revue 52, no. 24 (December 25, 1908); translated Bonnard’s paintings become enlarged toward
and reprinted in Flam 1995, pp. 39, 238. the edges of the picture. Clair gives a masterly
6. “Je veux arriver à cet état de condensation des description of the effect; but my own experi-
sensations qui fait le tableau.” Ibid., pp. 38, 238. ence has been that the warping of the space in
� 58
Bonnard’s paintings is not nearly as systematic 18. Gilot and Lake 1964, p. 271.
as Clair supposes. Clair appears to have modified 19. Ibid.
his position somewhat in his recent book, Bonnard
20. Picasso, in the same conversation with Gilot in
(Clair 2006).
which he so severely criticized Bonnard, expressed
13. See the interesting discussions of the role played his admiration for the direct, expansive way that
by memory in Elderfield 1998, Bois 2006, and Matisse used color, concluding, “Matisse has such
Clair 2006, from which I have benefited. good lungs.” Ibid.
14. “Mon dessin et ma peinture se séparent. J’ai le 21. As Bois (2006, p. 62) perceptively notes, “It is not
dessin qui me convient car il rend ce que je sens all that easy to choose non-choice and to trans-
de particulier. Mais j’ai une peinture bridée par form passivity into a virtue, to make of it not only
des conventions nouvelles d’aplats par lesquels the underlying force of one’s art but also to want
je dois m’exprimer entièrement, de tons locaux that art itself to produce the effect in the spectator
exclusivement sans ombres, sans modelés, qui of directly experiencing this non-choice, and of
doivent réagir les uns sur les autres pour suggérer being aware of its danger” (“Il n’est pas si facile
la lumière, l’espace spirituel. Ça ne va guère avec que ça de choisir le non-choix et de transformer
ma spontanéité qui me fait balancer en une minute dans sa peinture la passivité en vertu, d’en faire
un long travail parce que je reconçois mon tableau non seulement le ressort de son art mais de vouloir
plusieurs fois au cours de son exécution sans que cet art lui-même en produise l’effet, que le
savoir réellement où je vais, m’en rapportant à spectateur lui-même fasse l’expérience de ce non-
mon instinct. J’ai trouvé un dessin qui, après des choix, en mesure le danger”).
travaux d’approche, à la spontanéité qui me
22. As Elderfield (1998, p. 34) points out in an over-
décharge entièrement de ce que je sens, mais ce
view of attitudes toward Bonnard, “As for alien-
moyen est exclusivement pour moi, artiste et spec-
ation, fragmentation and destabilisation, however,
tateur. Mais un dessin de coloriste n’est pas une
these qualities are the last to be found mentioned
peinture. Il faudrait lui donner un équivalent en
in the critical archive.”
couleur. C’est ce à quoi je n’arrive pas.” Henri
Matisse, letter to Pierre Bonnard, January 13, 1940, 23. Although these shared concerns with the Surreal-
in Bonnard and Matisse 1991, p. 66; Bonnard and ists exist, the connection is rarely made, and when
Matisse 1992, p. 58. it is, it is usually limited to Bonnard’s incongruous
use of figures that refer to antique statuary and to
15. One could say that Bonnard’s drawings are the
the way certain of his works appear to presage the
opposite of incisive, and that therein lies their
Surrealists’ interest in the ancient Mediterranean.
greatest strength—the indefinite way that they
See the discussion of common historical sources in
explore a world bathed in ambiguity and deflect
Newman 1984.
drawing away from what Rémi Labrusse has char-
acterized as “the positive, dogmatic, and superb 24. These are adapted from T. S. Eliot, “What Is
theology of academic drawing, with its neopla- Minor Poetry?” (Eliot 1957).
tonic ambition of distilling essences, by a gesture, 25. The phrase is from Anne d’Harnoncourt’s “Pref-
through appearances” (“la théologie positive, ace” to Duchamp 1983, p. xii.
dogmatique et superbe, du dessin académique, 26. Duchamp 1983, infra mince no. 1: “Le possible est /
avec son ambition néo-platonicienne de dégage- un infra mince.”
ment des essences, par un geste, au travers des
apparences”). See Labrusse 2006, p. 32. 27. Ibid., infra mince no. 4: “La chaleur d’un siège (qui
vient / d’être quitté) est infra-mince.”
16. In fact, Matisse’s cutouts did not so much resolve
the conflict between painting and drawing as lay 28. “L’invraisemblable c’est bien souvent le vrai
it to rest for the final time. For while the cutouts même.” Bonnard 1947, unpaged.
may be seen as colored drawings—spontaneous, 29. “L’importance d’un artiste se mesure à la quan-
decisive, full of feeling, and suggestive of a spiri- tité de nouveaux signes qu’il aura introduits dans
tual space—they still remind us that “a colorist’s le langage plastique . . .” Aragon 1943, p. 26;
drawing is not a painting” (Bonnard and Matisse reprinted in Aragon 1971, vol. 1, p. 111; translation
1992, p. 58); their silhouettelike forms lack the spa- from Flam 1995, p. 150.
tial complexity and the possibility of intangible 30. What Matisse might have meant in this context
expansiveness that had been so important in Mat- by the word “signs,” and what the differences
isse’s paintings, where contours were almost never are between the way this idea was conceived by
absolute, but breathed. early-twentieth-century artists as opposed to late-
17. “La présence de l’objet, du motif, est très gênante twentieth-century critics, is a subject too vast to be
pour le peintre au moment où il peint.” Lamotte dealt with here.
and Bonnard 1947, unpaged.
59 �
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� 60
“The Cat Drank All the Milk!”:
Bonnard’s Continuous Present
Jacqu e l in e M u nc k
P ierre Bonnard’s panoramic terrace views beckon the viewer toward vast
stretches of landscape, with the figures often frozen in place in the foreground—
note, for example, the young tennis player caught mid-volley in The Terrace at
Vernonnet (see fig. 54), or the supplicant child carrying a fruit basket in Landscape in the
Midi with Two Children (fig. 48). The paintings Bonnard made of himself and his wife,
Marthe, in their home at Le Bosquet, in contrast, reveal the hidden recesses and corners
of the artist’s home. As they carry out seemingly immutable daily rituals, we glimpse
them in the dining room, the small salon, or the bathroom they added when they bought
the villa in 1926, as well as in the Mediterranean garden, with its profusion of spring
flowers. These are the places where Bonnard’s confined relationship with Marthe, his
model of choice, unfolded behind closed doors. “I have all my subjects at hand,” Bon-
nard once wrote. “I go visit them. I take notes. And then I return home. And before I
start to paint, I meditate, daydream.”1
In the photographs of Bonnard taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, and
André Ostier between 1941 and 1946, we see the artist in his tiny studio, with its mezza-
nine and large picture window, his face betraying almost monklike concentration. This
view of Bonnard, amid the straitened circumstances imposed by war, encourages us to
consider him in the context of his disciplined daily work routine rather than rummage
through the traces of his happier times. Bonnard’s frequent assertion that he vacillated
“between intimacy and decoration,” as he wrote to his friend George Besson2—that is,
between a tenuous observation of reality and the composition, between the temporality
of perception and the creation of the work (or, rather, of time at work in the work itself:
“it must ripen like an apple, there’s no way of influencing time,” he noted to Besson3)—
makes it hard to choose between, on the one hand, a purely morphological view of his
art (à la Clement Greenberg and André Lhote4), which emphasizes formal analysis of his
visual resolutions and “painterly maneuvers,” an approach justified by Bonnard’s own
disdain for painting directly from the model, and, on the other hand, the interpretation
of biographical, topographical, psychological, and physiological clues hidden in the con-
tours of an object or the body of a model, which thus become the bearers of meanings
beyond their merely visual appearances. The latter viewpoint, adopted by David Sylves-
Fig. 47. Detail, Lunch or
ter, for example, and in his wake Sarah Whitfield, John Elderfield, and Linda Nochlin,
Breakfast, ca. 1932 (cat. no. 23) relies on a psycho-critical approach based on the act of seeing, which implicates both the
61 �
� bon na r d
Fig. 48. Pierre Bonnard, Landscape in

the Midi with Two Children, 1916–18.
Oil on canvas, 54 ¾ x 77 ⅞ in. (139 x
197.8 cm). Art Gallery of Ontario,
Toronto; Gift of Sam and Ayala Zacks,
1970
artist and our own view of his work, and which has inspired yet another, more phenome-
nological way of interpreting the paintings, such as that advanced recently by Yve-Alain
Bois.5 Bonnard, according to Sylvester,
painted whatever belonged to his personal life, and he painted it the way he saw it in the
ordinary course of events: one cannot imagine him arranging a still life on a table in order
to make a picture of it; he would have painted the still life that happened to be there, re
arranging it on the canvas, perhaps, but not interfering with the actual things—just as, in
fact, he didn’t cultivate his garden but let it grow as it would. There may well have been a
connection between this passivity of his and his diffidence about painting from nature. . . .
his deepest motive could have been an unwillingness to freeze the flow of life. . . . one thing
[that] indubitably served him [was] that Marthe happened to have a compulsion to spend
several hours a day washing herself or taking baths. The monument to her obsession is a
series of canvases which probably stand alongside certain Matisses as the greatest works
of art of our time. . . . All the things in the paintings are only incidentally what the paint
ings are about. What they are really about is seeing, the process itself of seeing. Which is
why the principal actor in Bonnard’s scenes is the light—the light that irradiates things,
meaning possession, the light that disintegrates them, meaning loss.6
It could be said that Bonnard imbued his work with a “schizoid” quality, con-
stantly toggling between the present moment and the painting itself by highlighting the
intimate rapport between painting and life, or rather the conflicts between them. In one
sense painting became the stage for his resignation. A canvas is above all a table, he
declared to his nephew, Charles Terrasse, explaining later in his notes the logic of a “sur-
face whose laws are beyond objects,” and which demands an exclusive, one might say
quasi-passionate relationship. “Painting,” he wrote Matisse in 1933, “is ‘something’ only
provided one gives oneself up to it entirely.”7 For Bonnard, painting required, more than
anything else, that he work on the canvas every day in the solitude of the Midi, where he
was “isolated but still fascinated by technique, whose revelations,” he hoped, would be
� 62
Bonnard’s Continuous Present �
“endless.”8 Indeed, one of the things painting revealed to Bonnard was its own fallibility,
leading him sometimes to attempt to bias the unknown in order to tame it. In his prewar
paintings, for instance, Bonnard frequently depicted mirrors—structurally and visu-
ally—leading to a progressive covering of the canvas surface with indirect images (or
reflections), as in Reflection (The Tub) (1909, Villa Flora Winterthur, Sammlung Hahn-
loser, Switzerland), Le Café (fig. 49), and The Mantelpiece (fig. 52), which has the effect of
diminishing the potential descriptive function of the original motif.
Yet painting also helped reveal to Bonnard the cycle of life, especially that of plants,
whose rebirth each spring always left him awestruck. In February 1941 he wrote to
Matisse that he had seen “the first almond tree blooming and the mimosas are starting to
make yellow spots”;9 “the vegetation is expanding—every day on my walks, a new spe-
cies of little flower appears. . . . We’re more interested in objects than in the structure of
the universe.”10 Many of Bonnard’s notes reiterate what for him was a primordial bond
with nature: his attempts “to see it as a peasant does,” and his enchantment with its per-
petual renewal. “But as for vision, I see things differently every day, the sky, objects,
everything changes continually. You can drown in it,” he wrote, but it also “keeps one
alive.”11 For Bonnard, walking in nature, like time spent in his studio, provided him with
an outlet from the confinement of wartime, but also from his shrinking personal universe
as Marthe’s mental and physical state continued to deteriorate. In a January 1932 letter to
his friend Maurice Denis, he had confided that Marthe was “unfortunately still a complete
misanthrope, which might lessen but for now keeps me completely isolated, since the only
remedy is to avoid human contact. I use the time to study painting technique and har-
vest my olives.”12 It is as if Bonnard, in his profound solitude—the “traveler of his own
home,”13 as Lhote called him—was gradually expanding his consciousness, honing his
vision through the minor events out of which the fabric of reality is woven. Bonnard let
himself be permeated to the point of confusion by the riot of sensations in the spectacle
of nature, to be seduced by its wonders. Forever marveling at and surprised by the rela-
tionships he observed, Bonnard took pains to remain fully alert so as not to lose his first
impressions once “the shock of sensation and memory” reoccurred.
In the canvases Bonnard painted at Le Cannet, like those he made in Vernon, Arca-
Fig. 49. Pierre Bonnard, Le Café, 1915. chon, and Deauville, the different domestic scenes and the various moments throughout
Oil on canvas, 283/4 x 417/8 in. (73 x the day—breakfast, siesta, sewing, afternoon tea, playtime with the dog, or Marthe
106.4 cm). Tate, London; Presented by
Sir Michael Sadler through The Art immersing herself in the tub—are all bathed in natural light. In these interiors, shad-
Fund, 1941 ows filter the light in rooms where inhabitants
busy themselves, the painter indicating by
variations in tone “the different planes, with
attention to what is warm or cold, yellowed
or bluish.”14 The apparent calm of these epi-
sodes from conjugal life is constantly belied,
however, by accidents of color that disturb
the composition, which since Bonnard’s Nabi
years had nonetheless gained a certain equi-
librium. “Like the Asians,” wrote Tristan
Klingsor, “Bonnard rejects traditional bal-
ance . . . [and] distrusts geometry.” For Kling-
sor, such “irregularity gives variety to these
works,” and their “apparent clumsiness” is
integral to what he considered their “pro-
found sense of rhythm.”15
63 �
� bon na r d
The physical characteristics of the places where Bon-

nard painted as well as the manner in which he worked—
at a remove from his subject; facing the wall onto which a
loose canvas was tacked, in order to avoid the a priori
boundaries imposed by stretchers; sometimes returning to
the same painting years after initially working on it—
had little effect on the works themselves. For Bonnard, the
studio was a kind of itinerant enclosure, where half-
finished canvases could be rolled and unrolled as neces-
sary, depending on available wall space. Such was the case
with The Large Bath, Nude (1937–39, private collection),
which Bonnard worked on for years. It can be seen, in an
unfinished state, in a photograph of Bonnard in his hotel
bedroom at Deauville taken by Rogi André in 1937. In a
photograph taken by André Ostier at Le Cannet in 1941
(fig. 50), we can see two works in progress, side by side on
the same piece of canvas: a vertical painting of a standing
nude with a dog (Dauberville 1665), and Nude in the Bath
and Small Dog (fig. 51), a first sketch of which appears in
Bonnard’s daybook entry for April 27, 1940. As Bonnard
Fig. 50. André Ostier, Bonnard in His
told the painter Jules Joëts in March 1945, “I’m always seek- Studio, 1941. Gelatin silver print
ing. I often return to things, take up a canvas again. Hence my stammering [bafouille].”16
To visitors who could not understand why he turned away from his subject to work
from memory, Bonnard explained that he refused to be influenced by simple variations
in atmosphere, declaring he would not paint before the motif, as the Impressionists had,
for “the light changes too quickly. I do some small sketches and make notes on colors.”17
As he told Angèle Lamotte, “The presence of the object, the subject of the work, can be
very distracting to a painter. . . . There is always a risk with direct observation that [he]
will become sidetracked by incidentals and lose sight of the initial idea.”18 Indeed, Bon-
nard used watercolor to help create his coloristic harmonies. As he commented to Joëts,
“I always make a quick, directly observed watercolor that helps me enormously and
without which any subsequent work would be impossible. I set down my impressions of
the colors. I refer to this sketch constantly to avoid going off track when executing the
work itself.”19 In his daybook entry for April 8, 1934, Bonnard reiterated his refusal to
let himself “be absorbed by the object,” underscoring “the tension between the initial
idea . . . and the variable and varied world of the object.” He noted the “difficulty of
direct observation . . . error of senses / adventure of the optical nerve / simplification
corresponding to our sensory capabilities.”20 Drawing provided him with a compromise,
a temporary solution that allowed “the colorist” to exercise his eye without taking “time
to wonder about the intrinsic value of things.”21 Pushing his paintings to the edge of the
visual and sensorial abyss, Bonnard alternated between the real and the painterly via ana-
logical arrangements that provoke an effect of “continual discontinuities,” to use Bois’s
phrase.22 According to Lhote, “It’s like the immobilization of a supreme (and symbolic)
moment just before disaster strikes; everything is about to collapse, as in the still life
with peaches relegated to the background of the painting.”23
This tension between “the model you have before your eyes and the model you
have in your head”24 also extended to the arrangement of colors, whose delayed impact
and slow commotion in Bonnard’s paintings—as often observed in Bonnard’s use of
clashing, corrosive hues (violet and lilac, according to Lhote, being the only colors that
� 64
do not have an immediate visual effect)—accelerate the disintegration of the object. The
very color relationships or dominant hues that help create the new visions of the subjects
in Bonnard’s late paintings in fact frequently provide the titles of the works, as in Yel
low and Red (Marthe and Her Dog), Blue Nude, Gray Nude, White Interior (cat. no. 36),
and The Blonde Head of Hair. Bodies, fruit, flowers (the latter two at the peak of matu-
rity) seem always on the verge of decomposition and decay, yielding the kind of formless
mud and organic abstraction remarked upon by Greenberg.25 There is a sense of immi-
nent metamorphosis, as with Marthe’s eternally adolescent body melting beneath irides-
cent light, the glint of the sun that makes the bathwater, tiles, and linoleum shimmer, and
which evokes a magical colored world or, more darkly, the drowning of Ophelia.
Often Bonnard seems to have relegated certain human presences to the periphery
of the canvas, where they are frequently truncated. Our notice of these figures is thus
delayed, and we discover them only “surreptitiously,” to use Bois’s felicitous phrase. In
The Mantelpiece (fig. 52), Marthe is reduced to a fragment of coiffed head in the lower
right-hand corner of the mirror, while our gaze is directed toward the model before the
mirror posed like the antique sculpture The Dying Niobid (National Museum, Rome).
In Young Women in the Garden (Renée Monchaty and Marthe Bonnard) (cat. no. 72), we
again see Marthe, here eclipsed by the sun-drenched apparition of the blonde Renée
Monchaty against a yellow and white striped tablecloth, and by the luminous halo that
erodes superfluous details. Marthe likewise blends into the decor of Flowers on the Man
telpiece at Le Cannet (cat. no. 12); she becomes part of the atmosphere of the room, almost
like a secondary motif the painter hastily sketched and superimposed in the same color
as the background, giving a sense of nostalgic presence/absence at the limits of per-
ception. In these compositions and many others, such as Table in Front of the Window
(cat. no. 37) or The Studio with Mimosa (see fig. 45), one senses the shock of an intru-
sion into ordinary reality by a gaze that registers the immediate details of the scene and
Fig. 51. Pierre Bonnard, Nude in the

Bath and Small Dog, 1941–46. Oil on
canvas, 48 x 591/2 in. (121.9 x 151.1 cm).
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh;
Acquired through the Generosity of
the Sarah Mellon Scaife Family (70.50)
65 �
� bon na r d
then, exercising its faculties of compensation

and adaptation, instantly synthesizes several
incompatible aspects of vision, such as nearness
and distance—a mobile vision, or, as described
by Sylvester, darting glances “out of the corner
of [the] eye.”26 In so doing, this gaze re-creates
the simultaneity of vision and perception, or
“that which belongs to the world of things once
they have been objectified.”27
In Lunch or Breakfast (see fig. 47), Marthe,
her head sunk down into her shoulders,
holds her breakfast bowl in both hands. She
appears almost childlike—untamed, not yet
socialized—just as she does in early photo-
graphs. Bonnard captures every trace of this Fig. 52. Pierre Bonnard, The
Mantelpiece, 1916. Oil on canvas,
animal quality in Marthe by relying on her natural, or instinctual, reception of sensa- 313/4 x 497/8 in. (80.7 x 126.7 cm).
tions, her conscience in its precognitive state: her passive wait for the tea to grow cold; Margoline collection
her attention diverted by the dog begging for its morning caress and treats; the scent of
flowers on the table; the smell of brioche blending with that of fruit; the chirping of birds
that distracts her eye from the task at hand; the muffled sounds of conversation rising
through the house, which she does not even try to comprehend; the slow breeze through
the flowers that makes their corollas sway, and whose changing colors attract the eye
much in the way that light reflecting off bathroom tiles dissipates in the water at a stroke
of the fingertips. Ever the “wonderstruck observer,” in Maurice Denis’s words, Bonnard
favored such moments of somnolence or modest distractions, the passivity of anaesthe-
tized consciousness upon waking or during meandering walks. But he also painted
moments of abrasion or astringency that stimulate the skin—a warm touch, the shock of
textures familiar to the body—with precise, concentrated gestures that lead us back to a
more conscious presence in the outer world.
This state of latency and nonchalance, the “potpourri of indecision”28 that Picasso
so despised in Bonnard’s works, eliminated the need for decisiveness; it allowed Bon-
nard to not decide, or, as Bois has suggested, it gave him the choice to not choose. One
could say that Bonnard “let appear” on the canvas—in an involuntary, perhaps even
invented confluence of givens from his perception and memory—images that obscure
images (or that conflate vision and perception) in a seemingly magical dissolve, the way
a visage du dessous might intermittently surface in the frozen face of an invalid. In that
passionate quest for a pause in time, the painter, removing himself from the acceleration
of the adult world, reenters the now—the continuous present—of early childhood, a
time before one suffered the long passing of months; when one did not know the hierar-
chy of events, their chronology and conjugation; when yesterday, today, and tomorrow
all blended together. “The cat drank all the milk!” Bonnard’s nephew once blurted out
on seeing him after several months, “as if he had left only the day before.”29 In the same
way, Bonnard’s “continuous present” is lodged in space—or, as the painter Peter Doig
has described it, “between what he is looking at and thinking about, because a lot of his
work . . . is thinking back.”30 At the surface of this space, in canvas after canvas, Bonnard
reprised stitches in time much as a patient seamstress might stitch together scraps of an
extremely fragile and precious cloth.
� 66
1. Sept Jours 1942, p. 16. 11. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Henri Matisse, March
2. Pierre Bonnard, letter to George Besson, 1942, 1940, in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, p. 62.
reported in Besson 1946, p. 10. 12. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Maurice Denis, Janu-
3. “Il faut que cela mûrisse comme une pomme, pas ary 1932, Centre de Documentation, Musée
moyen d’agir sur le temps.” Terrasse, A. 1988, Départemental Maurice Denis, Le Prieuré, Saint-
p. 281; translation from London and New York Germain-en-Laye.
1998, p. 166. 13. “Ce voyageur autour de sa maison.” Lhote 1944,
4. “[Bonnard] introduit dans l’architecture simple du p. 4.
tableau tous les délices de l’intimité. Grâce à lui, 14. Klingsor 1921, p. 246.
le spectateur passe, sans s’en douter, des plaisirs 15. Ibid., p. 245.
matériels et comme bourgeois aux inquiétudes
16. Bernard 1953.
métaphysiques. Car il y a, dans ces constructions
plastiques, une telle part d’arbitraire, une telle 17. Rydbeck 1937; translation from Terrasse, A.
puissance d’abstraction . . . Au-delà de l’objet 2000b, p. 123.
anecdotique, le peintre aperçoit l’élément plastique 18. Statements by Pierre Bonnard assembled in 1943
et son accord avec l’élément voisin . . . la composi- by Angèle Lamotte; Lamotte and Bonnard 1947,
tion de Bonnard s’opère surtout par la couleur ; unpaged.
elle n’est pas réductible à un canevas dessiné . . . 19. Bernard 1953.
les ‘valeurs’ n’obéissent pas au dessin, mais à des
nécessités d’équilibre étrangères à l’objet.” Lhote 20. Daybook, April 8, 1934. Bonnard 1927–46.
1944, pp. 4, 5. Bonnard conceded that there was a 21. “. . . ceux des coloristes perdent tout sens, réduits
pictorial logic in and of itself, as though he were au blanc et noir parceque, chez eux, les ‘valeurs’
disconnected from the object he represented: “Le n’obéissent pas au dessin, mais à des nécessités
tableau est une suite de taches qui se lient entre d’équilibre étrangères à l’objet.” Lhote 1944, p. 5.
elles et finissent par former l’objet, le morceau sur 22. Bois 2006, p. 63.
lequel l’œil se promène sans aucun accroc.”
23. “. . . c’est comme l’immobilisation d’une minute
5. Bois 2006. suprême (et symbolique) où un désastre se prépare;
6. Sylvester 1966, pp. 137, 139. The article appeared tout va chavirer comme dans cette nature morte
in the Sunday Times Colour Magazine, February 6, aux pêches reléguées dans le fond du tableau.”
1966, on the occasion of an important retrospec- Lhote 1944, p. 5.
tive at the Royal Academy. 24. “Le modèle qu’on a sous les yeux, et le modèle
7. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Henri Matisse, Septem- qu’on a dans la tête.” Daybook, July 3, 1935.
ber 1933, in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, pp. 44–45: Translation from Paris, Washington, D.C., and
“Vraiment la peinture c’est quelque chose à la con- Dallas 1984b, p. 69.
dition de se donner tout entier.” 25. Greenberg 1947, p. 53.
8. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Maurice Denis, January– 26. Sylvester 1966, p. 139.
February 1930, Centre de Documentation, Musée
27. See especially Clair 1983.
Départemental Maurice Denis, Le Prieuré, Saint-
Germain-en-Laye. 28. Gillot and Lake 1964, pp. 271–72.
9. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Henri Matisse, end of 29. Pierre Bonnard, Correspondances, which we know
February 1941, in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, to be fictive, but based on his recollections.
pp. 80–81. 30. Peter Doig, in Paris 2006, p. 273.
10. Pierre Bonnard, letter to Henri Matisse, April 1941,
in Bonnard and Matisse 1992, p. 88.
67 �
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� 68
Intelligent Seeing
R i k a Bu r n h a m
“. . . one must look repeatedly before being certain how many people are in the room. The light is uniformly
clear; some of the figures are immediately visible, yet others are illusive phantoms, as if only at the last
moment allowed to edge past a given composition’s borders.”—James Thrall Soby1
I t is the foot that catches the eye. The foot in the black shoe that pushes aside
the door, or perhaps floats midstep above the blue and yellow tiled floor. The person
to whom it might belong holds a blue teacup and freezes momentarily on the other
side of the threshold. Deep glimmering patches of orange draw attention to the face;
the head and hair are dappled in stray bits of light. Two mismatched, empty saucers sit
nervously on the edge of an undulating table, and wedged up against it is the back of
a chair. A radiator and a picture framed in blue stack up in nonsequential space on the
right. Vertical strips of light run up and down the walls: cool northern blues to the left
of the door, tropical yellows on the panel to the right. As our eyes adjust to the thin light
of the room, we pause. A dress seems to appear suddenly, fluttering in the doorway. We
look again. Is the foot really attached to the person holding the teacup, or does it belong
instead to a vanishing, silhouetted figure in profile rushing off to the right, whose leg we
see beneath a gauzy skirt? Is the person carrying the cup nearly tripping over someone
else’s foot, or backing away from the door? Is it a man or woman? One person or two?
One moment, it is Bonnard himself coming through the door, teacup in hand, tripping
over the memory of his wife, Marthe, swooshing by and out of sight. A moment later it is
someone we don’t know who is coming through, pausing but not entering, perhaps even
backing out, as a phantom exits to our right.
The year Bonnard made the gouache now known as Marthe Entering the Room
(fig. 53) was the year Marthe died. Bonnard was in the habit of keeping a diary, mostly
notes about the weather and sketches of what caught his eye (see figs. 13 and 14). In the
entry for January 26, 1942, the day of Marthe’s death, there are no words, no draw-
ings, just a small vertical line crossed by a small horizontal line. Marthe—Bonnard’s
longtime companion before they eventually married—was his muse and his mistress, a
creative source and the object of the artist’s pictorial devotion. Ageless, she slipped in
and out of his work for fifty years, eternally present, even after her death, but curiously
absent, too. Sometimes she appears in sketchy outline, other times she arrives in thickly
and carefully laid layers of rich color. Frequently we look into the rooms of Bonnard’s
paintings without first seeing her, and then suddenly we do.
But is the figure we are so often tempted to identify as Marthe really Marthe?
Fig. 53. Detail, Marthe Entering
Sometimes it is, but there are many figures in Bonnard’s oeuvre that cannot be identified,
the Room, 1942 (cat. no. 73) such as the racquet-wielding or back-scratching figure rushing in from the right in The
69 �
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Terrace at Vernonnet (fig. 54), or the curious partygoers on the balcony porch in the same
picture, one of whom, dressed in a blue shirt, peers out at us. The same can be said of the
two women, one brunette, one blonde, in Young Women in the Garden (Renée Monchaty
and Marthe Bonnard) (cat. no. 72), or the two figures in Before Dinner (cat. no. 2), one
of whom, while seated, is evidently addressing someone “offstage.” No doubt some of
these figures were other lovers, other models over the years, or neighbors who visited Le
Bosquet. Sometimes it is the artist himself who slips into view: for example, as the mir-
ror image that attaches itself to the head of the woman at the table in The French Window
(Morning at Le Cannet) (cat. no. 42). And then there is Bonnard’s dog, who makes an
occasional cameo appearance—trotting into the scene, for instance, in Before Dinner—
not to mention his cat, who materializes in White Interior (cat. no. 36). What is clear
is that Bonnard’s paintings, if you study them closely, become small theaters in which
known and unknown characters enter and exit.
The mythology of Marthe and her reclusive life with Bonnard has kept us from see-
ing Bonnard’s work as Bonnard wanted us to see it—with our own eyes, with our own
experience. Bonnard asks us to see his work on his terms, slowly, meditatively, poeti-
cally. With too quick a look we see only unfinished work: what Picasso saw when he
famously dismissed Bonnard’s work as “a potpourri of indecision.”2 The casual viewer
remarks on the flatness, the patterns, the curious cacophony, and moves on, but to linger
is to be rewarded. Bonnard’s paintings disrupt our conventional expectations. As Jack
Flam notes in his essay in this volume, “Only after prolonged looking do you realize how
complex, contradictory, and difficult Bonnard’s paintings actually are.”
Six months after Marthe died the Paris dealer Louis Carré commissioned a series
of gouaches from Bonnard, and from these gouaches the painter and printmaker Jacques
Villon was in turn commissioned to make a series of lithographs.3 Bonnard worked on
the prints with Villon for four years.4 “I believe that the practice of lithography,” wrote
Jacques Laprade, “taught Bonnard the science of choosing rare tones.”5 Indeed, the thin
but evocative colors of Marthe Entering the Room (one of the gouaches in the series) tes-
tify to that knowledge, particularly the delicately rendered interior world of Bonnard’s
small dining room. Cool blues and violet tints transition quietly to warm yellows and
dark oranges in thin, carefully orchestrated washes. A gentle nostalgia yields to uncer-
tainty. The title now assigned to this work inevitably directs us to think we see Marthe,
but for many years the gouache was known simply as The Radiator.6 It came to be called
Marthe Entering the Room only after it was sold to the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock,
in 1983.7
Marthe was already dead when Bonnard began the gouache series. Although we
may ask whether the figure in the doorway of Marthe Entering the Room is Bonnard’s
memory of Marthe entering the room with a teacup, or if it is perhaps the artist him-
self, surprised at the sight of a phantasmal Marthe whizzing by, but memories, Bonnard
reminds us, are entwined with sight. We are looking at the work of an artist who in the
act of painting did not distinguish between observation and recollection. The fruits on
the table provoked in him a memory of an evening meal years ago; the apples reminded
him of something that happened yesterday; the door opened onto a recollection of a
visitor from the previous week. In this way, we suddenly find, to use Sarah Whitfield’s
phrase, “the familiar looking unfamiliar.”8
Bonnard thought a great deal about seeing and how we encounter the world. He
asks us to see afresh, free of our expectations, and above all to be cautious of academic
traditions, whose preoccupations regarding perspective and other pictorial conventions,
he believed, can easily blind both painter and audience to the lived experience of seeing.
� 70
Intelligent Seeing �
“Vision is mobile,” Bonnard said.9 Imagine him walking into the sitting room in Le Bos-
quet. Outside it is overcast; inside, the table is set. He walks through the house, stops
for a moment in the small dining room, notes the light and the angle of a door, remem-
bers something from yesterday, reaches for his sketchbook, draws the fruit on the table,
thinks he sees Marthe. “And this vision is variable,” he added. Thus his glances scatter
around the room, his eye drawn here, then there. Bonnard understood that the eye does
not see with perspectival logic, from foreground to background, but randomly. “I’m try-
ing to do what I have never done,” he remarked, “give the impression one has on entering
a room: one sees everything and at the same time nothing.”10 Unpredictably but persis-
tently the radiator caught Bonnard’s unruly eye, as did the table where he found each
day a new arrangement of familiar objects. He studied the door that opens in constant
revelation, the window through which the endlessly changing exterior world of light
and seasons intrudes and asserts itself.
It has been said that Cézanne’s pictures ask, Is this what I see? If so, Bonnard’s pictures
ask, Is this what I remember? Thanks to Henri Cartier-Bresson and other photographers,
we may glimpse Bonnard at work in his studio, tacking pictures to the wall, considering
them, pausing, adding a bit of paint here and a bit of paint there. In photographs he is often
dressed as if he were cold, in a hat and scarf, prepared and fortified to work. He some-
times took his canvases with him when he traveled, tacking them up in hotel rooms so
that he could keep thinking about them, jabbing at them with dots of paint in an endless
process of working and reworking that the painter Georges Rouault affectionately called
“bonnarding.”11 Watching Bonnard, Mexican artist Angel Zarraga and French critic Félix
Fénéon were astonished at how he walked back and forth between canvases, sketches in
hand to jog his memory, daily adding dabs of color as he went from one to another. Weeks,
months, even years went by as he caressed his memories in paint. Is this what I remem-
ber? The shimmering Terrace at Vernonnet comes to mind, a canvas that Bonnard worked
on for nearly twenty years, tending to the scene he remembered, adding new memories
Fig. 54. Pierre Bonnard, The Terrace as time passed. What was alive in Bonnard’s memory came to life again in his work. It
at Vernonnet, 1939. Oil on canvas, 581/4 was Paul Valéry who said that a poem is never finished, only abandoned, and similar
x 763/4 in. (148 x 194.9 cm). The Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art, New York; remarks have been attributed to many other artists and writers. But in Bonnard’s case,
Gift of Florence J. Gould, 1968 (68.1) it was not—or not only—ordinary per-
fectionism that drove him to continually
revise his images. Rather, his preoccu-
pation with the most ordinary domestic
moments—teatime, the bath, entering
a room—yielded a limitless supply of
interwoven memories whose freshness,
renewed each day, made finishing any
given picture nearly impossible for him.
This helps to explain why, despite Bon-
nard’s perpetual fussing and dabbing,
his canvases became over time not more
resolved, but less.
Two other gouaches from the
series commissioned by Carré show
different slices of the room depicted
in Marthe Entering the Room. The first,
The Gray Interior (fig. 55), opens to a
slightly wider view. Our focus is pulled
71 �
� bon na r d
back to reveal the edge of a red checked tablecloth on the table, with a fireplace behind
it, but the scene at right is the same: radiator, strips of light, and the open door, through
which we see a figure, here clearly a woman, walking confidently. She may very well be
Marthe, to judge from her blousy pink skirt and Marthe’s signature white 1920s pumps.
Without question she recalls a figure in an earlier work, the 1933 painting Marthe in the
Dining Room (fig. 56), in which a woman—presumably Marthe, given her elegant attire
and distinctive haircut—crosses in front of us, as another, unidentified figure bends qui-
etly over the table. In the second gouache, The Yellow Interior (fig. 57), Bonnard’s field
of view expands to encompass a great deal of the room to the left of the table. A woman
wearing a bold, flower-patterned, tight-fitting dress appears in the doorway. Her brown
hair is shoulder length, and she stares out of the door frame, acknowledging us with an
insouciant tilt of the head. She wears dark pumps and is silhouetted in turquoise light. It
is tempting to think of her as another lover, from another time, making an appearance in
Bonnard’s theater of memory.
Michel Terrasse, the artist’s grand-nephew, recounted meeting Bonnard in Decem-
ber 1942, nearly a year after Marthe’s death. “Capturing afresh one of Marthe’s poses as
she got out of the bath, [Bonnard] would move from one canvas to another in his studio,
laying on colour.”12 That Bonnard painted from memory often surprises viewers of his
works, many of whom likely imagine that a man working in such a small universe surely
sat at his dining room table and painted what he saw, or that he shifted his canvases from
studio to porch and painted his backyard from there. But Bonnard visited the world in a
different way. He needed continual contact with nature, with weather, with the country-
side, and walked outside several times a day. As he walked he took notes in both draw-
ings and words in order to capture the effects of outdoor light and air, perhaps so he
could understand them better as they flowed through the doors and windows of his
house. According to Sargy Mann, “With his pencil and scrap of paper he could catch
life on the wing—a chance encounter, an effect of light so short lived that Monet would
have had no time for it—and then in his studio, he could paint these moments for months,
or even years.”13 Only in the studio did Bonnard begin to assemble images, to allow
memories to float in and out of his working process. One day in 1936 Bonnard scribbled
in his diary, “Consciousness, the shock of feeling and memory.”14 If he indeed con-
ceived of consciousness itself as a fundamental tranquillity that is ruptured by feelings
and memory, this would in some sense account for many of the phantoms in Bonnard’s
work: the figures, the layered memories, that enter in at the edges of consciousness and
sight, in moments of heightened awareness when feeling and memory are inseparable.
Sometimes they materialize slowly; at other times they enter silently, spectrally, into the
room. It often takes the viewer a very long time to see them.
It is worth noting, as many observers have over the years, that reproductions in
catalogues are particularly poor substitutes for standing in front of Bonnard’s paint-
ings and looking at them. In Dining Room Overlooking the Garden (The Breakfast Room)
(cat. no. 41), we see a room dominated by a window tightly framing a verdant shimmer-
ing landscape. The table in the foreground is drenched in radiant white light streaming
toward us. Vibrantly colored objects, solidly painted, are scattered across the table, each
casting a shadow from an unseen light source. The orange rims of the plates shine sun-
like. Blue shadows lie thick and luscious as cake frosting. Purple plums glow in the back.
Close to the viewer is an almost shockingly red teacup that tilts up toward us, while a
turquoise box, depicted in impossible perspective, perches in the upper-left corner of the
table. Bouncing off the sunlit cloth, the eye perceives oddly scattered strips and blobs of
light throughout the composition—in the landscape, on the balustrade, and in the lawn
� 72
outside the window. Almost sources of illumination themselves, rich whites mixed with
blues hover on the panels to the right of the window, as yellows explode in the whites in
the panels to the left. Then, just to the edge of the table on the right, we encounter an
incomprehensible shape. We can only speculate what it is: perhaps the back of a jacket
worn by someone exiting the room, or a chair turned with its back to the viewer and
covered by a casually thrown shawl, left there half suspended. Surprisingly, a phan-
tomlike woman appears on the left. At first we don’t see her. She looks uncomfortable,
as if she has been called unexpectedly into the room. Her ethereal, diminutive form is
upstaged by the thickly painted objects on the table, yet she enters in her own light, a
rich yellow-orange radiance that glows and scatters from her lower arm onto the chair
Fig. 55. Pierre Bonnard, The Gray Inte- next to her and then onto the wall. A few brushstrokes tell us she holds a teacup and
rior, ca. 1942. Gouache. Private collec-
tion, United States
Fig. 56. Pierre Bonnard, Marthe in the Dining

Room, 1933. Oil on canvas, 43 ¾ x 23 ¼ in. (111 x
59 cm). Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
Fig. 57. Pierre Bonnard, The Yellow Interior,

ca. 1942. Gouache on paper, 19 ⅝ x 25 ⅝ in. (50 x
65 cm). Private collection, Paris
73 �
� bon na r d
saucer in her right hand, and a bit of bright orange on the cup is the
only suggestion of her connection to the table setting, with its similar
rich oranges. She does not seem to see us, but her eyes are piercing
nonetheless. Weightless, neither completely present nor absent, she
shimmers but does not move. It may be that we are seeing the wall
paper behind her through the translucent fabric of her dress.
The same room, but without its spectral presence, is sketched
in crayon and watercolor in Interior, Window (cat. no. 47). The eye
slides over the white tablecloth and into the dazzling, paradisiacal
world beyond the window, which simultaneously pushes its way back
into the room. A small mysterious form takes nascent shape at right;
on the left side, however, the chair is clearly seen, our view unin-
terrupted by any ghostly apparition. In the drawing, then, Bonnard
was setting the stage, while in the painting the mysterious presence
is allowed to enter. Bonnard was always patrolling the boundary
between the solid and the spectral, between reality and dreams.
Several years later, Bonnard painted Dining Room on the Gar-
den (cat. no. 49), whose colors truly overwhelm the eye. A lush laven-
der and blue tablecloth with a red-orange edge rises up and forward
(toward the viewer) and into the picture plane. Two yellow plates
blister with edges of pinks, yellows, and fiery oranges. Luminous ice-
white pitchers line up on the left. A lustrous vase formed of strange
blue blobs holds a bouquet of dark roses. And, out the window, deep Fig. 58. Pierre Bonnard, The Green
greens frame the ebullient but nearly indistinguishable blues of water Blouse, 1919. Oil on canvas, 401/8 x
267/8 in. (101.9 x 68.3 cm). The Metro-
and sky. In the midst of this visual abundance appears yet another spectral figure. Mute,
politan Museum of Art, New York;
masculine, she wears a dark green dress whose slender white collar is shot through with The Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ittleson Jr.
red that defines her face. Was she there all the time, upstaged by the roses teetering on Purchase Fund, 1963 (63.64)
the edge of the table, or do we just now see her, slowly, quietly entering into our vision?
Her shoulder is turned so she can glide past us, her hand reaching for a doorknob we
do not see. While everything else in the painting glows with increasing intensity, her
shadowy being darkens and slides out of the room, off the edge. On the left her lumi-
nous equivalent lingers: a yellow, ghostly glow behind the chair that suggests another
presence attended her appearance, or perhaps that she had been standing there only a
few moments before and after she moved left only traces in light. We know neither who
she is nor where she is going, but as she exits, the painting glows as if heated from within
and below.
Look closely at the surface and you will see that much of Dining Room on the Gar-
den is thinly painted. Slender tendrils of primed canvas visible through the surface give
edge to things, adding to our sensation of some otherworldly or impossible light source.
Surfaces are built up in some areas, again like frosting, and then drift to the barest wisps
of paint in others. If we move back and away, the spectral woman reads as barely a
trace, camouflaged like so many of Bonnard’s phantoms. Move in close, however, and
she builds in intensity, as the eyes adjust to the dark purple modeling, to the ochers that
define her cheeks, to the blood-red, roselike images in her green dress. She seems to
look us in the eye before slipping out of the room, and out of sight.15
Although spectral presences abound in Bonnard’s interiors, many of his pictures,
especially his early canvases, show figures that are emphatically and markedly present.
What most of his paintings have in common, however, whether early or late, is that the
figures in them either arrive in color and radiance or dissolve into color and radiance. In
� 74
The Green Blouse (fig. 58) the woman holding the cup and spoon (and wearing the blouse)
is heralded by the striped yellow and orange curtain behind her. The rich color infuses
into and throughout her in such a way that she emerges from it but also merges with it.
Other figures are similarly camouflaged in the color of their attendant backgrounds, as
in The Breakfast Table (cat. no. 55), or are nearly indistinguishable from it, such as the
figure in blue holding the basket in The Terrace at Vernonnet or the person seen slyly
emerging in the corner of The Studio with Mimosa (fig. 45). These figures are almost
chameleon-like the way their skin, hair, and clothing seem to borrow the color of the
objects and decor around them.
You can look for a long time at White Interior (fig. 59) before realizing that some-
one is there. The room’s rich tableau—the radiator to the right of the half-opened door,
the fireplace to the left, the sturdy chair pulled up to the table—is by now familiar to
us. The luminous door and radiator, side by side, recall the porcelain, pearly substance
of Bonnard’s bath paintings. Above the radiator are splashes of unaccountable sunlight.
The screen door opens onto the porch, revealing deep tropical skies and the beginnings
of blue night air curling up into the oranges and greens. Only after scanning all of this
does the eye hesitate and discover the almost imperceptible arc at the end of the table: a
person, wearing a red striped robe, with a splash of yellow hair and a wisp of a face. Her
dress is made of the same material as the carpet, with the same patterns. Instead of over-
lapping the table, she blends into the floor, and thus is perfectly camouflaged. Apparently
unaware of anyone watching her, she seems to have just bent over before we, as view-
ers, happened upon the scene. Then we notice a small cat, with two tiny eyes, looking
up at us. Did the cat just slide in, as cats do? Perhaps the woman was feeding it, and we
are seeing her as she begins to rise back up. Her robe, no longer a camouflage, becomes
one with the hot colors of the sky, and the figure within it almost disappears. Our eye
then returns to the door, to the smoldering paradise without, for it is in such exteriors
that Bonnard depicts the emotional temperatures of his domestic interiors. “I believe that
when one is young,” he wrote, “it is the object, the outside world that carries you away:
that fills you with enthusiasm. Later, it is the interior realm, the need to express an emo-
tion, that pushes the painter to choose this or that point of departure, this or that form.”16
The space in between those two realms is the redoubt of phantoms.
Fig. 59. Detail, White Interior, 1932 Even more difficult to perceive is the fig-
(cat. no. 36)
ure, barely a thin outline in white, in Table in
Front of the Window (cat. no. 37). The volatile
orange color of her skin is the same as that on
the wall seemingly behind her. She enters in
a rectangle of sunlight, her disjointed hand
holding a skeletal spoon or perhaps reach-
ing for an equally sketchy carafe. No features
define her further, but she, like many of the
other figures we’ve seen, comes with her own
source of radiance. It spills onto the table and
its edge, onto the curtains and the tiny leaves
hanging above the window like a halo. This is
the most ephemeral of figures, a face etched in
white light, a fragment of a torso dissolved into
dabs of paint, an arm sketched and resketched,
appearing to reach into the room and retract at
the same time.
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Some figures, while not fugitive themselves, serve as decoys, slowing us from see-
ing others in the scene. Notice the woman striding into the room in Marthe in the Dining
Room (fig. 56). Teacup casually in hand, she wears high-heeled shoes and the bright yel-
low and white jacket of a Chanel-style suit. She is framed in the yellow and red rectan-
gles of the wall and table, whose colors spill onto her clothes. Only after witnessing her
regal entrance do we see another, furtive presence in the room: a face bending over a tray
on the table at left, bowing to the large commanding figure who has just walked in.
Bonnard wrote of “the demands and the pleasures of seeing, and its rewards,” and
noted the essential difference between “crude seeing and intelligent seeing.”17 For Bon-
nard seeing was where time, feeling, memory, and mystery all resided. It was the solid
things Bonnard saw, the things he drew incessantly—the objects on the table, the views
outside the window—that caught his attention, and from which he fashioned his sets and
props. The actors that enter and exit his sets, however, are the dreams and phantoms of
memory. Bonnard said he sought to “show what one sees when one enters a room all of
a sudden,”18 but these figures—who so often hide from us before materializing slowly
into sight—are what he didn’t see when he first walked into a room, and what we don’t
see when we first look at his paintings. You see everything else before you see them.
One reason for this is that while Bonnard conjured through color, he also exploited the
phenomenon of peripheral vision and its magical edge. According to art historian and
critic Timothy Hyman:
In the previously uncharted territory of peripheral vision Bonnard discovered strange flat-
tenings, wobbles, shifts of angle as well as of colour, and darkenings of tone, penumbral
adventures and metamorphoses which liberated him from visual convention. It was as
though the central area of fact were surrounded by much less predictable, almost fabulous,
margins; where imagination and reverie and memory could be asserted as a heightened
reality, in “ impossible” intensities of colour.19
Practice seeing in your peripheral vision and you will begin to see what Bonnard
saw: the indeterminate presences, the stealthily arriving figures, the fugitive outlines
so transparent the colors behind bleed through and partially conceal them. In both The
Breakfast Table and Interior: Dining Room (cat. no. 71), we see figures only slowly, almost
reluctantly. They are unresolved, out of focus, and nearly genderless. Bonnard regis-
ters the peripheral effects of seeing someone enter a room or quietly slip out. The woman
in The Breakfast Table is also too large, as if only suddenly did she enter into the
periphery, startling the viewer, whose eyes must shift to bring her into focus. In Interior:
Dining Room, the woman is more peripheral than spectral, almost a side show to the
pageantry of the table. The edges of Bonnard’s paintings are entrances for mystery and
menace alike.
The 1939 still life The Checkered Tablecloth (cat. no. 60) can initially appear subdued
compared to many other Bonnard canvases. The tablecloth itself, ungoverned by per-
spective, rises to line up with a levitating red table and is a backdrop for two rather orderly
red apples on the edge of a melon-colored plate. They sit in front of a tropical basket
whose underlying orange color seeps up and infuses the rest of the shape. Flatness yields
to glowing, arcing, soaring, floating surfaces. A richness of color begins to emerge. Some
areas are built up in jewel-like, complementary complexities, while other areas are faint,
rendered in thin washes of color. White glints appear, sometimes to denote volume, some-
times to highlight edges, almost like stray voltage. The plate at center casts an improbable
white shadow. The apples and the sugar bowl take on increasing dimension and form the
longer you look at them, as if they were really there, but then they startle us as they begin
� 76
to float and, thus, to deny the surface on which they should be resting. “My god is light,”
Bonnard said, but for the viewer, his god is also color, and no more so than in a painting
such as this one, where colors jostle and pulsate—note how the primaries coalesce and
disappear—and also float up, only to sink back down into the canvas.
Bonnard’s understanding of seeing resulted from direct experience, from a fervent
dialogue with a world that was visible but inseparable from thought, feeling, memory,
even mystical awakenings and sensual desires. He rephrased the world of things, ask-
ing himself and the viewers of his work to see more, feel more, remember more. The
casual viewer might say that not much changes in Bonnard’s world, but the viewer who
lingers experiences table settings that shift; the sudden appearance of spring blossoms in
the flowering fruit tree; the unruly tablecloth that rises up; the chair that moved around
in the night; an ever-changing exterior world that presses itself through the window; and
the spectral presences of those who have drifted in from Bonnard’s dreams to the edges of
his paintings. Returning to Marthe Entering the Room, only now, perhaps, do we see the
picture in the blue frame hanging on the wall. A woman’s face materializes, two blue eyes
and red lips. We look again at The Checkered Tablecloth, and there is an undercurrent of
things lost to us—of a life stilled. We see the green and ocher shadow on the left, suggest-
ing an unseen phantasmal presence beyond the picture’s edge, leaning over the table. It
shimmers, then grows dimmer as we continue to look. It is an entrance, used as an exit.
1. New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, 12. Terrasse, M. 1988, p. 21; Terrasse, M. 1987,
p. 12. p. 21: “. . . saisi toute fraîche une attitude de
2. Gilot and Lake 1964, pp. 271–72. Marthe sortant du bain, il allait dans son atelier
d’une toile à l’autre déposer de la couleur.”
3. Bouvet 1981, pp. 9–10; London and New York
1998, p. 263. 13. Mann 1991, p. 14.
4. See Ives 1989–90, pp. 36–37. 14. “Conscience, le choc de la sensation et de la

mémoire.” Daybook, May 8, 1936. Paris, Wash-
5. Washington, D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 48; see
ington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, p. 194; translation
also Bouvet 1981, p. 292.
from Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b,
6. Confusion surrounds many of the titles of Bon- p. 70.
nard’s works, which are surprisingly generic for
15. I thank Megan Fontanella, curatorial assistant,
the most part. Nearly all of them were assigned
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, for her insight
posthumously by owners or dealers, sometimes
into this painting.
changing in translation or at auction.
16. Washington, D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 43, and
7. According to Phaedra Siebert, curator of drawings
p. 279 n. 108: “Je crois que lorsqu’on est jeune,
at the Arkansas Arts Center, this gouache has
c’est l’objet, le monde extérieur qui vous enthou-
consistently been referred to by the Arkansas Arts
siasme: on est emballé. Plus tard, c’est intérieur, le
Center as Marthe entrant le salon, as it was called by
besoin d’exprimer une émotion pousse le peintre
James Kirkman, Ltd., when the center acquired it
à choisir tel ou tel point de départ, telle ou telle
in 1983. However, several other institutions have
forme.”
referred to it as Le radiateur or Le radiateur, Marthe
entrant le salon. A 1993 letter from the organizers 17. “Les exigences et les plaisirs de la vision et les
of the 1994 exhibition “Bonnard at Le Bosquet” satisfactions. Vision brute et vision intelligente.”
describes the image as “showing Marthe peeping Daybook, June 13, 1930. Paris, Washington, D.C.,
round the doorway of the bathroom at the Villa le and Dallas 1984a, p. 183; translation from Paris,
Bosquet,” which explains the tile floor in the room Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, p. 69.
Marthe is leaving. 18. Clair 1984b, p. 32; Clair 1984a, p. 19: To “montrer
8. London and New York 1998, p. 48. ce qu’on voit quand on pénètre soudain dans une
pièce d’un seul coup.”
9. Bell 1994, p. 23.
19. Hyman 1998, pp. 160–61.
10. Terrasse, M. 1988, p. 22; Terrasse, M. 1987, p. 22:
“J’essaie de faire ce que je n’ai jamais fait: donner
l’impression que l’on a quand on pénètre dans une For their help in various and important ways, I thank
pièce, que l’on voit tout et rien à la fois.” Dita Amory, Christopher Caines, Elliott Kai-Kee,
11. New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964 – 65, and Allison Stielau.
p. 18.
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1. Still Life with Greyhound

Nature morte à la levrette
Ca. 1923
Oil on canvas, 271/2 x 271/2 in. (69.9 x 69.9 cm)
Private collection
D 1207
Provenance: collection of the artist; by descent to Terrasse fam-

ily, Paris; Wildenstein and Co., New York; The Wallis Foundation,
Santa Barbara; its sale, Christie’s, New York, May 12, 1999, lot 38;
bought by current owner
Selected liter at ur e: Webb 1966, p. 68, fig. 1; Young 1981,
fig. 6
Exhibited: London 1966, p. 55, no. 154, ill. p. 98; London 1972,
no. 5, ill.; Tokyo, Koˉ be, Nagoya, and Fukuoka 1980–81, no. 48, pl.
48; Geneva 1981, no. 50; New York 1981, pp. 23, 63, no. 29, pl. 15;
Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, pp. 214–15, no. 104, ill.;
Lausanne 1991, p. 157, no. 46, pl. 46; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 88,
no. 66, ill. p. 73; Munich 1994, no. 95, ill.; Santa Barbara 1998, p. 18,
no. 3, ill. p. 19
Bonnard’s idiosyncratic pairing of a greyhound and a bountiful
buffet table calls to mind Chardin’s resplendent painting of the
same subject (fig. 60), only Chardin’s hound has a live parrot in
its sights. Bonnard may have seen the earlier masterpiece at
the Louvre, where it has been since the early eighteenth cen-
tury. Among other well-known admirers of Chardin’s canvas
were Matisse, who copied Buffet on two occasions, and Proust,
who in his 1895 “portrait” of Chardin wrote of its light and delec-
table fruits.
Still Life with Greyhound is more a record of the objects on the
table than a study of their interrelationships. The bananas, peaches,
linens, and plates clutter the sideboard quietly, with only the dog
to interrupt the silence. The local color and chiaroscuro recall
Bonnard’s Nabi-period paintings, perhaps a last nod to the past
before the experience of Mediterranean light infused his later pic-
tures with daring, modernistic hues. da
Fig. 60. Jean Siméon Chardin, The Buffet, 1728.

Oil on canvas, 763/8 x 503/4 in. (194 x 129 cm).
Musée du Louvre, Paris (Inv. 3198)
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2. Before Dinner
Avant dîner
1924
Oil on canvas, 351/2 x 42 in. (90.2 x 106.7 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.156)
D 1266
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim- color fields are mapped with greater deliberation than the other
Jeune, Paris, 1924; bought by Mlle Ricotti; Galerie O. Pétridès, components of the painting. The tabletop props were brushed so
Paris; bought by Robert Lehman, June 1948; The Metropolitan rapidly they appear as if they were “drawn” with brush and oil.
Museum of Art, 1975 Although Bonnard seldom stretched his canvases onto standard-
size stretchers prior to finishing a painting, he did lay out the gen-
Selected liter at ur e: Szabó 1975, p. 95, pl. 114; Giambruni
eral dimensions of an image by painting framing lines around the
1989–90, pp. 85–87
periphery or by drawing in charcoal directly on the canvas. Here,
Exhibited: New York 1954; Cincinnati 1959, p. 23, no. 168, he blocked out the pictorial field with a crimson line that is visible
pl. 168; Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, p. 222, no. 110, only when the picture is unframed.
ill.; Copenhagen 1986, no. 51, ill. A highly finished charcoal preparatory drawing for this work
(fig. 61) offers a rare glimpse of a composition Bonnard realized
This view of the dining room at Ma Roulotte, the small house in
fully on paper before executing it on canvas. The drawing reveals
Vernon that Bonnard bought in 1912, is one of the few interiors
his methodology as he worked out the overall structure as well
from the artist’s later years in which the table is set for an actual
as the treatment of the color fields, patterns, and voids. Even the
meal with an orderly arrangement of dishes and cutlery, serving
expressions of the models—how the one on the right slightly
platters, and carafes. As such it represents a specificity of time—a
tilts her head, for example—is articulated on paper. Looking at
stage set for what is to follow—that is equally uncommon in Bon-
the drawing, one could logically deduce that Bonnard sketched
nard’s late interiors. And yet the conviviality one might expect
directly from models before embarking on the painting in his
before dinner is nowhere to be found. The models appear lost in
studio. da
thought, resisting contact or the mere suggestion of movement;
only the dachshund registers any animation.
The painting reads as a series of interlocking squares and rect-
angles dominated by the luminous white of the dining table. These
Fig. 61. Pierre Bonnard, Before Dinner,

ca. 1924. Charcoal on paper, 95/8 x 111/4 in.
(24.5 x 28.5 cm). Private collection
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3. Reflecting on the Day

Les Comptes de la journée
1924/1925 – 27
Private collection, courtesy Guggenheim
Asher Associates
D 1262 ambiguity of her companion’s actions lend this ordinary scene an
air of mystery, even discomfort. This effect is only heightened by
the extreme flatness, tilted perspective, and shallow space of the
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Félix Fénéon, Paris,
composition, which hark back to Bonnard’s Nabi days and to the
by 1925; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 4, 1941, lot 31;
influence of Paul Gauguin.
bought by François Pacquement, Paris; his sale, Sotheby’s, New
Although most strongly observed in Bonnard’s works from the
York, May 11, 1999, lot 107; bought by current owner
early 1890s, Gauguin’s powerful example of the expressive poten-
Selected literature: Basler and Kunstler 1929, pl. 55; Laprade tial of color and form continued to influence Bonnard throughout
1944, no. and pl. 12; Champigneulle 1952, ill. p. [410] his career. This enduring admiration can be seen in Reflecting on
the Day, which bears a striking similarity both in composition and
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1924*; Prague 1926,
mood to Gauguin’s The Meal (fig. 62), painted during the artist’s
no. 3; Lyon 1928, no. 4; Brussels 1929, no. 430; Amsterdam 1939,
first Tahitian sojourn. Bonnard could have seen The Meal at the
no. 9; Paris 1952, no. 12; Paris 1955, no. 4; Paris 1957a, no. 40;
posthumous retrospective of Gauguin’s work held at the 1906 Salon
Munich 1961, no. 6; Paris 1967, no. 115; London 1969, no. 19; Paris
d’Automne. Almost a close-up view of Gauguin’s composition,
1974, no. 1; Washington, D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 269, no. 97,
Bonnard’s canvas preserves the dark, somewhat ominous shadows
ill. p. 208 (Washington, D.C. only)
cast solely by the objects on the table. Bonnard gave his scene a
Among Bonnard’s intimate views of domestic rituals, Reflecting decidedly Western setting, however, substituting compotiers and
on the Day is a particularly poignant example of the artist’s abil- local produce for a wooden bowl and exotic fruit, and a decadent
ity to transform the everyday into the strange. Marthe and an slice of frosted cake for a menacing knife. While Bonnard’s paint-
unidentified woman sit silently before an imposing spread, their ing can be seen as an homage to Gauguin, its subtle plays on per-
hunched forms squeezed tightly between the overloaded table and ception—Marthe’s blurry, almost one-eyed visage, for example, or
the looming presence of a dining room cupboard that reappears in the strange, unidentifiable shapes in the background that read both
The Table (cat. no. 15), painted the following year. Marthe’s par- as flat and three-dimensional, near and far—result in a sense of the
tially obscured features and disproportionate body as well as the uncanny that is Bonnard’s alone. n m
Fig. 62. Paul Gauguin, The Meal,

1891. Oil on paper mounted on
canvas, 283/4 x 361/4 in. (73 x 92 cm).
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
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4. The Compotier
Le Compotier
Selected liter at u r e: Beer and Gillet 1947, p. 145, pl. 125;
Ca. 1924 Natanson 1951, pl. 63; Polaillon-Kerven 1955, pp. 38–39; Watkins
Oil on canvas, 181/2 x 121/4 in. (47 x 31 cm) 1994, pp. 168, 171, 174, pl. 132; Terrasse, A. 2000a, p. 91, ill.
Private collection
Ex hibited: Cleveland and New York 1948, p. 141, no. 63, ill.
D 1249
p. 107; Lyon 1954, no. 65, fig. 14; Paris 1957b, no. 34; Munich
1966–67, no. 95, ill.; Paris 1967, no. 105, ill.; Lausanne 1991, p. 159,
Provenance: L’Art Moderne collection, Lucerne; its sale, Hôtel no. 52, pl. 52; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 88, no. 67, ill.; Munich 1994,
Drouot, Paris, June 20, 1935, lot 48; bought by Bignou Gallery, no. 97, ill.; Nagoya and Tokyo 1997, pp. 162–63, 247, no. 68, ill.;
Paris; Galerie Alfred Daber, Paris; estate of Mme X (Camille Bes- Martigny 1999, pp. 122–23, no. 44, ill.; Paris 2000, p. 101, no. 36,
son?); Ader-Picard-Tajan sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 24, ill. p. 59; Lisbon 2001, p. 71; Paris 2006, pp. 196, 321, no. 59, ill.;
1990, lot 75; bought by current owner Rome 2006–7, pp. 172–73, no. 15, ill.
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Catalogue �
5. Basket of Fruit in the Sun Prov enance: Louis Vauxcelles, Paris; by descent to his wife,
Panier de fruits au soleil Mme Vauxcelles; Sam Salz Inc., New York; Mr. and Mrs. William
Goetz, Holmby Hills, California; Theodore H. Cummings, Beverly
Ca. 1927 Hills; sale, Sotheby’s, London, April 26, 1967, lot 12; Mr. and
Oil on canvas, 241/4 x 18 in. (61.6 x 45.7 cm) Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; their gift to Yale Univer-
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven sity Art Gallery, 1983
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, B.A. 1929
D 1244 Ex hibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1934*; San Francisco
1959, no. 4, ill.; New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65,
p. 108, no. 42, ill. p. 50 (Chicago and Los Angeles only)
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6. The White Tablecloth

La Nappe blanche
1925
Oil on canvas, 393/8 x 427/8 in. (100 x 109 cm)
Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, Germany
D 1309
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim-

Jeune, Paris, 1925; bought by Mme Nathan, 1937; by descent to her
grandson, Gilbert Joseph; Gallery Rosengart, Lucerne, by 1977;
bought by the Von der Heydt-Museum, 1977
Selected liter at ur e: L’Art d’aujourd’hui 1927, pl. 45; Terrasse,
A. 2000b, ill. p. 86
Exhibited: Paris 1950, p. 23, no. 47; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 88,
no. 70, ill. p. 89; Düsseldorf 1993, p. 184, no. 35, ill. p. 119
Although in some respects this painting aligns with many of
Bonnard’s other late interiors—for example, in the way the stark
white tabletop becomes a surrogate canvas for an array of platters,
a basket of bread, a carafe, and an effulgent basket of fruit—here
the eccentricities of perception, or Bonnard’s memory of percep-
tion, extend the painting’s formal ambiguities almost to the point
of indecipherability. Although the eye searches for some corrective
input that would help identify the jack-o’-lantern–like basket of
fruit in the upper-left corner, or lend corporeality to the female fig-
ure at lower left, it must settle instead for profound disequilibrium.
The ethereal figure at left, whose head trails off in an indistinct
field of light, contrasts with the self-engaged standing woman,
whose hot palette echoes the fiery tones of the interior. Even the
table arrangement is ill at ease. The intersecting plates hover above
the blinding white tabletop, and the plate and compotier in the near
ground appear to slide off the side. The air of unrest, disquietude,
and inscrutability that prevails is unleavened by a suffusion of rak-
ing light: a picture of a seemingly ordinary ritual that is anything
but ordinary. da
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7. Still Life with Bouquet of Flowers The unusual format of this long, rectangular canvas recalls the
(La Vénus de Cyrène) decorative panels painted by Bonnard and the Nabis in the 1890s.
Nature morte au bouquet de fleurs (La Vénus de Cyrène) The yellow-orange tones, abstracted background, and the place-
ment of a book at center, in particular, bring to mind the title panel
1930 in Édouard Vuillard’s ensemble Album (1895, The Metropolitan
Oil on canvas, 235/8 x 513/8 in. (60 x 130.5 cm) Museum of Art, New York). Where the latter was painted to
Kunstmuseum Basel embellish the home of Vuillard’s great patrons, Thadée and Misia
D 1437 Natanson, Bonnard’s canvas was created in honor of his friend and
dealer, Josse Bernheim-Jeune. Similar to how Van Gogh some-
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Josse and Gaston times used images of contemporary literature to add to or enhance
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, September 1930; disappeared during the the meanings of his works, here Bonnard painted a portrait of the
German occupation of Paris, 1940–44; Galerie Beyeler, Basel; dealer by representing his publications. The bright yellow cover
given by the Esther Mengold Foundation to the Kunstmuseum of Bernheim-Jeune’s 1930 novel, La Vénus de Cyrène, stands out
Basel, 1956; bought from the heirs of Bernheim-Jeune by the prominently among the still-life elements on the table, while a
Kunstmuseum Basel, 1997 corner of his periodical, Le Bulletin artistique de la vie, hovers at
the edge of the composition like one of Bonnard’s spectral figures.
Selected liter at ur e: Fermigier 1969, p. 126, ill.; Hyman Painted the same year the novel was published, Bonnard’s still life
1998, p. 138, fig. 108 appears to have been made to commemorate Bernheim-Jeune’s
Exhibited: Basel 1955a, no. 4; Zurich and Frankfurt am Main literary achievement. Bonnard modestly downplayed his own
1984–85, pp. 248–49, no. 126, ill.; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 90, no. involvement in the project, however, as the illustration he created
85, ill. p. 88; Düsseldorf 1993, p. 185, no. 43, ill. p. 124; Washington, for the novel’s cover is conspicuously absent from the representa-
D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 272, no. 119, ill. p. 226; Winterthur tion of the book in the painting. n m
2004–5, no. 74, ill. p. 102
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Catalogue �
8. Woman with Mimosa Prov enance: Paul Rosenberg and Co., New York; Dr. Sand-
La Femme au mimosa bloom, Stockholm, by 1949; Olivier B. James, New York, until
1955; sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, October 19, 1955,
1924 lot 55; Larry Aldrich, New York, 1955–63; sale, Parke-Bernet
Oil on canvas, 191/8 x 245/8 in. (48.5 x 62.5 cm) Galleries, New York, October 30, 1963, lot 18; Ann Eden Wood-
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ward, New York, 1963–75; her bequest to The Metropolitan
Bequest of Ann Eden Woodward, 1975 (1978.264.8) Museum of Art, 1975
D 1257
Selected liter at u r e: Söderberg 1949, ill. p. 52; Art News 1955,
ill.; Pictures on Exhibit 1955, ill. p. 32; Art and Auctions 1963
Ex hibited: New York 1956, pp. 4, 11, no. 7, ill.; Palm Beach 1957,
no. 13, ill.; Richmond and Atlanta 1959, no. 2; New York and other
cities 1960–62, no. 4; New York 1981, pp. 24, 45, no. 36, fig. 17;
Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, pp. 220–21, no. 109, ill.;
Roslyn Harbor 1992, no. 102; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 88, no. 69,
ill. p. 44; Düsseldorf 1993, p. 184, no. 34, ill. p. 117; Humlebaek
and Basel 2004–5, pp. 96–97, fig. 13
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9. Basket of Fruit
Panier de fruits
1930
Pencil on paper, 43/4 x 57/8 in. (12 x 15 cm)
Private collection
Provenance: by descent to the artist’s nephew, Charles Terrasse,

Fontainebleau and Paris; his estate; by descent to current owner
Selected liter at ur e: Amoureaux 1985, ill. p. 96; Terrasse, A.
1988, p. 312, ill. p. 177; Milan 1988–89, p. 204, ill. p. 138
Exhibited: Munich 1966–67, no. 196, ill.; Paris 1967, no. 202,
ill.; Rome and Turin 1971–72, no. 50, ill.; London and Newcastle
1994, p. 56, no. 11, ill.
10. Still Life with Apples, Le Cannet

Nature morte aux pommes, Le Cannet
1924
Pencil on paper, 5 x 61/4 in. (12.7 x 16 cm)
Musée Pierre Bonnard Le Cannet, Côte d’Azur
On deposit from a private collection
Prov enance: collection of the artist; his estate; by descent to

Bowers collection; by descent to current owner
Ex hibited: Paris 1972, no. 113, ill.; Canberra and Brisbane 2003,
p. 180, no. 75, ill. p. 175, fig. 153; Rome 2006–7, p. 170, no. 13, ill.;
Marseille 2007, p. 94, no. 73, ill.
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11. The Plate of Apples

L’Assiette de pommes
1926 (?)
Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper, 101/4 x 121/4 in.
(26 x 31 cm)
Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Département des Arts Plastiques,
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Provenance: Yvan and Hélène Amez-Droz, Paris, by 1979;

their bequest to the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, 1979
Exhibited: Winterthur 2004–5, no. 120, ill. p. 152
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12. Flowers on the Mantelpiece at Le Cannet

Fleurs sur la cheminée au Cannet
1927
Oil on canvas, 41¾ x 28⅝ in. (106 x 72.8 cm)
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
D 1385

Jeune, Paris, 1928; bought by Kapferer; Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Lyon
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1927*; Milan
1988–89, p. 204, no. 30, ill. p. 94; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 90,
no. 79, ill. p. 15
Bonnard often used the mantelpiece in his small upstairs sitting
room at Le Cannet as a stage or proscenium for his repertoire of
familiar objects: here a ceramic vase with a crisscross pattern and
a loose arrangement of anemones. Marthe’s cropped body enters
stage left. The suffusion of yellow throughout the canvas, which
sets off the silvery mantel and its vertical support, contrasts mark-
edly with the rich, black fireplace. The insistent verticality and
countering horizontals bring to mind the architectural representa-
tions in Roman wall painting, such as those found at Pompeii.
The presence of Marthe’s figure in the otherwise orderly
arrangement of the painting brings a different range of meaning
to the work. She appears to gaze at the only yellow flower among
the violet and magenta anemones as she collects the fallen dead
leaves. Her diagonal arm attracts our eye onto the mantel, and
with this gesture we realize the mantel is at eye level. This aware-
ness, in turn, affects the way we see and understand the rest of
the painting—for instance, that the rectangular shape at bottom
is the tabletop tilted up parallel to the picture plane. da
� 94
Catalogue �
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13. Flowers on a Red Carpet Prov enance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim-
Fleurs sur un tapis rouge Jeune, Paris, November 1928; bought by Dr. Charpentier; his
sale, Galerie Charpentier, March 20, 1954, no. 7; private collection,
1928 Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
Oil on canvas, 221/2 x 24 in. (57 x 61 cm)
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon Selected liter at u r e: Charpentier 1939, ill. p. 177; Spar 1956,
D 1402 p. 113
Ex hibited: Paris 1937, no. 22; Paris 1939
� 96
Catalogue �
14. Basket of Fruit

Corbeille de fruits
1930
Watercolor, gouache, and pen on paper, 107/8 x 145/8 in.
(27.5 x 37 cm)
Private collection
Provenance: Marcel Guérin, Paris, by 1959; bought by Marianne

Feilchenfeldt, 1959; to current owner, 2001
Selected liter at ur e: Cogniat 1968, ill. p. 54; Amoureaux
1985, ill. p. 97; Terrasse, A. 1988, p. 312, ill. p. 174
Exhibited: Munich 1966–67, no. 158, ill.; Rome and Turin
1971–72, no. 29, ill.; Milan 1988–89, p. 204, no. 34, ill. p. 99;
London and Newcastle 1994, p. 56, no. 10, ill.; Winterthur 2004–5,
no. 135, ill. p. 160
97 �
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15. The Table

La Table
1925
Tate, London
Presented by the Courtauld Fund Trustees, 1926
D 1310

Jeune, Paris; Independent Gallery, London; presented by the
Trustees of the Courtauld Fund to the Tate Gallery, 1926
Selected liter at ur e: Earp 1926, ill. p. 64; Manson 1926,
p. 96; Tatlock 1926, pl. 4g; Rothenstein 1949, pl. 79; Cooper and
Blunt 1954, no. 1, pl. 64; Harteel and Swanenburg 1955, pp. 64,
69; Alley 1959, p. 12, pl. 7; Sylvester 1962; Vaillant et al. 1965, ill.
p. 204; Fermigier 1969, p. 24, ill.; O� oka et al. 1972, p. 102, fig. 7;
Terrasse, A. 1988, p. 312, ill. p. 151; Cogniat 1991, p. 55, ill. p. 70;
Mann 1994, pp. 36–37, fig. 19; Hyman 1998, p. 139, fig. 109; Wat-
kins 1998, pp. 44, 46, fig. 29; Terrasse, A. 2000a, pp. 86–87, ill.
Exhibited: Edinburgh 1932, no. 211; London 1948, no. 1; Paris
1955–56, no. 2; London 1957b, p. 20, pl. 9; New York, Chicago, and
Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108, no. 34, ill. p. 47; London 1966, p. 58,
no. 179; Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, pp. 102–3, no.
27, ill.; Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, pp. 168–69, no.
31, ill.; Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, pp. 222–23, no. 111,
ill.; London and New York 1998, pp. 152–53, no. 50, ill.; Washing-
ton, D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 270, no. 102, ill. p. 213
At a table haphazardly laid with nuts and fruits, ceramics, and cutlery,
Marthe appears in the distance, out of reach, seemingly intent on
stirring some concoction for her dog, whose muzzle is faintly vis-
ible at left. A luminous white tabletop casting violet-gray shadows
dominates our field of view, perhaps—as in The White Tablecloth
(cat. no. 6)—a metaphor for an artist’s primed canvas. Bonnard
once admitted that white was a color he had been investigating all
his life, and many of the late interiors bear out such experiments.
Here he transforms the white rectangle from an indefinite field of
space into a powerful planar reality. da
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16. Woman with Basket of Fruit

Femme au panier de fruits
1915–18 or ca. 1926
Oil on canvas, 271/4 x 153/4 in. (69.2 x 40 cm)
The Baltimore Museum of Art
The Cone Collection, Bequest of Frederic W. Cone (BMA 1950.190)
D 1362
Provenance: sale, L’Art Moderne, Lausanne, 1928; bought by

Degryse; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 10, 1933; sale, Hôtel
Drouot, Paris, December 1, 1933, lot 42; Frederic W. Cone, by
1950; his bequest to The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1950
Selected liter at ur e: Terrasse, M. 1996, ill. p. 191
Exhibited: Paris 1926, no. 7; Cleveland and New York 1948,
p. 141, no. 59; Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1953*; New
York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108, no. 24, ill. p. 39;
Nagoya and Tokyo 1997, pp. 152–53, 246, no. 62, ill.
Whereas in White Interior (cat. no. 36) white serves to anchor the
painting’s complex geometry, here it acts as a staging ground for a
full spectrum of other colors, both warm and cool. The solid mass
of fruit, heaped onto a raffia basket, in a nod to Cézanne, teeters
on a tablecloth whose varied hues appear literally to spill off the
tabletop in liquid motion. Even Poucette, the family’s dachshund,
seems blinded by how the white of the fabric is translated into a
trembling blue-violet.
As in so many of Bonnard’s late paintings, the pictorial field
of Woman with Basket of Fruit has the appearance of a cinematic
frame that has captured a haphazard moment of daily life: the dog
trotting along to inspect his meal; the female figure, detached
from her surroundings; and the fruit basket at center stage.
Opinions differ as to the date of this work. If the model is iden-
tified as Renée Monchaty, the later date (ca. 1926) is highly
unlikely. Renée died in 1925, following a liaison with the artist,
and Bonnard abruptly abandoned all paintings for which she
modeled, such was the depth of his sorrow. da
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17. Untitled (Basket of Fruit)

Ca. 1920
Pencil and watercolor on paper, 47/8 x 71/8 in. (12.5 x 18 cm)
Collection of Anisabelle Berès-Montanari, Paris
Prov enance: collection of the artist; his estate; by descent to the

artist’s grand-nephew, Antoine Terrasse, Fontainebleau; bought by
Anisabelle Berès-Montanari, Paris
18. Basket of Fruit

Panier de fruits
Ca. 1923
Pencil on paper, 41/2 x 63/4 in. (11.4 x 17.1 cm)
Private collection

Fontainebleau and Paris; his estate; by descent to current owner
� 102
Catalogue �
19. Basket of Fruit in the Dining Room Ex hibited: Paris 1937, no. 28; New York 1956, pp. 4, 13, no. 10,
at Le Cannet ill.; London and New York 1998, pp. 168–69, no. 58, ill.
Corbeille de fruit dans la salle à manger du Cannet Bonnard’s modest repertoire of still-life motifs came not from his
1928 studio but from the entirety of his house. The raffia basket seen
Oil on canvas, 203/8 x 235/8 in. (51.8 x 60 cm) here was a favorite prop; it appears again and again in his Le Can-
Private collection net interiors, both in paintings and in gouaches, where it assumes
D 1401 many guises, as in the striking 1930 gouache Basket of Fruit (cat.
no. 14). Just such a basket is mentioned in a description of Le Bos-
quet, the hillside villa above Cannes where Bonnard lived the
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim- last twenty years of his life, written by the artist’s grand-nephew,
Jeune, Paris, 1928; Georges Renand, Paris; Raphäel Gerard, Paris; Michel Terrasse: “On the dining room table covered in red felt
Jacques Lindon, New York, by 1947; bought by Mr. and Mrs. stood baskets with tall handles of plaited osier or raffia—some-
Donald S. Stralem, New York, 1947; their sale, Sotheby’s, New where to put the peonies and mimosa, the oranges, lemons and
York, May 8, 1995, lot 30; bought by current owner persimmons gathered, with the figs, from the garden.” da
Selected liter at ur e: Edouard-Joseph 1930, ill. p. 158; Werth
et al. 1945, ill. p. 23
103 �
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20. Work Table

La Table de travail
1926/1937
Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. (121.9 x 91.4 cm)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (2006.128.12)
D 1356

Jeune, Paris, January 1937; bought by Pierre Loeb; Paul Rosen-
berg, Paris; seized by the Nazi Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg
during World War II; restituted to France by the Allied forces,
March 27, 1946; private collection, Switzerland, 1965; Mr. and
Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift to the National
Gallery of Art, 2006
Selected liter at ur e: McBride 1953, ill. p. 32; Fermigier 1969,
p. 27, ill.
Exhibited: London 1935, no. 32; Amsterdam 1939, no. 16; Paris
1946b, no. 52, ill.; Cleveland and New York 1948, p. 140, no. 53, ill.
pp. 50, 103; New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108,
no. 40, ill. p. 57
Unlike most of Bonnard’s late interiors, which are typically built
of broken brushstrokes knitted across the surface of the canvas,
this anomalous picture has large, continuous planes of color—
most notably the lapis lazuli–blue rug with rosettes—that recall
Matisse’s bold patterns. Indeed, a debt to Matisse is implicit in this
densely constructed, spatially charged interior, which could be
seen almost as an homage to Bonnard’s great friend and contem-
porary. Bonnard completed the painting in 1926, only to return to
it years later (a common practice for him) in order to simplify the
design of the rug.
Work Table was confiscated by the Nazis during the Second
World War and eventually found its way into Hermann Göring’s
collection of appropriated art works. Recovered by the Allies
after the war, the painting was restituted to France in March 1946
and was included that year in an exhibition of repatriated French
masterpieces. da
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Catalogue �
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21. Plate of Fruit

Plat de fruits
Ca. 1930
Watercolor and gouache on paper, 123/4 x 193/4 in. (32.5 x 50 cm)
Private collection, France
Provenance: collection of the artist; his estate; by descent to

current owner, 1958
Selected liter at ur e: Amoureaux 1985, pp. 80–81, ill.; Genty
and Vernon 2003, pp. 179, 181, fig. 485
22. The Yellow Shawl

Le Châle jaune
Ca. 1925
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Gift from the Estate of Paul Mellon
D 1323
Prov enance: private collection, Paris, by 1965; Paul Mellon,

Upperville, Virginia; his estate, after 1999; its gift to Yale Univer-
sity Art Gallery, 2006
Selected liter at u r e: Jourdain 1946, ill.; Vaillant et al. 1965,
p. 229, ill. p. 206
� 106
Catalogue �
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23. Lunch or Breakfast

Le Déjeuner or Le Petit Déjeuner
Ca. 1932
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
D 1500
Provenance: bought from the artist by the City of Paris, Febru-

ary 1936; deposited at Musée du Petit Palais, Paris; transferred to
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1988
Selected liter at ur e: d’Ors and Lassaigne 1937, p. 25;
Escholier 1937, ill. p. 25; Guenne 1937, p. 100, ill.; Bazin and Logé
1950, p. 98; Cogniat 1950, vol. 2, ill. p. 125; Natanson 1951, pl. 58;
Rumpel 1952, no. and pl. 18; Terrasse, A. 1964, ill. p. 71; Tajika
1966, pl. 65; Vaillant 1967; Cogniat 1968, ill. p. 64; Fermigier 1969,
p. 28, ill.; Charmet and Ochsé 1972, pp. 62–63, ill.; Ōoka et al. 1972,
p. 122, no. 28, ill.; Clair 1975, ill.; Fermigier 1987, p. 26; Janvier
1998, p. 52
Exhibited: Venice 1934, no. 28; Paris 1946a, no. 28; Paris 1947,
no. 72; Rotterdam 1952–53, no. 3; Paris 1967, no. 125, ill., cover;
Bordeaux 1978, p. 188, no. 181; Tokyo, Tochigi, Sapporo, and
Kyoto 1979, no. 92; Paris 1980, no. 108; Zurich and Frankfurt
am Main 1984–85, pp. 264–65, no. 136, ill.; Humlebaek 1992–93,
p. 92, no. 93, ill. p. 45; Düsseldorf 1993, p. 185, no. 50, ill. p. 114;
Le Cannet, Espace Bonnard, 2001*; Madrid 2001–2, p. 147, no. 52;
Jackson, Miss. and Miami Beach 2004–5, pp. 23, 154; Paris 2006,
pp. 198, 322, no. 61, ill.
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Catalogue �
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24. The Cherries Prov enance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim-
Les Cerises Jeune, Paris, 1923; bought by Henri Canonne, Paris; Guy Weiss-
weiller, Neuilly-sur-Seine; current owner
1923
Oil on canvas, 23 x 221/2 in. (58.5 x 57 cm) Selected liter at u r e: Hahnloser-Ingold 1985, pp. 52–53, ill.
Private collection Ex hibited: Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, p. 214, no.
D 1204 103, ill.; Lausanne 1991, pp. 158–59, no. 50, pl. 50; Düsseldorf 1993,
p. 184, no. 30, ill. p. 123; Munich 1994, no. 96, ill.; Martigny 1999,
pp. 118–19, no. 42, ill.; Winterthur 2004–5, no. 64, ill. p. 88
� 110
Catalogue �
25. Still Life with Fruit Prov enance: Gustav Zumsteg, Zurich; Huguette Berès, Paris;
Nature morte aux fruits Richard L. Feigen and Co., New York; bought by current owner
Ca. 1935 Selected liter at u r e: Terrasse, M. 1996, ill. p. 164

Pencil and gouache on cream-colored paper, 123/4 x 13 in. Ex hibited: Cleveland and New York 1948, p. 142, no. 107, ill. p. 54;
(32.5 x 33 cm) Zurich 1949, no. 171; Milan 1955, no. 77; Tokyo and Kyoto 1968,
Private collection no. 122, pl. 131; Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1975, p. 125, no. 148, ill. p. 10
111 �
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26. Fruit, Harmony in the Light

Fruits, harmonie claire
Ca. 1930
Graphite, gouache, and watercolor on paper, 143/8 x 131/4 in.
(36.5 x 33.7 cm)
Musée d’Orsay, on deposit in the Département des Arts
Graphiques, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Gift of Claude Roger-Marx in memory of his father, his brother,
and his son, who died for France, 1974
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Roger Marx, Paris; by

descent to his son, Claude Roger-Marx, Paris; his gift to the Musée
d’Orsay, 1974
Liter at u r e: Cogniat 1968, ill. p. 55; Amoureaux 1985, pp. 106–
7, ill.
Exhibited: Bordeaux 1986, p. 146, no. 78, ill. p. 149; London
and New York 1998, p. 248, no. 99, ill.; Tokyo, Kagoshima, and
Tokushima 2004, pp. 132–33, 200, no. 53, ill.
� 112
Catalogue �
27. Breakfast Ex hibited: Madison, N.J., Drew University, Macculloch Hall,

Le Petit Déjeuner 1961*; New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108, no.
49, ill. p. 82; Munich 1966–67, no. 117, ill.; Paris 1967, no. 132, ill.;
Ca. 1930 Trenton, The New Jersey State Museum, 1972*; Saitama 1989,
Oil on canvas, 173/4 x 22 in. (45.1 x 55.9 cm) no. 8, ill.; Tokyo, Nara, Yokohama, and Fukuoka 1991, no. 53, ill.;
Private collection Nagoya and Tokyo 1997, pp. 158–59, 247, no. 65, ill.
D 1523
The shadowy palette of Breakfast recalls Bonnard’s Nabi-period
paintings, with their earthen colors blended in a narrow tonal range.
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Here, however, light gives presence to the patterned tablecloth, the
Paris, 1936; bought by Percy Moore Turner, London, by 1957; his brilliant rim of the terracotta jug, and Marthe’s arching back, as she
sale, Christie, Manson and Woods, London, November 1, 1957, spoons tea or cereal in rapt concentration. Her figure merges chro-
lot 57; Alex Reid and Lefevre, Ltd., London; Mrs. L. B. Wescott, matically with the furnishings, an effect seen in many of Bonnard’s
Rosemont, New Jersey; sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, late interiors. The dappled blue-white ground (at upper right) that
October 19, 1977, lot 60; Mr. and Mrs. Heller, Miami; Murauchi migrates to Marthe’s profiled head shrouds her in even greater mystery.
Art Museum, Hachioji, Japan; Waring Hopkins, Paris; bought by Reading Bonnard’s late paintings often demands time and
private collection; bought by current owner patience. Passages that make sense at first glance frequently evolve
Selected liter at ur e: Art and Auctions 1957a, ill. p. 569; Art to signify something else altogether. Color is key to decoding such
and Auctions 1957b, p. 593; Vaillant 1967; Murauchi Art Museum passages. The amorphous mass of striated purple paint behind
1992, no. 83, ill. Marthe’s right hand, for instance, initially reads as some strange
reflection. Only after prolonged scrutiny does it come into focus as
the model’s arm. da
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28. Study for “Still Life, Yellow and Red”

Étude pour “Nature morte jaune et rouge”
1931
Pencil on beige laid paper, 65/8 x 91/2 in. (16.7 x 24 cm)
Musée de Grenoble
Provenance: Piasa, Paris; its sale, Drouot Richelieu, Paris,

March 19, 2004; bought by the Société des Amis du Musée de
Grenoble; their gift to the Musée de Grenoble, 2005
Selected liter at ur e: Piasa 2004, lot 2004; Grenoble 2007
Exhibited: Grenoble 2008, p. 26, ill.
� 114
Catalogue �
29. Still Life, Yellow and Red

Nature morte jaune et rouge
1931
Oil on canvas, 181/2 x 203/8 in. (47 x 51.8 cm)
Musée de Grenoble
D 1469

Jeune, Paris, 1933; bought by the Musée de Grenoble, 1933
Selected liter at ur e: Andry-Farcy 1939, p. 5, ill.; Lhote
1948, pl. 5; Natanson 1951, pl. 81
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1933*; Amsterdam
1935, no. 9, ill.; Paris 1935a, p. 116, no. 200; Zurich 1946, no. 111;
Amsterdam 1947, no. 54; Copenhagen 1947, no. 34; Paris 1947,
no. 71; Cleveland and New York 1948, p. 141, no. 64a; Mulhouse
1951, no. 24; Montrouge 1980; Chambéry and Grenoble 1981–82,
p. 106, no. 497; Bordeaux 1986, p. 128, no. 66, ill. p. 130; Nagoya
and Tokyo 1997, pp. 168–69, 248, no. 71, ill.; Saint-Tropez 1998;
Le Cannet, Espace Bonnard, 2001*
115 �
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30. Study for “Large Yellow Nude” (recto)

Étude pour “Le Grand Nu jaune”
1931
Private collection
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Roger Hauert; Jean-

Paul Loup, River Forest, Illinois; bought by Dorothy A. and
George L. Sturman, 1975; sale, Christie’s, New York, September
12, 2007, lot 27; bought by current owner
Exhibited: Tucson 1986–87, no. 11; The Boca Raton Museum
of Art, 2003–7*
This small sheet with recto and verso studies of Marthe standing
in front of a mirror is a superb example of Bonnard’s working out
a full-scale subject on paper before executing it on canvas. Even
in this early sketch, the seemingly awkward, tentative Marthe is
as fully realized as her surroundings—all rendered in the scrib-
bles, dashes, lines, and shadings that constituted Bonnard’s idio-
syncratic graphic lexicon. This drawing has been thought to be a
study for The Toilette (Nude at the Mirror) (cat. no. 31), but it more
accurately anticipates the very similar Large Yellow Nude (fig. 63),
where Marthe and her “toilette” nearly dissolve in raking yellow
light. The pose of the model in both of the paintings and in the
drawing recalls that of a classical nude, the Medici Venus, in the
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (see London and New York 1998,
p. 182). da
Fig. 63. Pierre Bonnard, Large Yellow

Nude, 1931. Oil on canvas, 667/8 x 421/4 in.
(170 x 107.3 cm). Private collection
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Catalogue �
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31. The Toilette (Nude at the Mirror)

La Toilette (Nu au miroir)
1931
Oil on canvas, 605/8 x 411/8 in. (154 x 104.5 cm)
Ca’ Pesaro, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Venice
D 1479
Not in exhibition
This image of Marthe standing by a mirror in what appears to
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Gaston Bernheim de
be her bedroom on the second floor of Le Bosquet is a study of
Villiers, Paris, 1931; bought by Galleria Internazionale d’Arte
reflective surfaces: the mirror, the window, and Marthe’s back,
Moderna at the Venice Biennale, 1934
all shimmering verticals reflecting light and form. Curiously, the
Selected liter at ur e: Guenne 1933, ill. p. 373; Besson 1934, intangibles of this spatially intense painting are more “real” than
pl. 49; Besson 1943, ill. p. 41; Natanson 1951, pl. 86; Cassou 1952, pl. the tangible objects. The plate of peaches in the mirror is more pre-
52; Russoli and Martin 1967, pl. 12; Fermigier 1969, pp. 138–39, ill.; cisely painted than the actual fruit; the reflected table shows more
Negri 1970, p. 80, pl. 54; Fortenescu 1980, pl. 52; Fermigier 1987, explicit geometry than the actual tabletop, which is lost among
pp. 112–13; Hyman 1998, p. 148, fig. 116; Terrasse, A. 2000a, overlapping planes. The vanity table beyond the fruit likewise
p. 137, ill. p. 5 disappears in a miasma of light that emanates from the tall window
and its patterned lace curtains.
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1933*; Venice 1934,
One could argue that in this painting Marthe is a surrogate for
no. 29; Basel 1955b, no. 84; Milan 1955, no. 60, ill.; Nice 1955, no. 38;
the painter, and her cloth a surrogate for the rag Bonnard so often
New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108, no. 55, ill.
held in his hand while painting (see fig. 19). Amplifying the meta-
p. 87; London 1966, p. 62, no. 214; Munich 1966–67, no. 112, ill.;
phor, the mirror becomes a sort of canvas that serves to clarify our
Paris 1967, no. 129; Rome and Turin 1971–72, no. 17, ill.; Saint-
reading of the surroundings. Marthe, who literally divides the pic-
Paul-de-Vence 1975, p. 117, no. 49, ill. p. 82; Paris, Washington,
torial field in half, is the physical and emotional center of the paint-
D.C., and Dallas 1984a, pp. 128–29, no. 40, ill.; Paris, Wash-
ing. On either side of her light transitions into form, or one might
ington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, pp. 196–97, no. 45, ill.; Zurich
say form dematerializes in light. Her shoes, the only unambiguous
and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, pp. 258–59, no. 133, ill.; Milan
elements among the passages at bottom, establish the horizontal of
1988–89, p. 204, no. 36, ill. p. 103; Munich 1994, no. 119, ill.; Rome
the ground in this otherwise insistently vertical composition.
1994–95, p. 69, no. 11; London and New York 1998, pp. 180–81,
Bonnard often altered the proportions of his canvases until
no. 64, ill.; Paris 2006, pp. 212–13, 324–25, no. 67, ill.
just before he finished painting. Here the vertical band of can-
vas at right, several inches wide, is an example of a late addition
by the artist, who perhaps judged the earlier composition too
emphatically vertical. da
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Catalogue �
119 �
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32. Still Life 33. Still Life with Studies of Details (recto)
Nature morte Nature morte avec études des détails
1930 Ca. 1930
Pencil on paper, 71/2 x 51/8 in. (19 x 13 cm) Pencil on paper, 5 x 61/2 in. (12.7 x 16.5 cm)
Private collection, France Private collection, courtesy Jill Newhouse
Provenance: collection of the artist; his estate; by descent Prov enance: by descent to the artist’s nephew, Charles
to current owner, 1958 Terrasse, Fontainebleau and Paris; private collection, France;
current owner
Selected liter at ur e: Genty and Vernon 2003, p. 176,
fig. 471
� 120
Catalogue �
34. Still Life with Plum Pits This painterly still life on paper is one of a series of drawings in
Nature morte au noyaux de prunes gouache and watercolor that Bonnard made toward the end of
his life. His decision to work in these media was prompted by his
1932 patron Arthur Hahnloser, who provided Bonnard with materials
Watercolor and gouache on paper laid on canvas, 10 x 123/4 in. while he was convalescing following hospitalization in 1930. Bon-
(25.5 x 32.5 cm) nard first tried painting in watercolor, but he found its fast-drying
Private collection components unsympathetic to his slow working routine. It was
thanks to the introduction of gouache that he was able to modify
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Dr. Arthur and Hedy Still Life with Plum Pits over a two-year period, while Hahnloser
Hahnloser-Bühler, Winterthur, Switzerland, 1932; by descent to Hans waited patiently. da
Robert Hahnloser, Bern, 1952; by descent to current owner, 1974
Selected liter at ur e: Vaillant et al. 1965, pp. 183–84, ill. p. 180
Exhibited: Zurich, Bremen, and Bielefeld 1982–83, no. 34, ill.
p. 47 and cover; Milan 1988–89, p. 204, no. 38, ill. p. 104; Winter-
thur 2004–5, no. 141, ill. p. 161
121 �
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35. Corner of the Dining Room at Le Cannet

Coin de salle à manger au Cannet
1932
Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne/
Centre de Création Industrielle, Paris
State Purchase, 1933
D 1496
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim- Bonnard, employing one of his favorite color strategies, here uses
Jeune, Paris, by 1933; bought by the government of France for white as a major color component in tandem with small quantities
the Musée de Luxembourg, Paris, 1933; transferred to the Musée of intense dark hues, notably rich reds and greens but also yellow,
National d’Art Moderne, Paris, 1942 so often a companion to white in his works. The strong surface
organization of the composition is made all the more powerful by a
Selected liter at ur e: Cassou, Dorival, and Homolle 1947, p.
dialogue between convex and concave forms. “It is the things close
17, salle 4, no. 2; Cassou 1948, unpaged, ill.; Natanson 1951, pl. 83;
at hand,” as Bonnard once stated, “that give an idea of the universe
Harteel and Swanenburg 1955, p. 64; Dorival 1961, p. 25, ill. p. 293;
as the human eye sees it, a universe which can be undulated, con-
Terrasse, M. 1987, ill. p. 66
vex or concave.” Note, for example, how the convex vase of flow-
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1933*; Cambrai and ers on the table is contained in space by the back of the dark chair.
other cities 1945–46, no. 45; Paris 1947, no. 76; Liège, Ghent, and The yellow shawl, with its chevron of colored dots, is a shallower
Luxembourg 1948–49, no. 53, ill.; Zurich 1949, no. 109; Berlin convex form; the woman wearing it appears to be looking toward
1956, no. 12, pl. 9; Braunschweig, Bremen, and Cologne 1956–57, the massive vase on the mantel, yet another powerful convexity.
no. 38, ill.; London 1957a, p. 10, no. 16; Saint-Paul-de-Vence (Although the woman is faceless, the position of her left ear allows
1975, p. 117, no. 51, ill. p. 93; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 92, no. 92; us to deduce the direction of her gaze.) The bellylike vase pulls the
Düsseldorf 1993, p. 185, no. 48, ill. p. 166; London and Newcastle eye back through the flowers to the center of the painting and to
1994, p. 69, no. 18, ill.; Le Cannet 2007, pp. 94–95, ill. the convex basket of fruit, which in turn is contained within the
concave fireplace. The mysterious presence of the woman in the
shawl, combined with the oddly volumetric vase—a mingling of
intangible and tangible, ethereal and solid—gives the painting a
strangely haunted feeling that is completely different from the
more domestic Yellow Shawl (cat. no. 22), painted a few years ear-
lier in Arcachon. da
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Catalogue �
123 �
� bon na r d
36. White Interior

Intérieur blanc
1932
Musée de Grenoble
D 1497
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim- Set in the upstairs sitting room of Le Bosquet, White Interior
Jeune, Paris, 1933; bought by the Musée de Grenoble, 1933 exploits “all possible liberties of line, form, proportions, [and] col-
ors,” as Bonnard wrote in his daybook (January 15, 1934), in order
Selected liter at ur e: Guenne 1935b, ill.; Escholier 1937, p. 25;
to “make feeling intelligible and clearly visible.” The painting
Bazaine 1944, ill. p. 45; Laprade 1944, no. and pl. 15; Natanson 1951,
ignores conventions of space, proportion, and color, confounding
pl. 80; Vaillant et al. 1965, ill. p. 209; Terrasse, A. 1967, ill. p. 140;
our expectations. The spatial field, for example, is much wider than
Negri 1970, p. 79, pl. 53; Terrasse, M. 1987, ill. pp. 84–85; Terrasse,
what the human eye could naturally see. The exterior views of the
A. 1988, p. 313, ill. p. 187; Mann 1991, p. 28, fig. O; Bell 1994, p. 112,
Mediterranean, Cannes, and the Esterel Mountains in the distance
pl. 41; Mann 1994, pp. 31–32, 53, figs. 16–17; Watkins 1994, pp.
at first offer a more conventional description of time and place, but
204–5, pl. 156; Terrasse, M. 1996, ill. p. 216; Hyman 1998, p. 136,
the framelike horizontals and verticals of the door mullions sug-
fig. 106; Watkins 1998, pp. 38–39, fig. 24; Terrasse, A. 2000a,
gest instead a strange triptych- or diptychlike configuration of
pp. 97–100, ill.
landscapes. The rectilinearity of the tabletop, the half-open door
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1933*; Amsterdam at center, and the angled drop of the fireplace interior contribute to
1947, no. 43; Copenhagen 1947, no. 33; Paris 1947, no. 74; the complexity of the composition.
Cleveland and New York 1948, p. 141, no. 66a, ill. p. 114; Zurich The true subject of the painting is color, particularly white and
1949, no. 111; Paris 1967, no. 130, ill.; Paris, Washington, D.C., its nuanced variations in the presence of yellow, blue, ocher, and
and Dallas 1984a, pp. 134–35, no. 43, ill.; Paris, Washington, D.C., red. By using yellow and violet in combination with white, Bon-
and Dallas 1984b, pp. 202–3, no. 48, ill.; Milan 1988–89, p. 204, nard heightened the impact of white as the predominant color on all
no. 37, ill. p. 105; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 92, no. 91, ill. p. 38; of the flat, rectilinear surfaces, notably the door to the balcony, the
Düsseldorf 1993, p. 185, no. 49, ill. p. 168; Nagoya and Tokyo accordionlike radiator, and the rapidly brushed door to the bath-
1997, pp. 184–85, 250, no. 79, ill.; London and New York 1998, room. The latter appears to be drifting oddly alongside an opaque
pp. 188–89, no. 68, ill. (London only); Saint-Tropez 1998, white wall and the chalky white mantelpiece at the periphery of the
pp. 56–57; Martigny 1999, pp. 138–39, no. 52, ill.; Washington, canvas, all three of which read as if they occupy the same plane.
D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 273, no. 121, p. 228; Paris 2006, The geometry of the room’s white-gray-yellow architecture
pp. 192–93, 320–21, no. 57, ill. is interrupted, or one might say relieved, by the presence of
Marthe leaning over to tend to her cat. As with so many figures
in Bonnard’s late interiors, she blends into the surrounding palette,
here the mottled red, orange, yellow, and black of the floor. Her
radiant yellow head guides the eye to the small teapot that sits
on yet another white planar surface, perhaps a tray leaning on a
chair. The still life of crockery makes some oblique suggestion of
a meal but offers no more explicit clues to the ritual. da
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Catalogue �
125 �
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37. Table in Front of the Window Prov enance: Sidney Janis Galleries, New York; Kirkeby
La Table devant la fenêtre collection; Edward A. Bragaline, New York; current owner
1934–35 Selected liter at u r e: Davidson 1963, ill. p. 556; Cogniat 1991,

Oil on canvas, 40 x 281/2 in. (101.6 x 72.4 cm) p. 51, ill. p. 72; Hyman 1998, p. 187, fig. 149; Watkins 1998,
Private collection pp. 28–29, fig. 16
D 1525 Ex hibited: New York 1963, no. 1, ill.; New York, Chicago, and
Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 109, no. 77, ill. p. 60; London and New
York 1998, pp. 194–95, no. 71, ill.
� 126
Catalogue �
York 1956, pp. 5, 18, no. 15, ill.; Palm Beach 1957, no. 24, ill.; New
38. Bowl of Fruit York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108, no. 56, ill. p. 55;
Coupe de fruits
Munich 1966–67, no. 116, ill.; Zurich and Frankfurt am Main
1933 1984–85, p. 274, no. 143, ill.; Munich 1994, no. 120, ill.; Nagoya
Oil on canvas, 227/8 x 207/8 in. (57.9 x 53 cm) and Tokyo 1997, pp. 170–71, 248, no. 72, ill.; London and New
Philadelphia Museum of Art York 1998, pp. 190–91, no. 69, ill.; Washington, D.C. and Den-
Bequest of Lisa Norris Elkins, 1950 ver 2002–3, p. 273, no. 122, ill. pp. 229–31; Paris 2006, pp. 199,
D 1515 322–23, no. 62, ill.
The evenly distributed, raking light that bathes this large fruit
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim- bowl—dematerializing its pears, apples, bananas, and grapes, and
Jeune, Paris; Gaston Bernheim de Villiers, Paris, by 1939–probably creating the intense opaque shadow below—could only be artificial
1946; Knoedler and Co., New York; bought by William M. and in origin, perhaps from an overhead light or some other kind of ceil-
Lisa Norris Elkins, Philadelphia, by 1947; bequeathed by Lisa ing fixture. Although there is no consensus in recent writing as to
Norris Elkins to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950 where Bonnard painted this picture (see London and New York 1998,
p. 192), the setting is undoubtedly the same as that used for Table in
Selected liter at ur e: Blomberg 1939, ill. p. 5; Arts 1956, ill.;
Front of the Window (cat. no. 37), painted the following year. In the
Clair 1975, ill.; Terrasse, M. 1996, ill. p. 241
latter painting, the linearity of the red striped tablecloth dissolves in
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1933*; Belgrade the still-life passage, where the same kind of electric light bleaches
1937; Paris 1946c, no. 32; Philadelphia 1947; Cleveland and New the entire painting. Here the fruit bowl becomes a surrogate palette,
York 1948, p. 141, no. 67, ill. p. 118; Paris 1950, p. 24, no. 58; New its fruits dollops of paint keyed to the colors of the painting. da
127 �
� bon na r d
Fig. 64. Pierre Bonnard, Still Life in Front

of the Window, 1931. Oil on canvas, 291/2 x
221/2 in. (75 x 57 cm). Muzeul Naţional de
Artă al României, Bucharest
39. Still Life at the Window

Nature morte à la fenêtre
Ca. 1930
Pencil on paper, 121/4 x 91/4 in. (31 x 23.5 cm)
Private collection
Provenance: by descent to the artist’s grand-nephew, Michel

Terrasse, France; Jill Newhouse, New York; bought by current
owner
This drawing is a preparatory study for Still Life in Front of the Win-
dow (fig. 64), which in turn mirrors Dining Room Overlooking the
Garden (The Breakfast Room) (cat. no. 41). The two paintings date
from Bonnard’s stay at the Villa Castellamare in Arcachon, a period
of heightened still-life activity for him. da
� 128
Catalogue �
40. Study for “Dining Room Overlooking the

Garden (The Breakfast Room)”
Étude pour “La Salle à manger sur le jardin”
Ca. 1930
Pencil with traces of watercolor on paper, 13 x 91/2 in. (33 x 24.1 cm)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Warren Stephens
Provenance: private collection, France; Jill Newhouse, New

York, by 2005; bought by current owners, 2005
129 �
� bon na r d
41. Dining Room Overlooking the Garden

(The Breakfast Room)
La Salle à manger sur le jardin
1930–31
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Given anonymously 1941
D 1473
Provenance: Jacques Seligmann Galleries, New York, 1931; Ostensibly a view of the breakfast table at the Villa Castellamare,
bought by Stephen C. Clark, New York, 1931; given anonymously this well-known, complex painting continues to pose interesting
to The Museum of Modern Art, 1941 questions. The entire top half—that is, the view of the garden out-
side the window—has all the attributes of a great Persian carpet,
Selected liter at ur e: Vaillant et al. 1965, ill. p. 208; Fer-
from intricate designs and interlocking shapes close in tonal range
migier 1969, p. 26, ill.; Fermigier 1987, p. 24; Terrasse, A. 1988, p.
to tightly “woven” marks. In the near ground, a veritable phalanx
313, ill. p. 188; Bell 1994, p. 108, pl. 39; Watkins 1994, pp. 176–77,
of carafe-shaped balusters progresses from light, to dark at center,
pl. 134; Terrasse, M. 1996, ill. p. 239; Hyman 1998, p. 140, fig. 110;
and back into light. The purple grid of the wall seems to hold in
Watkins 1998, frontispiece; Terrasse, A. 2000a, p. 95, ill.; Genty
place the ethereal, cropped figure of the woman with the cup and
and Vernon 2003, p. 56, fig. 104
saucer. Below her is a small dark shape set against white, perhaps
Exhibited: New York 1934–35, no. 41; New York 1939, no. 89, Bonnard’s dog.
ill.; Paris 1947, no. 65; Cleveland and New York 1948, p. 141, no. Looking at the right side of the canvas, we discover what is
64, ill. p. 109; Chicago 1955, no. 1, ill.; Washington, D.C. 1958, quite probably a deliberate ambiguity: an object usually viewed
no. 4, ill.; New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108, as a detail of a chair, but one that may also be read as the cropped
no. 52, ill. p. 81; Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, pp. head of Marthe as seen in the extreme foreground. The density of
132–33, no. 42, ill.; Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, pp. the marks in this passage and the visible overpainting allow us to
198–99, no. 46, ill.; Düsseldorf 1993, p. 185, no. 47, ill. p. 135; New see how Bonnard enlarged the original brown-orange shape so
York 1997a, pp. 28–29, ill.; London and New York 1998, pp. 176– that its contours would overlap the corner of the window frame,
77, no. 62, ill.; Washington, D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 272, no. breaking the symmetry of the composition. Indeed, turning the
118, ill. p. 225 (Washington, D.C. only); Paris 2006, pp. 186–87, distant chair into a dramatically proximate head adds dynamism
319, no. 54, ill.; Williamstown, Mass. and New York 2006–7, no. and depth to the spatial order of the canvas and gives more reso-
28, ill. p. 170 nance to the empty cup and saucer at bottom, which appear to
anchor the other objects on the table.
Bonnard delighted in introducing a disruptive element into an
otherwise orderly structure. Sometimes he did so with color, as in
Le Café (fig. 49), and at other times with form, such as the chair
in Corner of a Table (ca. 1935, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris). In
other variants of this image (see fig. 64), a chair clearly occupies
the place of the ambiguous chair/face passage. Perhaps Bonnard,
after securing the reading of a chair, judged the overall composi-
tion too static, and so subtly introduced a secondary reading: an
intruding figure about to take up the cup. da
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Catalogue �
131 �
� bon na r d
42. The French Window (Morning at Le Cannet)

La Porte-Fenêtre (Matinée au Cannet)
1932
Oil on canvas, 34 x 443/4 in. (87 x 111 cm)
Private collection
D 1499
Provenance: Jean-Arthur Fontaine; Paul de Laboulaye, Paris,

ca. 1952; by descent to private collection, France; sale, Sotheby’s,
London, February 4, 2003, lot 16; bought by current owner
Selected liter at ur e: Besson 1934, pl. 48; Laprade 1944,
no. and pl. 16; Terrasse, M. 1987, ill. pp. 82–83; Terrasse, A. 1988,
p. 313, ill. p. 186; Harrison 2005, pp. 195–96, ill.
Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1933*; London 1952,
no. 5; Rotterdam 1953, no. 86; Basel 1955b, no. 85; Paris 1957a, no.
41; Munich 1966–67, no. 115, ill.; Paris 1967, no. 127; Saint-Paul-
de-Vence 1975, p. 117, no. 52, ill. p. 96; London and Newcastle
1994, p. 53, no. 7, ill.; London and New York 1998, pp. 186–87,
no. 67, ill.
In Bonnard’s daybook entry for April 16, 1927, he made the fol-
lowing note about color: “proximity of white, lending a luminosity
to some bright colored spots.” In this painting, a paradigm of how
the late interiors investigate light and color—color as built of light,
light as radiating color—white serves as a highlighting brush-
stroke for the unfolding color spectrum. The “bright colored spots”
are in fact nuanced tones of yellow and blue. The venue is the
Naples yellow upstairs sitting room of Le Bosquet, directly across
the hall from Bonnard’s studio.
The brilliant light that defines the coffeepot also guides the eye
across the checkered tablecloth to the arc of the chair, to Marthe’s
arched shoulder, to her radiant head, and, finally, to the reflected
likeness of Bonnard gazing back at Marthe in the mirror, as if link-
ing himself to her—in art as in life—as her painter and protector.
The reading of the props and furniture surrounding the mirror
becomes a spatial conundrum not easily solved. If it is the back of
Marthe’s chair that is reflected in the mirror, why does it “exist”
outside the frame? The strange, oblong cushioning form behind
Marthe’s head, which in the painting joins her to Bonnard’s self-
image, is the back of Marthe’s head transposed by the mirror. The
conflation of form and reflected form is all the stranger given that,
in the logic of the scene, Bonnard was painting not in the upstairs
sitting room but in the studio next door. da
� 132
Catalogue �
133 �
� bon na r d
43. Still Life with Ham Prov enance: Pétridès collection, Paris; Valentine Dudensing,
Nature morte au jambon France; Sidney Janis, New York; bought by Joseph Pulitzer, Jr.,
September 1953; to current owner
1940
Oil on canvas, 17 x 25 in. (43.2 x 63.5 cm) Selected liter at u r e: Laprade 1944, no. and pl. 19; Lhote
Private collection 1944, pl. 3
D 1590 Ex hibited: New York 1953, no. 3, ill.; New York and Cambridge,
Mass. 1957, pp. 18–19, no. 9, fig. 6b
� 134
Catalogue �
44. Still Life with Fruit Prov enance: Alex Reid and Lefevre, Ltd., London; bought
Nature morte aux fruits by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., September 1938; to current
owner
1936
Oil on canvas, 141/2 x 24 in. (36.8 x 61 cm) Selected liter at u r e: Prologue 1947; House and Garden 1948,
Private collection ill. p. 81; Terrasse, A. 1964, ill. p. 76
D 1545
Ex hibited: Montreal 1937, no. 2; St. Louis, City Art Museum,
1941*; St. Louis, Caroll Knight Gallery, 1947*; Cleveland and New
York 1948, p. 141, no. 71, ill. p. 119; New York and Cambridge,
Mass. 1957, pp. 16–17, no. 8, fig. 6a; Paris, Washington, D.C., and
Dallas 1984a, pp. 144–45, no. 48, ill.; Paris, Washington, D.C.,
and Dallas 1984b, pp. 210–11, no. 52, ill.
135 �
� bon na r d
45. Plate, Orange Jug, and Casserole

Le Plateau, cruche orange et casserole
1933
Galerie de Rive, S.A., Geneva
D 1509
Provenance: collection of the artist; his estate; Galerie de

Rive, S.A., Geneva
� 136
Catalogue �
46. Fruit, Harmony in the Dark Prov enance: acquired from the artist by Roger Marx, Paris; by
Fruits, harmonie foncée descent to his son, Claude Roger-Marx, Paris; his gift to the Musée
d’Orsay, 1974
Ca. 1930
Graphite, gouache, and watercolor on paper, 147/8 x 131/8 in. Selected liter at u r e: Roger-Marx 1950, pl. 21; Amoureaux
(37.7 x 33.2 cm) 1985, pp. 108–9, ill.
Musée d’Orsay, on deposit in the Département des Arts Ex hibited: Bordeaux 1986, p. 146, no. 79, ill. p. 149; London
Graphiques, Musée du Louvre, Paris and New York 1998, p. 249, no. 100, ill.; Tokyo, Kagoshima, and
Gift of Claude Roger-Marx in memory of his father, his Tokushima 2004, pp. 134–35, 200, no. 54, ill.
brother, and his son, who died for France, 1974
137 �
� bon na r d
47. Interior, Window

Intérieur, fenêtre
Ca. 1930
Watercolor over pencil on paper, 6 x 45/8 in. (15.2 x 11.7 cm)
Private collection

Bowers collection, Paris, probably by 1949; by descent to Pierrette
Vernon, Paris, after 1999; bought by current owner, 2003
Selected liter at ur e: Cogniat 1968, ill. p. 39; Genty and
Vernon 2003, pp. 56–57, fig. 106
Absent the disquieting presence of Marthe, Interior, Window lays
out the spatial and architectural framework for Dining Room Over-
looking the Garden (The Breakfast Room) (cat. no. 41), a painting
as compelling for its vertiginous
garden as for its tabletop break-
fast offerings. Here Bonnard
limited his palette to shades of
brown, blue, and yellow. The set-
ting, said to be the dining room
of the Villa Castellamare, the
house Bonnard rented in Arca-
chon (near Bordeaux), is rapidly
brushed yet extensively realized.
Bonnard lived in Arcachon from
November 1930 to April 1931,
a period when he launched
several of his most significant
late interiors. da
� 138
Catalogue �
48. Still Life with Fruit

Nature morte aux fruits
1930
Watercolor and gouache over pencil on paper, 61/4 x 51/8 in. (16 x
13 cm)
Private collection, France

current owner, 1958
Selected liter at ur e: Amoureaux 1985, pp. 82–83, ill.; Genty
and Vernon 2003, pp. 179–80, 182, fig. 483 and back cover
139 �
� bon na r d
49. Dining Room on the Garden

Grande salle à manger sur le jardin
1934–35
Oil on canvas, 50 x 531/4 in. (126.8 x 135.3 cm)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, Gift, Solomon R.
Guggenheim (38.432)
D 1524
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Bernheim- One of more than sixty dining-room scenes Bonnard produced
Jeune, Paris, 1935; bought by Galerie Pierre (Pierre Loeb), Paris, between 1927 and 1947, this painting depicts a paradisiacal and
February 1937; bought by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Founda- mysterious garden glimpsed through the large casement win-
tion, New York, 1938; its gift to the Solomon R. Guggenheim dow of a house that cannot be identified with certainty. It offers a
Museum, 1938 wide-angle view of a narrow, compressed space, with the dining
table cropped at left and right by the edges of the canvas. The rich,
Selected liter at ur e: Guenne 1935a, ill. p. 248; Verve 1937, ill.
complex layers of color—lavenders, iridescent blues, and mottled
p. [93]; Guggenheim et al. 1959, pp. 24–25, pl. 7; Terrasse, A. 1964,
red-greens—seem almost to spread and vibrate over the hot red-
p. 80, ill. p. 74; Vaillant et al. 1965, ill. p. 209; Werner 1966, ill.
orange tablecloth, suggesting multiple layers of fabric. (Did the
p. 27; Charmet 1967, pp. 40–41; Terrasse, A. 1967, ill. pp. 146, 147;
� oka et al. 1972, p. 124, no. 34, Bonnard household set the table in this eccentric way, or do the
Fermigier 1969, pp. 140–41, ill.; O
layered cloths perhaps suggest the passage of time?) On them we
pl. 34; Rudenstine 1976, vol. 1, pp. 39–41, no. 20, ill.; Terrasse, A.
find an odd, slightly disorganized assemblage of bowls, pitchers,
1988, p. 313, ill. p. 189; Cogeval 1993, pp. 120–21, no. 39, ill.
boxes, and a vase of red flowers. An ocher-green piece of cutlery,
Exhibited: Paris 1935b, no. 159; Paris 1937, no. 25; Helsinki 1957, possibly a knife, is overshadowed by a melon-colored box and is
no. 2; Paris 1958, p. 12, no. 9, fig. 9; New York 1959–60; New York, thus slower to materialize before the eye. Slender leaf tips droop
Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 108, no. 57, ill. p. 56; Saint- down from foliage that appears to hang above the top edge of the
Paul-de-Vence 1975, p. 117, no. 53, ill. p. 97; London and New York painting, ambiguous, as in The Terrace at Vernonnet (fig. 54), as to
1998, pp. 192–93, no. 70, ill.; Paris 2006, pp. 190–91, 320, no. 56, ill. whether they are indoors or outside.
Like many of Bonnard’s paintings, Dining Room on the Garden
was worked on over a considerable period of time and is in some
places thickly painted. The unusual opacity of the surface is also
partly a result of a wax lining used to conserve it. Several pas-
sages are surprisingly thin, however, revealing provocative slivers
of unprimed canvas that imply the presence of an inner light and
recall the late work of both Cézanne and Matisse.
Behind the table, the imposing window overlooking garden
and sea becomes a diptych of deep Mediterranean blues and greens,
suggestive of spring (on the left) and summer (on the right), or
maybe morning and late afternoon, respectively. The dining chair
placed directly below the center of the window, where the frames
of the two halves of the casement meet, blends seamlessly into the
wood of the window frame, creating the illusion of a virtual art-
ist’s easel. The vibrant hues of the garden vista correspond to the
other colors of the interior, enhancing the suggestion of trompe
l’oeil. The scene is made active by the presence of the unidentified
woman in a green dress at right, who blends mysteriously into her
surroundings, and by the patch of yellow radiance on the opposite
side of the canvas. r b
� 140
Catalogue �
141 �
� bon na r d
50. Study for “Le Café” or “Breakfast”

Étude pour “Le Café” ou “Le Petit Déjeuner”
Ca. 1935
Private collection, courtesy Neffe-Degandt Fine Art, London
Provenance: collection of the artist; his estate; by descent to the

artist’s nephew, Charles Terrasse, Fontainebleau and Paris; Alfred
Ayrton, ca. 1966; bought by Christian Neffe, J. P. L. Fine Arts,
London, ca. 1986; bought by current owner, June 1987
Selected liter at ur e: Terrasse, A. 1988, p. 315, ill. p. 289;
Mann 1991, p. 19, fig. J
Exhibited: Rome and Turin 1971–72, no. 51, ill.; New York and
other cities 1972–74, no. 76
� 142
Catalogue �
51. Cup of Tea by the Radiator

La Tasse de thé au radiateur
1932
Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper laid on canvas,
91/2 x 13 in. (24 x 33 cm)
Musée Pierre Bonnard Le Cannet, Côte d’Azur
On deposit from a private collection

Bowers collection; by descent to present owner
Selected liter at ur e: Genty and Vernon 2003, pp. 157–58,
fig. 411
Exhibited: Toulouse 1997, p. 29; Canberra and Brisbane 2003,
p. 180, no. 80, ill. p. 176; Rome 2006–7, p. 377, no. 146, ill.;
Marseille 2007, pp. 117, 131, no. 126, ill.
143 �
� bon na r d
52. A Table Set for Breakfast

Une table servie pour le petit déjeuner
Ca. 1930
Pencil on paper, 65/8 x 51/8 in. (16.8 x 13 cm)
Private collection
Provenance: Kyra Gerard and Alfred Ayrton, 1972–87;

J. P. L. Fine Arts, London, 1987; bought by Catherine Gamble
Curran, New York, ca. 1987–2007; to current owner, 2007
Selected liter at ur e: Cogniat 1991, ill. p. 44
Exhibited: Rome and Turin 1971–72, no. 55; New York and
other cities 1972–74, no. 72; Geneva 1976, no. 83; Nottingham and
other cities 1984–85, no. 72; London 1987, no. 40; New York 1997b,
unpaged
53. The Dessert

Le Dessert
1931
Pencil on paper (verso of Galerie Bernheim-Jeune letterhead,
dated September 24, 1931), 53/8 x 81/4 in. (13.5 x 21 cm)
Private collection, New York

Fontainebleau and Paris; Galerie de l’Oeil, Paris; Olivier Bernier,
Paris; Jill Newhouse, New York, by 2000; bought by current
owner, 2000
Exhibited: Paris 1968, p. 12, no. 167; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 97,
no. 139, ill. p. 71; Düsseldorf 1993, p. 187, no. 84, ill. p. 49
� 144
Catalogue �
54. Still Life on a Red Checkered Tablecloth

Nature morte sur une nappe à carreaux rouges
1930–35
Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper, 121/4 x 91/2 in.
(31.1 x 24 cm)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Joe R. Long, Austin
Prov enance: Guy Patrice and Michel Dauberville, Paris,

by January 2004; Galerie Cazeau-Beraudière, Paris; bought by
current owners, January 2004
145 �
� bon na r d
55. The Breakfast Table

Le Petit Déjeuner
1936
D 1549

Jeune, Paris; Mr. and Mrs. William B. Jaffe, New York; to current
owner
Selected liter at ur e: Dezarrois et al. 1936, p. 204; d’Ors
and Lassaigne 1937, pp. 261–62, ill.; d’Uckerman 1937, ill. p. 59;
London and Newcastle 1994, p. 86, fig. 34; Kimmelman 2005,
pp. 13–14
Exhibited: Pittsburgh 1936; New York 1956, pp. 5, 15, no. 16,
ill.; Pittsburgh 1958–59, no. 66, ill.; London and New York 1998,
pp. 198–99, no. 73, ill. (New York only)
A 1936 Time magazine article announcing the winners of that year’s
Carnegie International described Bonnard as a “spectacled French
Post-Impressionist” who painted a “gaily colored still life of a
breakfast table.” Bonnard’s canvas won second prize in the compe-
tition, worth $600 in cash.
Although the setting of The Breakfast Table is the familiar
upstairs sitting room of Le Bosquet (see cat. no. 36), the title of this
work is at odds with the crepuscular landscape apparent through the
French doors, a vista that by day encompasses a view of Cannes,
the sea, and the distant Esterel Mountains. Although it is under-
stood that Bonnard rarely painted perceptually, and therefore the
light in his paintings is light filtered through his memory, here there
are no signs of daylight, and it is almost certainly not the breakfast
hour unless breakfast was taken prior to sunrise. The room is illu-
minated by electric light, whose diffuse, even luminosity is rarely
seen in the late interiors (see cat. no. 38). The compressed space,
strongly geometric appointments, oddities of scale, and other occa-
sional ambiguities of planar form are, however, all typical of the
artist’s late work.
Looking at the figures—traditionally identified as the spectral
Marthe, oversize yet flattened, leaning forward to furtively drink
her tea, and Bonnard himself, said to be reflected in the wall mirror
at right—we recognize yet another conundrum, for the figure who
appears meekly in the reflection is not Bonnard but another woman,
albeit a strangely androgynous one. This identity confusion prob-
ably arises from the fact that in other paintings Bonnard did indeed
put himself into the mirror as a silent witness to the quiet activity
in the room. da
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Catalogue �
147 �
� bon na r d
56. Basket of Fruit Reflected in a Mirror In this thickly painted canvas, our view of the fruit and sundry
Corbeille de fruits se reflétant dans une glace du buffet objects at center is cropped by layers of horizontal red bands.
These red strata are demarcated, in turn, by two pale yellow verti-
Ca. 1944–46 cal panels; the one at left is attached to a horizontal yellow band,
Oil on canvas, 185/8 x 281/8 in. (47.3 x 71.4 cm) and together they suggest part of a frame. In fact, the horizontal
The Museum of Modern Art, New York red bands are the shelves of a red cupboard in Bonnard’s dining
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller 1984 room at Le Bosquet, and, surprisingly, this is not a still-life image
D 1681 reflected in a mirror but a detail of the haphazard assortment of
dining-table objects stored on the cupboard’s shelves: compotiers,
Provenance: collection of the artist; his estate; Galerie Beyeler, a jug, eggcups, and, yes, some fruit in a basket.
Basel, by 1966; private collection, Switzerland; David and Peggy In an earlier painting of the red cupboard (ca. 1939, private col-
Rockefeller, New York, 1969–84; their gift to The Museum of lection), Bonnard showed the fruit and ceramics lining the shelves,
Modern Art, 1984 and he bathed the whole scene in a persimmon red palette. Here
the yellow framing bands at left and below designate the frame
Selected liter at ur e: Terrasse, A. 1967, ill. pp. 186, 187; of the cupboard (or breakfront), shown with the door open. The
Terrasse, M. 1987, ill. pp. 74–75 vertical band at right, which extends down the entire length of the
Exhibited: Venice 1950, no. 19; Basel 1966, no. 43, ill.; Düssel- canvas, is the fore edge of that door, which conceals a piece of fruit
dorf 1993, p. 186, no. 61, ill. p. 129; London and New York 1998, on a shelf, or possibly a ledge, outside the cupboard. An unidenti-
pp. 234–35, no. 91, ill. fied object rests on the ledge at left. Bonnard included this shelf in
the near ground as a spatial focal point, thus dividing the upper
cupboard from its lower reaches. The painting is one of four seen
pinned to the artist’s studio wall in a photograph taken by Brassaï
in August 1946 (see fig. 23), only a few months before Bonnard
died. da
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Catalogue �
57. The Dessert Prov enance: Tannenbaum Gallery, New York; Sonja Henie and
Le Dessert Niels Onstad, Oslo; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Nor-
way; sale, Christie’s, London, February 7, 2005, lot 18; bought by
1940 Fondation Beyeler, Basel
Beyeler Collection, Basel Selected liter at u r e: Beer and Gillet 1947, p. 147, pl. 127;
D 1589 Lhote 1944, pl. 4; Lhote 1948, pl. 9; Terrasse, A. 1967, ill. p. 164
Ex hibited: Oslo and other cities, Collection Sonja Henie–Niels
Onstad, 1960–63*; New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65,
p. 109, no. 75, ill. p. 59; Munich 1966–67, no. 126, ill.; Paris 1967,
no. 143, ill.; Los Angeles 1971, no. 11; Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1975, p.
118, no. 61, ill. p. 94; Bordeaux 1978, no. 182; Zurich and Frankfurt
am Main 1984–85, pp. 278–79, no. 147, ill.; Tampere 1985; Bor-
deaux 1986, p. 132, no. 70, ill. p. 135; Milan 1988–89, p. 204, no. 45,
ill. p. 114; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 93, no. 101, ill. p. 71; Düsseldorf
1993, p. 185, no. 56, ill. p. 127; London and Newcastle 1994, p. 80,
no. 35, ill.; Nice, Musée Matisse, 1996*; Tokyo, Kagoshima, and
Tokushima 2004, pp. 142–43, 201, no. 58, ill.
149 �
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58. Bouquet of Mimosas

Bouquet de mimosas
Ca. 1945
Collection of Henry Silverman, courtesy Richard L. Feigen and Co.
D 1656
Provenance: Galerie Maeght, Paris; Philippe Leclerq; private

collection; Henry Silverman, New York
Selected liter at ur e: Clair 1975, ill.; Terrasse, M. 1987,
ill. p. 63
Exhibited: Ghent 1950; Munich 1966–67, no. 130, ill.; Paris
1967, no. 150, ill.; Geneva 1969, no. 27, ill. p. 20; Saint-Paul-de-
Vence 1975, p. 119, no. 71, ill. p. 104; Marcq-en-Barœul 1978,
no. 42, ill.; Paris 1995, no. and pl. 49; Nice, Musée Matisse, 1996*
“There is always color, [but] it has yet to become light.”—Pierre

Bonnard
If the light in Bonnard’s late paintings often seems to transform

color, and what color describes, into brilliant tapestries of mottled
hues, this painting of a vase of mimosas, one of the artist’s last still
lifes, is an epiphany of light’s full potential. The warm yellows
and burning orange brushstrokes build a surface that pulsates with
energy. The flowers of the mimosa tree in Bonnard’s garden at Le
Bosquet often found their way into the late interiors (see cat. no. 8).
The Provençal vase seen here likewise makes several appearances
(see fig. 24). This painting of relatively simple structure can be said
to encapsulate aspects of landscape, still life, and interior in a single
image: the mimosa as a metaphor for the garden, the terracotta
vase as an emblem of still life, and the diminutive chair and wall
structure as oblique suggestions of an interior. da
� 150
Catalogue �
151 �
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59. Cover of Verve magazine

Summer 1938 (vol. 1, no. 3)
Chromolithograph, 103/8 x 14 in. (26.5 x 35.5 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Selected liter at ur e: Verve 1938, cover; Paris 1973, p. 42;

Anthonioz 1988, p. 71, ill. p. 70; Terrasse, A. 1989, pp. 280–83,
no. 52, ill. 60. The Checkered Tablecloth
Corbeille et assiette de fruits sur la nappe à carreaux rouges
In 1938 Bonnard was invited to design the cover for the summer
issue of Verve, the French magazine of art and literature founded 1939
by the famous publisher Tériade. Bonnard’s wraparound design Oil on canvas, 23 x 23 in. (58.4 x 58.4 cm)
merges type and dining-table effects with the same sense of hap- The Art Institute of Chicago
hazard abandon that characterizes the array of mealtime props in Gift of Mary and Leigh B. Block (1988.141.4)
his paintings of the period. The familiar red tablecloth, flattened to D 1575
align with the vertical format of the magazine cover, recalls the din-
ing room at Le Cannet, the mise-en-scène for so many of the artist’s Prov enance: Galerie O. Pétridès, Paris, by 1944; Jacques Lin-
late interiors. Upending the table was a device Bonnard frequently don, New York, by August 1948; bought by Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B.
turned to in order to better expose its contents, and here the graphic Block, Chicago, August 1948; their gift to the Art Institute of
equivalent takes that strategy to a novel extreme. Indeed, the plates, Chicago, April 1988
cutlery, fruit, and flowers all appear to slide off the table, rendering
Selected liter at u r e: Laprade 1944, cover ill.; Lhote 1944,
the periphery of the lithographic image as arresting as any of those
pl. 1; Lhote 1948, pl. 6; Life 1952, ill. p. 95; du Plessix 1966,
in paint. da
ill. p. 69; Terrasse, M. 1987, p. 124; Watkins 1994, pp. 208, 209,
pl. 159; Christie’s London 2005, p. 53, fig. 2
Ex hibited: Chicago 1963, p. 3; Washington, D.C. and Los
Angeles 1967, no. 28, ill.; Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1975, p. 118, no. 59,
ill. p. 89; Tokyo, Nara, Yokohama, and Fukuoka 1991, no. 54, ill.;
Chicago 1992, pp. 83, 101, ill.; Nagaoka, Nagoya, and Yokohama
1994, pp. 128–29, no. 40, ill.
� 152
Catalogue �
Most of Bonnard’s still lifes—drawings as well as paintings— bouncing the eye from the highlights on the sugar bowl to the
look as if he had just happened upon the array of objects depicted. glints on the grapes, the oval saucer behind the basket, the daring
These miniature domestic scenes seem not arranged but simply white outlines that define the table’s edge, and the scumbled, bright
found, snapshots of daily life captured in pencil or paint. The white shadow cast by the plate at center.
Checkered Tablecloth, in contrast, is constructed, its effect self- The painting tautly contains a number of spatial contradictions
conscious. It appears, for example, that either Bonnard or someone and other pictorial devices paradigmatic of Bonnard’s late interiors.
else must have set the two red apples carefully and deliberately on The richly colored red-orange tablecloth upends itself flat to the
the upper edge of the salmon-colored plate. A thickly impastoed picture plane, as if to better show off the objects upon it. The volu-
yellow sugar bowl sits to the left of the fruits, and a glowing orange metric fruits cluster tensely at the center, while the handle of the
basket filled with grapes and perhaps peaches is tucked behind it. A basket twists backward diagonally in space. In the background,
jaunty sprig of leaves hovers over the apples, slyly suggesting by indeterminate features of the room—a fireplace? wallpaper? the
its placement a bird of paradise that has just landed and perched on back of a chair? the edge of a door?—jostle for position and con-
the basket’s edge. Bonnard’s use of white is particular interesting, tribute to the overall dazzling effect. r b
153 �
� bon na r d
61. Bouquet of Flowers Prov enance: by descent to heirs of the artist; Galerie Cazeau-
Bouquet de fleurs Béraudière, Paris; Galerie Peirce, Paris; to current owner
Ca. 1940 Selected liter at u r e: Genty and Vernon 2003, p. 178, no. 479
Pencil on paper, 16 x 12 in. (40.5 x 30.4 cm) Bonnard used his drawings not only as aide-mémoire when laying
Private collection, France, courtesy Galerie Peirce, Paris out the structure of a painting but also as guides to color, or to his
memory of color. The various types of marks in this drawing were
all likely keyed to specific color tones. da
� 154
Catalogue �
62. Basket of Fruit: Oranges and Persimmons Prov enance: collection of the artist; his estate; acquired by
Corbeille de fruits: Oranges et kakis Wildenstein and Co., New York; bought by current owner, 2004
Ca. 1940 Selected liter at u r e: Vaillant et al. 1965, ill. p. 121; Metken
Oil on canvas, 223/4 x 291/4 in. (58 x 74.5 cm) 1984, ill. p. 1102
Private collection Ex hibited: London 1966, p. 62, no. 215; Melbourne, Adelaide,
D 1592 Perth, Canberra, and Sydney 1971–72, no. 26, ill.; Albi 1972,
no. 26, ill.; São Paulo 1972, no. 26, ill.; Tokyo, Kōbe, Nagoya, and
Fukuoka 1980–81, no. 76, pl. 76; Geneva 1981, no. 76, pl. 76; New
York 1981, pp. 27, 80, no. 51, pl. 32; Madrid 1983, no. 56; Lausanne
1991, p. 165, no. 68, pl. 68; Montreal 1998, no. 34, ill. pp. 87, 94;
Martigny 1999, pp. 154–55, no. 60, ill.; Paris 2000, p. 102, no. 51,
ill. p. 77
155 �
� bon na r d
63. Vase of Flowers on a Red Cloth

Vase de fleurs sur la nappe rouge
Ca. 1940
Watercolor and pencil on paper, 51/4 x 53/4 in. (13.2 x 14.5 cm)
Collection of Thomas G. Kimble
Provenance: collection of the artist; his estate; Neffe-Degandt

Fine Art, London; private collection, London; Jill Newhouse, New
York, by 2001; bought by Thomas G. Kimble, 2001
Selected liter at ur e: Bonnard 1947, ill.; Cogniat 1968, ill. p. 60
64. Basket of Fruit on a Table in the Garden
Exhibited: Salzburg and London 1991, no. 24, ill.
at Le Cannet
Corbeille de fruits sur une table dans le jardin du Cannet
Ca. 1943–44
D 1644
Prov enance: collection of the artist; his estate; Wildenstein and

Co., New York, 1963; bought by current owner, October 1963
Selected liter at u r e: Cogniat 1991, ill. p. 87
Ex hibited: New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, p. 109,
no. 78, ill. p. 104; London and New York 1998, pp. 232–33, no. 90, ill.
� 156
Catalogue �
157 �
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65. Still Life with Bottle of Red Wine Prov enance: sale, Palais Galliéra, Paris, June 21, 1961, lot 38;
Nature morte à la bouteille de vin rouge private collection, Switzerland, by 1984; Pilar and Stephen Robert
1942 Selected liter at u r e: Art and Auctions 1961, p. 366; Paris

Oil on canvas, 255/8 x 211/4 in. (65 x 54 cm) 1961, no. 38, pl. 9
Collection of Pilar and Stephen Robert Ex hibited: Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1975, p. 119, no. 66, ill. p. 100;
D 1621 Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a, pp. 158, no. 55, ill.;
Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b, pp. 222–23, no. 58,
ill.; London and New York 1998, pp. 222–23, no. 85, ill.; Martigny
1999, pp. 158–59, no. 62, ill.
� 158
Catalogue �
66. Woman at the Dining Table,

Le Cannet
Femme au table, Le Cannet
Ca. 1943
Pencil on paper, 81/4 x 103/4 in. (21 x 27.3 cm)
Private collection
Prov enance: by descent to the artist’s nephew,

Charles Terrasse, Fontainebleau and Paris; Jill
Newhouse, New York, by 2008; bought by current
owner, 2008
67. Still Life with Baskets of Fruit

Nature morte aux paniers de fruits
Ca. 1940
Watercolor and pencil on paper, 143/4 x 10 in.
(37.5 x 25.4 cm)
Collection of Sebastian Christmas Poulsen,
courtesy Jason McCoy, Inc., New York
Provenance: by descent to Terrasse family,

France; Galerie Cazeau-Béraudière, Paris; sale,
Sotheby’s, New York, May 9, 2007, lot 197; bought by
Jill Newhouse, New York; bought by Jason McCoy,
Inc., New York, 2008; bought by Sebastian Christ-
mas Poulsen, 2008
Selected liter at ur e: Genty and Vernon 2003,
p. 177, fig. 478; Neffe-Degandt/Jill Newhouse 2005,
pp. 78–79, no. 41, ill.; Sotheby’s New York 2007,
lot 197, ill. p. 138
159 �
� bon na r d
68. Villa Bosquet, Le Cannet, Morning Prov enance: private collection, Neuchâtel, by 1965; private
Villa du Bosquet, Le Cannet, le matin collection, Switzerland, by 1994; current owner
Ca. 1945 Selected liter at u r e: Vaillant et al. 1965, ill. p. 213; Amoureaux
Watercolor and gouache on paper, 233/4 x 193/4 in. (60.3 x 50.2 cm) 1985, pp. 122–23, ill.; Terrasse, M. 1987, ill. p. 58; Cogeval 1993,
Private collection pp. 132–33, no. 45, ill.
Ex hibited: Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, pp. 288–89,
no. 154, ill.; Milan 1988–89, p. 204, no. 47, ill. p. 115; Lausanne 1991,
p. 172, no. 87, pl. 87; London and Newcastle 1994, p. 97, no. 55, ill.
� 160
Catalogue �
69. In the Bathroom Prov enance: collection of the artist; his estate; sale, Sotheby’s,
Dans la salle de bain London, December 1, 1982, lot 26; sale, Sotheby’s, London, June
28, 1988, lot 33; bought by Stephen Mazoh, 1988
Ca. 1940
Oil on canvas, 361/4 x 243/8 in. (92 x 61 cm) Selected liter at u r e: Hyman 1998, no. 136, ill. p. 168; Bell
Collection of Stephen Mazoh 1999, p. 103, ill.
D 1598 Exhibited: Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 93, no. 100, ill. p. 37;
Düsseldorf 1993, no. 57, p. 169, ill.; London and Newcastle 1994,
no. 37, p. 83, ill.; New York 1997a, p. 31, ill.; Rome 2006–7, no. 138,
p. 363, ill.
161 �
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70. Still Life with Melon

Nature morte au melon
1941
Private collection
D 1629
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Galerie Pierre Colle,

Paris; by descent to private collection, Paris; its sale, Sotheby’s,
New York, November 5, 2003, lot 11; bought by private collection;
its sale, Sotheby’s, New York, May 8, 2007, lot 4; bought by cur-
rent owner
Selected liter at ur e: Lhote 1944, pl. 10; Lhote 1948, pl. 13;
Beer and Gillet 1947, ill. p. 146
Exhibited: London and New York 1998, no. 84
� 162
Catalogue �
71. Interior: Dining Room

La Salle à manger
1942–46
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
D 1682

Bowers collection; Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia;
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2006
Selected liter at ur e: Lamotte and Bonnard 1947, ill.; Cleve-
land and New York 1948, ill. p. 125; Terrasse, A. 1967, ill. pp. 186,
187; Fermigier 1969, p. 159, ill.; Cogniat 1991, ill. p. 71
Exhibited: Paris 1947, no. 94; Rotterdam 1952–53; New York
1965, no. 26, ill.
163 �
� bon na r d
72. Young Women in the Garden (Renée Monchaty

and Marthe Bonnard)
Jeunes femmes au jardin (Renée Monchaty et Marthe Bonnard)
Ca. 1921–23/1945–46
Oil on canvas, 237/8 x 303/8 in. (60.5 x 77 cm)
Private collection
D 1103

the artist’s nephew, Charles Terrasse, Paris and Fontainebleau;
current owner
Selected liter at ur e: Terrasse, A. 1964, pp. 62, 64, ill.; Vail-
lant 1967; Ōoka et al. 1972, p. 120, no. 22, pl. 22; Terrasse, A. 1988,
p. 312, ill. p. 157; Cogniat 1991, ill. p. 80; Watkins 1997, pp. 27–28,
fig. 15; Hyman 1998, pp. 112–14, fig. 87; Watkins 1998, pp. 27–28,
fig. 15; Chicago and New York 2001, p. 198, ill.; Harrison 2005, pp.
196, 200, ill. p. 198; Kimmelman 2005, pp. 17, 27
Exhibited: Lisbon 1965; London 1966, p. 57, no. 172; Munich
1966–67, no. 94, ill.; Humlebaek 1967, no. 47; Paris 1967, no. 102,
ill.; Geneva 1969, no. 17, ill. p. 15; Rome and Turin 1971–72, no.
11, ill.; Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1975, p. 115, no. 31, ill. p. 99; Colmar
1982, no. 27; Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a,
pp. 88–89, no. 20, ill.; Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b,
pp. 148–49, no. 21, ill.; Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85,
pp. 206–7, no. 98, ill.; Bordeaux 1986, p. 112, no. 53, ill. p. 113;
Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 87, no. 63, cover ill.; Düsseldorf 1993,
p. 184, no. 29, ill. p. 115; Munich 1994, no. 93, ill.; Paris 1995,
no. and pl. 33; London and New York 1998, pp. 138–39, no. 43, ill.;
Washington, D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 268, no. 90, ill. pp. 70,
184–85 (Washington, D.C. only)
Aptly described as a canvas with archaeology, Young Women in the
Garden has layers of paint that are separated by time as well as layers
of narrative that link its two models to Bonnard’s fraught emotional
history. Begun about 1921–23, when the artist was in love with the
golden-haired Renée Monchaty, it was finished in 1945–46, shortly
after the death of Marthe, here the shadowy brunette. The painting
was perhaps originally intended to be a consummation of the art-
ist’s love for Renée, before Marthe intervened in the affair, causing
Renée to commit suicide in 1925. Bonnard kept the unfinished can-
vas in his studio for the rest of his life. When he finally returned to
it in 1945, he gilded the background in saffron yellow, as if to give
the memory of Renée a transcendent radiance. Marthe may have
prevailed in life, but her presence here in paint is decidedly mar-
ginal, even voyeuristic. da
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Catalogue �
165 �
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73. Marthe Entering the Room point of view opposite a corner of the room and then extended or
Marthe entrant le salon compressed the scene to include or exclude elements such as the
fireplace, door, radiator, and window. Here he cropped out the fire-
1942
place at left and the balcony at right to focus on the architectural
Gouache and pencil on paper, 255/8 x 193/4 in. (65.1 x 50.2 cm)
features surrounding the interior door to the bathroom, which
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock
is being pushed open by a broad-shouldered figure pausing mid-
Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection, Purchase, Fred W.
step, with one foot lifted above the tiled floor. In the foreground
Allsopp Memorial Acquisition Fund (1983.010.004)
is a still-life passage of two saucers on a white tablecloth, whose
sketchy brushwork, next to the large, boldly rendered chair, makes
Provenance: acquired from the artist by Louis Carré, Paris; the saucers look fragile, the table shaky.
his estate; James Kirkman, Ltd., London; bought by the Arkansas With his fastidious observations of shifting light and restless
Arts Center Foundation, 1983 domestic arrangements, Bonnard transforms this everyday room
into a compact stage, building the scene in delicate washes of
Exhibited: Little Rock, Arkansas Arts Center, 1985*; London
color that are thinner and more translucent than the thick layers
and Newcastle 1994, p. 87, no. 40, ill.; Gifu, Takasaki, Kitakyushu,
he typically used in his oils. Vestiges of preliminary drawing can
and Tanabe 2003–4, ill. p. 43
be seen beneath the wavering lines and overlapping planes. Bon-
This small gouache is one of several renderings of the small din- nard executed this work in 1942, the year he began a collaboration
ing room on the second floor of Le Bosquet known as the petit with Jacques Villon on a series of lithographs that included a ren-
salon (see also cat. nos. 36 and 42). In each, Bonnard adopted a dering of this picture. r b
� 166
Catalogue �
74. Self-Portrait cover ill.; Zurich and Frankfurt am Main 1984–85, pp. 276–77,
Autoportrait no. 145, ill.; London and New York 1998, pp. 208–9, no. 78, ill.;
Washington, D.C. and Denver 2002–3, p. 274, no. 135, ill. p. 243;
Ca. 1938–40 Canberra and Brisbane 2003, p. 179, no. 55, ill. p. 67, fig. 66
Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61 cm) (Brisbane only); London and Sydney 2005–6, no. 45; Rome
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 2006–7, pp. 476–77, no. 218, ill.
Purchased 1972
D 1599 In this late self-portrait, Bonnard looks less like a painter and
more like an everyman professional, perhaps a dentist or a doctor.
There are none of the frills of the bohemian; instead, we recognize
Provenance: the artist’s sister, Andrée Terrasse, France; the humanity of the person whose physical countenance bears the
Wildenstein and Co., New York, by 1965; bought by the Art concentration of a man trying to thread a needle. His hands, of
Gallery of New South Wales, 1972 notably different shapes, add to the quiet drama of the work; one
reading of them is that we are seeing Bonnard cleaning and wiping
Selected liter at ur e: Vaillant et al. 1965, ill. p. 137; Terrasse, A.
off paint from his brushes with paint rags.
1988, p. 315, ill. p. 295; Bond and Tunnicliffe 2006, p. 425
This vantage shows Bonnard at the mirror that hung over the
Exhibited: New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, washbasin in his bedroom. The modest white room is flooded with
p. 109, no. 74, ill. p. 98; London 1966, p. 65, no. 246; Melbourne, an encompassing yellow light, amplified by the rich blue shadow of
Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, and Sydney 1971–72, no. 36, the artist’s white shirt. The passage of blue at left is a chair draped
with clothing or towels. Below
the mirror is a shelf with toilet-
ries, only one of which—the
bottle beside Bonnard’s proper
right hand—is reflected in the
mirror, indicated by the intensely
warm green brushmarks just
above the tip of the cap. Behind
Bonnard is a cupboard, whose
moldings, with their strong
crosslike structure, resemble
stretcher bars seen from the back
of a canvas: a subtle reminder of
the artist’s true vocation. da
167 �
� bon na r d
p. 120, no. 76, ill. p. 107; Bordeaux 1986, p. 140,

no. 74, ill. p. 141; Milan 1988–89, p. 204, no. 52,
ill. p. 120; Humlebaek 1992–93, p. 94, no. 110, ill.
p. 74; Paris 2000, p. 102, no. 58, ill. p. 87
More than a prosaic picture of a colander, sauce-
pan, ladle, and slotted spoon, this still life, one
of Bonnard’s last, is a metaphor for day’s end,
or perhaps even the end of days. A sorrowful
air prevails; the meal is over, the table has been
cleared, and the tools of the kitchen are back in
place. The painting is made all the more enig-
matic by the presence of a barely perceptible
male figure (who else could it be but Bonnard?)
edging onto the canvas in profile, one of the
many strange peripheral figures in Bonnard’s
late paintings.
The dark, limited palette of Cooking Utensils,
anomalous in Bonnard’s later work, gave rise to
some consternation in his day. When the art
dealer Aimé Maeght paid a visit to Le Bosquet to
look at the picture with an eye to selling it, he
expressed displeasure with the palette and urged
Bonnard to remove some black (see p. 29, n. 70).
When Bonnard refused, Maeght grudgingly
agreed to take it as is. The story continues that
the painting prompted Maeght to organize the
December 1946 exhibition “Black Is a Color,”
which included paintings by Braque, Matisse,
and Rouault, among others. da
75. Cooking Utensils 76. Portrait of the Artist in the Bathroom Mirror
Les Ustensiles de cuisine (Self-Portrait)
1946 Portrait de l’artiste dans la glace du cabinet de toilette (Autoportrait)
Oil on canvas, 201/2 x 145/8 in. (52 x 37 cm) 1939–46
Collection of Sylvie Baltazart-Eon, Paris Oil on canvas, 283/4 x 201/8 in. (73 x 51 cm)
D 1684 Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne/
Centre de Création Industrielle, Paris
Provenance: sale, Palais Galliéra, Paris, June 19, 1962, lot 10; Dation 1984
Aimé Maeght, France; by descent to Mr. and Mrs. Adrien Maeght, D 1664
France; by descent to current owner
Selected liter at ur e: Art and Auctions 1962, p. 227; Clair Prov enance: collection of the artist; his estate; Wildenstein
1975, ill. collection; Mrs. Frank Jay Gould, 1975; her dation to the Centre
Georges Pompidou, 1984
Exhibited: Paris 1946–47; Valence 1947, no. 3; Zurich 1949,
no. 119; Le Cannet 1967–68, no. 11; Tokyo and Kyoto 1968, no. 76, Selected liter at u r e: Lhote 1944, pl. 13; Ōoka et al. 1972, p.
pl. 137; Hamburg 1970, no. 62, pl. 59; Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1975, 127, no. 37, pl. 37; Watkins 1994, p. 221, pl. 166; Hyman 1998, p. 175,
� 168
Catalogue �
fig. 141; Janvier 1998, p. 76; Watkins 1998, pp. 72, 74, fig. 50; 244–45, no. 96, ill.; Rouen 2000–2001, p. 212, no. 48, ill. p. 213;
Kimmelman 2005, pp. 9–10 São Paulo 2001–2; Paris 2006, pp. 44–45, 303, no. 7, ill.
Shockingly bald and naked to the waist, an ascetic Bonnard seems
Exhibited: Amsterdam 1947, no. 67; Copenhagen 1947, no. 54; to be contemplating the vicissitudes of life in this, his final self-
Venice 1950, no. 17; New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65, portrait. Painted in the early 1940s and first shown in 1943 (he later
addendum, unpaged, ill. (Los Angeles only); Munich 1966–67, reworked the canvas and finished it in 1946), the portrait spans a
no. 139; Humlebaek 1967, no. 80; Paris 1967, no. 153, ill.; Tokyo period of intense personal grief (Marthe’s death) and global calam-
and Kyoto 1968, no. 75, pl. 140; Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1975, p. 119, ity (World War II). As if to reflect these circumstances, Bonnard
no. 72, ill. p. 105; Venice 1990, pp. 146–47; Nice 1992; Humlebaek sits in a highly compressed space bound by the mirror glass and the
1992–93, p. 93, no. 98; Düsseldorf 1993, p. 185, no. 59, ill. p. 161; cupboard door behind him. The presence of the white door could
Geneva 1995–96, p. 67, no. 8; London and New York 1998, pp. be read as an oblique reference to transition, or even mortality.
The artist’s figure is illumi-
nated from behind, as in the
slightly earlier self-portrait (cat.
no. 74), reinforcing the volume
and mass of his round head
and torso; a golden light flick-
ers on his shoulders and pate.
A surprising touch of red and
magenta behind the ear regis-
ters the backlighting and echoes
the rich reds of the brush on the
shelf. Conspicuously absent are
the spectacles Bonnard wears in
other self-portraits; here, evi-
dently, he is looking for inner
truth, an impression under-
scored by the skin stretched taut
over his emphatic cranial dome.
Impairment is subtly implied
by the form of the chair back
to his left, which could be read
symbolically as an orthopedic
walking stick ready to support
his weight.
The shelf below the mirror
and its parade of objects increase
the sense of transience. Indeed,
the subtext of their friezelike
arrangement—that of passing or
processing—is almost funereal.
The brush as catafalque moves
to the left; the next object fol-
lows; the attendant bottle looks
on, its cap (as in cat. no. 74)
straddling two worlds, mirror
and shelf. Lushly painted, this
portrait reflects profound vul-
nerability and acceptance. It is
as if Bonnard, no longer angered
by his failing powers—as in
the earlier, defiant self-portait
titled The Boxer (1931, private
collection)—seems content
simply to wait, and paint. da
169 �
Selected Chronology
This chronology surveys the last twenty-

five years of Bonnard’s life (1923–47), the
period that is the focus of this exhibition.
For the artist’s early life and career, see the
chronologies published in London and New
York 1998 (pp. 256–63) and Paris 2006
(pp. 289–99) .
1923
January: Bonnard makes working visits to the
Côte d’Azur town of Le Cannet and to his
home in Vernon (near Giverny), which he calls
Ma Roulotte (“my caravan”). Receives third
prize at the Carnegie International Exhibition,
Pittsburgh.
November–December : Three paintings exhibited
at the Salon d’Automne, Paris.
1924
Retrospective exhibition of sixty-eight Fig. 65. Bonnard’s house, Le Bosquet, overlooking Cannes
paintings at Galerie Druet, Paris.
1925 September : Travels to the United States as a member of the Carnegie

June: Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune, Bonnard’s dealers since International jury.
1900, exhibit some of his works in a pavilion at the Exposition November–December : Twenty paintings shown at Galerie Bernheim-
Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Paris, Jeune, Paris.
and at their own gallery.
August: In a civil ceremony, Bonnard marries his longtime model 1927
and companion, Maria Boursin, who calls herself Marthe de February: Moves with Marthe into Le Bosquet after renovations are
Méligny. complete and buys a neighboring plot of land in order to expand the
September : Renée Monchaty, Bonnard’s model and lover, commits garden. Bonnard writes to Matisse that the house, which is pink, “is
suicide. on Avenue Victoria, the highest in the neighborhood.”1
Charles Terrasse, Bonnard’s nephew, publishes an important
1926 monograph on the artist.
February: After several years of visiting Le Cannet, Bonnard buys
a villa there, which he names Le Bosquet (“the grove”) (fig. 65). 1928
From now until the end of his life, he will divide his time among Le April: Bonnard’s first one-artist exhibition outside France opens at
Cannet, Vernon, and his apartment and studio space in Paris, while the de Hauke Gallery, New York.
making extended but temporary stays in Normandy and other parts Autumn: Travels to Arcachon, Paris, Vernon, and Vichy.
of France. November–December: Exhibition of Bonnard’s work opens at Galerie
March: Exhibits one painting at the Venice Biennale and six at the Bernheim-Jeune.
Salon des Indépendants retrospective.
171 �
� bon na r d
Fig. 66. Hans Robert Hahnloser,

Bonnard as an Odalisque in Matisse’s
Studio at Nice, 1929. Modern print
after original glass-plate negative,
77/8 x 117/8 in. (20 x 30 cm). Archives
Hahnloser-Bühler
1929 1934
Summer : Extended travels take Bonnard to Grasse, Grenoble, and March: Forty-four paintings exhibited at Wildenstein Gallery,
Vernon, and later through Normandy and Brittany. New York.
October : Sees the Chardin exhibition at the Galerie du Théatre June–September : Works in various towns on the Normandy coast
Pigalle while staying in Paris; returns to Le Cannet in November. before returning to Le Cannet.
1930 1935
January–February: Seven paintings exhibited at the Museum of Spends the first half of the year in Le Cannet and the second half
Modern Art, New York. in Trouville and Deauville, with brief trips to Vernon and London,
June: Seven paintings shown at the Royal West of England Academy, where there is an exhibition of his paintings at Reid and Lefevre
Bristol. Gallery.
November : Begins working visit to Arcachon, a coastal resort town
southwest of Bordeaux, staying at the Villa Castellamare, where he 1936
remains until April 1931. Spends most of year in Deauville, in northwest France.
October : The Breakfast Table (cat. no. 55) wins second prize at the
1931 Carnegie International Exhibition.
Spends the spring in Paris, the summer in Vernon, and the autumn December : “Bonnard-Vuillard,” featuring seventeen works by
in Le Cannet. During the next few years Bonnard produces some of Bonnard, opens at Galerie Paul, Paris.
his most significant interiors and nudes.
1937
1932 Makes extended visit to Deauville, where he is interviewed by
Works in Le Cannet from January to April and in Vernon from May Ingrid Rydbeck for the Swedish journal Konstrevy. The published
to September; returns to Le Cannet in October. interview is accompanied by photographs taken by Rogi André
(Rosza Klein) showing several of Bonnard’s late masterpieces in
1933 progress, tacked to the flowered wallpaper of his hotel room.
June: Two major exhibitions of Bonnard’s work open in Paris, with June: Returns to Paris. Thirty-three paintings included in the
twenty-six recent paintings shown at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and exhibition “Les Maîtres de l’art indépendant, 1895–1937,” at the
thirty-one portraits exhibited at Galerie Braun. Petit Palais (June–October). Two works acquired by the Musée
d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
1933–34
Works in La Baule, Brittany, staying at the Villa Nirvana.
� 172
Chronology �
1938 1943
Designs cover for Verve, the arts magazine published by Tériade. Work begins on Jean and Henry Dauberville ’s catalogue raisonné
Spends four months at Le Cannet followed by five months at Deauville. of Bonnard’s paintings, which will be published from 1968 to 1974.
December : Paintings and prints by Bonnard and Vuillard exhibited at
the Art Institute of Chicago. 1944
February: Photographed at Le Bosquet by Henri Cartier-Bresson
1939 (fig. 67).
Spends January and February in Le Cannet before returning to Paris December : Exhibition of Bonnard’s lithographs and works on paper
in March to his new apartment at 2 Place de la Porte-des-Ternes. at Pierre Berès’s gallery in Paris.
July–August: Makes two weeklong visits to Trouville, his last to
Normandy. 1945
September : Leaves Paris for Le Cannet, where he will remain for the July: Visits Paris for the first time since 1939. Returns to Le Cannet
duration of World War II. accompanied by his niece Renée Terrasse.
1940 1946
April: Nominated by Augustus John to the Royal Academy of Arts, June–July: Thirty-four paintings included in a retrospective
London; elected honorary academician. exhibition at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune.
September : War causes fuel and food shortages in and around August : Photographed by Brassaï at Le Bosquet.
Cannes. Bonnard writes to Matisse that “material concerns and
worries about the future are troubling me a lot, and I’m afraid that 1947
painting may abandon me because of a lack of mental freedom.”2 January 23: Bonnard dies in Le Cannet.
August: Verve publishes a memorial special edition that includes a
1941 cover design and illustrations by Bonnard as well as extracts from
January: Mentions food shortages in a letter to Matisse, but declines his daybooks.
to move to a hotel for comfort, explaining that “I would lose what October–December : Retrospective exhibition at the Musée de
constitutes the basis of my existence and my kind of work: the l’Orangerie, Paris.
constant contact with nature.”3 Beginning of legal dispute over Bonnard’s estate, which will last
Photographed by André Ostier at Le Bosquet, followed by sittings until 1963.
in 1942, 1945, and 1946.
1948
1941–42 March–September : Major Bonnard retrospective is held at the
Refuses commission from the Vichy government for a portrait of Cleveland Museum of Art in the spring and at the Museum of
Maréchal Pétain. Modern Art, New York, in the autumn.
1942 1. Bonnard and Matisse 1992, p. 34.

January 26: After a short illness, Marthe dies at the age of 73 and 2. Ibid., p. 68.
is buried at the cemetery in Le Cannet. 3. Ibid., p. 80.
March: Exhibition of Bonnard’s
works on paper at Weyhe
Gallery, New York. Louis Carré
commissions eleven gouaches
from Bonnard to be made into
lithographs by Jacques Villon,
including Marthe Entering the
Room (cat. no. 73). The series is
completed in 1946.
Fig. 67. Henri Cartier-Bresson,

Bonnard’s Studio at Le Cannet, 1944.
Gelatin silver print. Courtesy Magnum
Photos
173 �
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New York: The American Federation of Arts, 1972. Les Maîtres de l’art indépendant, 1895–1937. Exh. cat., Petit Palais,
Paris, June–October 1937. Catalogue by Raymond Escholier and
New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles 1964–65
Albert Sarraut. Paris: Éditions Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1937.
Bonnard and his Environment. Exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art,
New York, October 7–November 29, 1964; The Art Institute of Paris 1939
Chicago, January 8–February 28, 1965; Los Angeles County Museum Bonnard, Laprade, Bouche: Exposition de tableaux. Exh. cat., Galeries
of Art, March 31–May 30, 1965. Catalogue by James Thrall Soby, Durand-Ruel, Paris, May 1939. Catalogue by Albert Charpentier.
James Elliott, and Monroe Wheeler. New York, 1964. Paris, 1939.
New York, Houston, and Boston 1989–90 Paris 1946a
Pierre Bonnard: The Graphic Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum Chefs d’oeuvre de la peinture française du Louvre: Des primitifs à Manet.
of Art, New York, December 2, 1989–February 4, 1990; Museum of Exh. cat., Petit Palais, 1946. [Paris]: Éditions des Musées Nationaux,
Fine Arts, Houston, February 25–April 29, 1990; Museum of Fine 1946.
Arts, Boston, May 25–July 29, 1990. Catalogue by Colta Ives, Helen
Paris 1946b
Giambruni, and Sasha M. Newman. New York, 1989.
Les Chefs-d’oeuvre des collections françaises retrouvés en Allemagne par
Nice 1955 la Commission de Récupération Artistique et les Services Alliés. Exh.
Bonnard. Exh. cat., Musée des Ponchettes, Nice, August–September cat., Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, July–August 1946. Catalogue
1955. Nice, 1955. by Michel Florisoone, Carle Dreyfus, and Jeanine Lemoine. Paris:
Commission de Récupération Artistique, 1946.
Nice 1992
Le portrait dans l’art contemporain, 1945–1992. Exh. cat., Musée d’Art Paris 1946c
Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice, July 3–September 27, 1992. XXXIV peintures de Pierre Bonnard. Exh. cat., Galerie Bernheim-
Catalogue by Gilbert Perlein. Nice, 1992. Jeune, Paris, June 15–July 13, 1946. Paris, 1946.
Nottingham and other cities 1984–85 Paris 1946–47
Drawings by Bonnard. Exh. cat., Nottingham Castle Museum, May Le noir est une couleur. Exh. cat., Galerie Maeght, Paris, December 6,
27–July 29, 1984; traveled August 5, 1984–November 23, 1985. Cata- 1946–January 11, 1947. Catalogue by Jacques Kober. Paris: Éditions
logue by Michael Harrison et al. London: Arts Council of Great Pierre à Feu, 1946.
Britain, 1984.
183 �
� bon na r d
Paris 1947 Paris 1980

Exposition Bonnard. Exh. cat., Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, October 1– Trésors des musées de la Ville de Paris. Exh. cat., Hôtel de Ville, Salle
December 9, 1947. Catalogue by Charles Terrasse. Paris: Éditions Saint-Jean, June 21–September 17, 1980. Catalogue by Thérèse
des Musées Nationaux, 1947. Burollet. Paris: La Ville, 1980.
Bonnard: Exposition rétrospective. Exh. cat., J. et H. Bernheim-Jeune, Pierre Bonnard, 1867–1947. Exh. cat., Galerie Schmit, Paris, May 3–
Paris, May 13–July 8, 1950. Catalogue by Charles Terrasse. Paris, 1950. July 12, 1995. Paris, 1995.
Cinquante ans de peinture française dans les collections parisiennes, Pierre Bonnard. Exh. cat., Fondation Dina Vierny—Musée Maillol,
de Cézanne à Matisse. Exh. cat., Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, Paris, May 31–October 9, 2000. Catalogue by Dina Vierny and
March–April 1952. Paris, 1952. Bertrand Lorquin. Paris, 2000.
1850–1950: Tableaux des collections parisiennes, Paris, Galerie des Pierre Bonnard: L’Oeuvre d’art, un arrêt du temps. Exh. cat., Musée d’Art
Beaux-Arts. Exh. cat., Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, April 22– Moderne de la Ville de Paris, February 2–May 7, 2006. Catalogue by
May 31, 1955. Paris, 1955. Suzanne Pagé et al. Paris: Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris;
Ghent: Ludion, 2006. Simultaneously published in English as Pierre
Paris 1955–56
Bonnard: The Work of Art, Suspending Time. Paris: Paris Musées, 2006.
Impressionnistes de la Collection Courtauld de Londres. Exh. cat.,
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, November 1955–January 1956. Cata- Paris, London, and Philadelphia 1995–96
logue by Douglas Cooper, translated by Madeleine Dreyfus-Bruhl. Cézanne. Exh. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, Sep-
[Paris], 1955. tember 25, 1995–January 7, 1996; Tate Gallery, London, February 8–
April 28, 1996; Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 30– August 18,
Paris 1957a
1996. Catalogue by Françoise Cachin et al. Philadelphia, 1996.
Depuis Bonnard. Exh. cat., Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris,
March 23–May 18, 1957. Paris, 1957. Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984a
Bonnard. Exh. cat., Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National
Paris 1957b
d’Art Moderne, Paris, February 23–May 21, 1984; The Phillips Col-
Plaisir de la peinture. Exh. cat., Galerie Alfred Daber, May 21–June 15,
lection, Washington, D.C., June 9–August 20, 1984; Dallas Museum
1957. Paris, 1957.
of Art, September 16–November 20, 1984. Catalogue by John Russell
Paris 1958 et al. Paris, 1984.
Collection Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York. Exh. cat., Musée
Paris, Washington, D.C., and Dallas 1984b
des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, April 23–June 1, 1958. Catalogue by
Bonnard: The Late Paintings. Exh. cat., Centre Georges Pompidou,
J. J. Sweeney and François Mathey. [Paris], 1958.
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, February 23–May 21, 1984;
Paris 1961 The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., June 9–August 20, 1984;
Vente de tableaux modernes. Sale cat., Palais Galliéra, Paris, June 21, Dallas Museum of Art, September 16–November 20, 1984. Catalogue
1961. Paris, 1961. by John Russell et al. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984.
Paris 1967 Philadelphia 1947
Pierre Bonnard, centenaire de sa naissance. Exh. cat., Orangerie des Masterpieces of Philadelphia Private Collections. Exh. cat., Philadelphia
Tuileries, Paris, January 13–April 15, 1967. Paris: Réunion des Musées Museum of Art, May 31–September 28, 1947. Philadelphia Museum
Nationaux, 1967. Bulletin 42, no. 214 (May 1947).
Paris 1968 PIASA 2004
Dessins et tableaux de Pierre Bonnard. Exh. cat., Galerie d’Art de Importants dessins anciens et des XIXe et XXe siècles. Sale cat., PIASA
l’Oeil, November 1968. Paris, 1968. in association with Drouot-Richelieu, March 19, 2004. Paris: PIASA,
2004.
Paris 1972
Bonnard, dessins. Exh. cat., Galeria Claude-Bernard, Paris, Pictures on Exhibit 1955
May 2–30, 1972. Paris, 1972. Pictures on Exhibit 19, no. 1 (October 1955).
Paris 1973 Pittsburgh 1936
Hommage à Tériade. Exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, May 16– A Survey of French Painting. Exh. cat., Carnegie Institute, Department
September 3, 1973. Catalogue by Michel Anthonioz. [Paris]: Centre of Fine Arts, Pittsburgh, April 2–May 14, 1936. Pittsburgh, 1936.
National d’Art Contemporain, 1973.
Pittsburgh 1958–59
Paris 1974 Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings from Previous Internationals,
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Paris, May 15–June 15, 1974. Paris, 1974. Pittsburgh, December 5, 1958–February 8, 1959. Catalogue by Leon
Anthony Arkus. Pittsburgh: The Carnegie Institute Press, [1958].
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� 188
Index
Page references in boldface refer to catalogue entries. Page Bois, Yve-Alain, 33, 51, 58n.11, 59n.21, 62, 64, 65, 66
references in italic refer to illustrations. Bonnard, Marthe (née Maria Boursin, adopted name Marthe de
Méligny), 3, 10, 23, 28n.56, 29n.67, 63, 70, 171
A death of, 23, 69, 169, 173
abecedaries (fig. 34), 34, 34 images of (figs. 27, 56, and 63), 19–20, 23, 24, 26, 61, 65, 66,
Abstract Expressionism, 13, 17 69–71, 72, 73, 116, 164; at her bath (fig. 22), 18, 19, 62, 63; nude
Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, 5–6, 27n.16 photograph (fig. 39), 38, 38. See also cat. nos. 3, 12, 15, 27, 30,
Almond Tree in Blossom (fig. 28), 23, 25 31, 36, 41, 42, 55, 72, and 73
A is for Amitié (Friendship) (fig. 34), 34, 34 Bonnard, Pierre (1867–1947):
André, Rogi (Rosza Klein), 64, 172 brushwork of, 13, 17, 28n.40, 42, 48, 51, 74, 140
Aragon, Louis, 58 color strategies of, 4, 13, 17, 22, 23–25, 27–28n.32, 36, 40, 50, 63,
Arcachon, Villa Castellamare in, 172 64–65, 70, 76–77; black and, 23, 29n.70, 168; Cézanne ’s impact
images set at. See cat. nos. 22, 39–41, and 47 on, 12, 13; daybook notations and drawings related to, 14–16;
Assiette de pommes, L’ (cat. no. 11), 93, 93 relationship between drawing and, 52, 53; white and, 23–24, 25,
Autoportrait (ca. 1938–40, cat. no. 74), 47, 167, 167, 169 88, 98, 100, 122, 124, 132, 153; yellow and, 23, 24
Autoportrait (Portrait de l’artiste dans la glace du cabinet de toilette) compositional strategies of, 4, 11–12, 20–22, 50, 51–52, 54, 118,
(1935–45, cat. no. 76), 18, 168–69, 169 122
Avant dîner (cat. no. 2), 25, 35, 70, 82, 83 critical stature and recognition of, 3, 27nn. 5 and 6, 47–51, 55–56,
57–58
B daybooks of, 13, 14–16, 17, 22, 23, 57, 64, 69, 72, 132, 173;
Balzac, Honoré de: La Peau de chagrin, 24 drawings in (figs. 13 and 14), 4, 14, 14–16, 28n.41, 64
Basket of Fruit (oil on canvas, 1936, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge), death of, 173
43 dispute over estate of, 3, 173
Basket of Fruit (oil on canvas, ca. 1946, private collection), 22 drawing of, 14–16, 25–26, 28n.43, 33–34, 36–37, 39, 59n.15, 64,
Basket of Fruit (pencil on paper, ca. 1923, cat. no. 18), 102, 102 116; relationship between color and, 52, 53
Basket of Fruit (pencil on paper, 1930, cat. no. 9), 92, 92 gouache and, 16, 121
Basket of Fruit (watercolor, gouache, and pen on paper, cat. no. 14), light in works of, 4, 22–23, 62, 63, 72–73; electric light and,
97, 97, 103 127, 146
Basket of Fruit: Oranges and Persimmons (cat. no. 62), 155, 155 lithography and (fig. 38), 13, 38, 70, 166, 173
Basket of Fruit in the Dining Room at Le Cannet (cat. no. 19), 103, 103 memory of perception and, 5, 7–8, 11, 52, 57, 70, 71, 72, 88
Basket of Fruit in the Sun (cat. no. 5), 87, 87 mirror effects and, 19, 34, 63, 118, 132, 146, 167, 169
Basket of Fruit on a Table in the Garden at Le Cannet (cat. no. 64), personality and demeanor of, 47, 49
156, 157 photographs of (fig. 32), 33, 172; by Brassaï (fig. 23), 20, 61,
Basket of Fruit Reflected in a Mirror (cat. no. 56), 34, 148, 148 148, 173; by Cartier-Bresson (figs. 10 and 19), 11, 16, 61, 71,
Basket of Fruit with Hand (fig. 17), 15, 15 173; by Hahnloser (fig. 66), 172; by Ostier (fig. 50), 61, 64,
Before Dinner (charcoal on paper) (fig. 61), 82, 82 64, 173
Before Dinner (oil on canvas) (cat. no. 2), 25, 35, 70, 82, 83 photographs taken by (fig. 39), 37–38, 38
Berès, Pierre, 173 presence of figures in works of, 7, 53, 69–70, 72, 73–76; in
Bernard, Émile, 9 peripheries, 20–22, 65, 76, 168; working from memory and, 70,
Bernheim-Jeune, Galerie, Paris, 171, 172, 173 71, 72
Bernheim-Jeune, Gaston, 171 self-portraits of (cat. nos. 74 and 76, fig. 41), 18, 30 (detail), 40,
Bernheim-Jeune, Josse, 90, 171 47, 167, 167–69, 169
Besson, George, 61 watercolor and, 16, 64, 121
189 �
� bon na r d
Bonnefoy, Yves, 38, 40–41 Cooking Utensils (cat. no. 75), 29n.70, 168, 168
Bonvin, François, 8 Corbeille de fruit dans la salle à manger du Cannet (cat. no. 19), 103, 103
Bouquet de fleurs (cat. no. 61), 15 (detail), 154, 154 Corbeille de fruits (cat. no. 14), 97, 97, 103
Bouquet de mimosas (cat. no. 58), 53, 150, 151 Corbeille de fruits: Oranges et kakis (cat. no. 62), 155, 155
Bouquet of Flowers (cat. no. 61), 15 (detail), 154, 154 Corbeille de fruits se reflétant dans une glace du buffet (cat. no. 56), 34,
Bouquet of Mimosas (cat. no. 58), 53, 150, 151 148, 148
Bourgeois Afternoon, The (The Terrasse Family) (fig. 36), 35, 36 Corbeille de fruits sur une table dans le jardin du Cannet (cat. no. 64),
Bowl of Fruit (cat. no. 38), 127, 127 156, 157
Bowl of Milk, The (fig. 27), 23, 24 Corbeille et assiette de fruits sur la nappe à carreaux rouges (cat. no. 60),
Boxer, The (1931, private collection), 169 76–77, 152–53, 153
Braque, Georges, 12–13, 168 Corner of a Table (ca. 1935, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), 130
Large Interior with Palette (fig. 12), 12–13, 13 Corner of the Dining Room at Le Cannet (cat. no. 35), 7, 25, 122, 123
Brassaï, 61, 173 Cotán, Juan Sánchez, 27n.26
Pierre Bonnard Painting Four Canvases (fig. 23), 20, 148 Coupe de fruits (cat. no. 38), 127, 127
Breakfast (1930, cat. no. 27), 113, 113 Courbet, Gustave, 8
Breakfast or Lunch (ca. 1932, cat. no. 23), 61 (detail), 66, 108, 109 A Burial at Ornans, 23
Breakfast Room, The (Dining Room Overlooking the Garden) (cat. no. Courthion, Pierre, 47
41), 18, 20, 35, 72–74, 128, 130, 131, 138 Cubism, 4, 12, 29n.74, 49, 50, 56
study for (cat. no. 40), 129, 129 Cup of Tea by the Radiator (cat. no. 51), 143, 143
Breakfast Table, The (cat. no. 55), 10, 52, 75, 76, 146, 146–47, 172
D
C Dans la salle de bain (cat. no. 69), 161, 161
Café, Le (fig. 49), 63, 63, 130 Dauberville, Henry, 173
Cahiers d’art, 48 Dauberville, Jean, 173
Carnegie International Exposition, Pittsburgh, 146, 171 Degas, Edgar, 20
Carré, Louis, 70, 71, 173 Mallarmé and Renoir (fig. 40), 38, 39
Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 61, 71, 173 Déjeuner, Le, or Le Petit Déjeuner (ca. 1932, cat. no. 23), 61 (detail),
Bonnard in His Studio with Brush and Rag in Hand (fig. 19), 16 66, 108, 109
Bonnard’s Studio at Le Cannet (fig. 67), 173 Delacroix, Eugène, 4, 17
Pierre Bonnard in His Studio (fig. 10), 11 Denis, Maurice, 31, 39, 63, 66
Cazalis, Henri, 34, 41 Homage to Cézanne (fig. 7), 8–9, 9
Cerises, Les (cat. no. 24), 110, 110 Dessert, Le (oil on canvas) (cat. no. 57), 149, 149
Cézanne, Paul, 4, 7, 8–13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 24, 27n.25, 29n.74, 71, Dessert, Le (pencil on paper) (cat. no. 53), 144, 144
100, 140 Dessert, The (oil on canvas) (cat. no. 57), 149, 149
Denis’s Homage to Cézanne and (fig. 7), 8–9, 9 Dessert, The (pencil on paper) (cat. no. 53), 144, 144
Still Life with a Ginger Jar and Eggplants (fig. 11), 11, 12 Dining Room on the Garden (cat. no. 49), 23, 74, 140, 141
Still Life with Compotier, 8 Dining Room Overlooking the Garden (The Breakfast Room) (cat. no.
Still Life with Plaster Cast (fig. 9), 9, 10, 27n.29 41), 18, 20, 35, 72–74, 128, 130, 131, 138
studio in Les Lauves (fig. 8), 9, 10, 10 study for (cat. no. 40), 129, 129
Châle jaune, Le (cat. no. 22), 106, 107, 122 Doig, Peter, 66
Chardin, Jean Siméon, 4, 5–7, 8, 9, 27n.21, 28n.57, 172 Dornac (Paul François Arnold Cardon): Stéphane Mallarmé in His
Basket of Wild Strawberries (fig. 5), 7, 8 Apartment on the Rue de Rome (fig. 35), 35
A Bowl of Plums (fig. 4), 7, 7 Duchamp, Marcel, 57–58
The Buffet (fig. 60), 7, 80, 80 Dying Niobid, The, 65
House of Cards, 7
A Lady Taking Tea (fig. 6), 7, 8 E
Soap Bubbles, 7 Elderfield, John, 51, 59n.22, 61
Checkered Tablecloth, The (cat. no. 60), 76–77, 152–53, 153 Étude pour “La Salle à manger sur le jardin” (cat. no. 40), 129, 129
Cherries, The (cat. no. 24), 110, 110 Étude pour “Le Café” ou “Le Petit Déjeuner” (cat. no. 50), 142, 142
Cherry Tart, The (fig. 2), 5, 6 Étude pour “Le Grand Nu jaune” (cat. no. 30), 116, 117
Clair, Jean, 51, 58–59n.12 Étude pour “Nature morte jaune et rouge” (cat. no. 28), 114, 114
Cochin, Charles-Nicolas, 6 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels
Coin de salle à manger au Cannet (cat. no. 35), 7, 25, 122, 123 Modernes, Paris (1925), 171
color-field painting, 55
Compotier, Le (cat. no. 4), 86, 86 F
Compotier, The (cat. no. 4), 86, 86 Family Scene (fig. 38), 37, 38
Comptes de la journée, Les (cat. no. 3), 84, 85 Fantin-Latour, Henri, 7
� 190
Index �
Faun (fig. 33), 32, 33 Interior: Dining Room (cat. no. 71), 76, 163, 163
Fauvism, 4, 49 Intérior, fenêtre (cat. no. 47), 74, 138, 138
Femme au mimosa, La (cat. no. 8), 91, 91, 150 Interior, Window (cat. no. 47), 74, 138, 138
Femme au panier de fruits (cat. no. 16), 5, 7, 20, 100, 101 Intérior blanc (cat. no. 36), 10, 24, 65, 70, 75, 75 (detail), 100, 124, 125
Femme au table, Le Cannet (cat. no. 66), 159, 159 In the Bathroom (cat. no. 69), 161, 161
Fénéon, Félix, 71
Fleurs sur la cheminée au Cannet (cat. no. 12), 20, 65, 94, 95 J
Fleurs sur un tapis rouge (cat. no. 13), 96, 96 Japonisme, 12, 23, 36–37
Flowers on a Red Carpet (cat. no. 13), 96, 96 Jeunes femmes au jardin (Renée Monchaty et Marthe Bonnard) (cat. no.
Flowers on the Mantelpiece at Le Cannet (cat. no. 12), 20, 65, 94, 95 72), 23, 65, 70, 164, 165
Forge, Andrew, 4, 5 Joëts, Jules, 64
French Window, The (Morning at Le Cannet) (cat. no. 42), 2 (detail), John, Augustus, 173
10, 18–20, 70, 132, 132–33
Fruit, Harmony in the Dark (cat. no. 46), 137, 137 K
Fruit, Harmony in the Light (cat. no. 26), 112, 112 Klingsor, Tristan, 63
Fruits, harmonie claire (cat. no. 26), 112, 112 Konstrevy, 172
Fruits, harmonie foncée (cat. no. 46), 137, 137
Futurism, 56 L
Lamotte, Angèle, 64
G Landscape in the Midi with Two Children (fig. 48), 61, 62
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 171, 172, 173 Laprade, Jacques, 70
Galerie Braun, Paris, 172 Large Bath, Nude, The (1937–39, private collection), 64
Galerie Druet, Paris, 171 Large Yellow Nude (fig. 63), 116, 116
Galerie du Théâtre Pigalle, Paris, 172 study for (cat. no. 30), 116, 117
Galerie Paul, Paris, 172 Le Cannet, Bonnard’s home in (Le Bosquet), 3, 8, 16, 61, 103, 150,
Games, or Pleasure: Decorative Panel (fig. 37), 36, 37 168, 171, 172, 173
Gauguin, Paul, 4, 12, 31, 84 Bonnard’s reclusive life at, 63, 70
The Meal (fig. 62), 84, 84 images set at, 10–11, 18–20, 24–25, 61, 63, 71–72, 103, 146, 152,
Still Life with Three Puppies (fig. 3), 5, 6 166. See also cat. nos. 10, 12, 15, 19, 31, 35, 36, 41, 42, 55, 56, 64,
Vision after the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) (fig. 29), 66, 68, 73, and 75
25, 26, 29n.74 studio of Bonnard at, 3, 4, 10, 29n.74, 64; photographs of (figs. 10,
Giacometti, Alberto, 17 23, and 67), 11, 20, 61, 71, 173
Giverny, André, 24 Le Leyzour, Philippe, 27n.5
Gleizes, Albert, 49 Lhote, André, 61, 63, 64–65
Göring, Hermann, 104 Lunch or Breakfast (cat. no. 23), 61 (detail), 66, 108, 109
Goya, Francisco, 23
Grande salle à manger sur le jardin (cat. no. 49), 23, 74, 140, 141 M
Grand Nu jaune, Le (fig. 63), 116, 116 Maeght, Aimée, 29n.70, 168
étude pour (cat. no. 30), 116, 117 “Maîtres de l’art indépendant, 1895–1937, Les” (Paris, 1937), 172
Gray Interior, The (fig. 55), 71–72, 73 Malevich, Kazimir, 23
Greenberg, Clement, 61, 65 Mallarmé, Stéphane, 31–45
Green Blouse, The (fig. 58), 74, 75 “The Afternoon of a Faun,” 32, 42, 45n.54
circumstantial poems (vers de circonstance), 36–37
H “Crisis of Verse,” 32–33, 43
Hahnloser, Arthur, 23, 121 “Funereal Toast,” 42
Hahnloser, Hans Robert: Bonnard as an Odalisque in Matisse’s Studio “Hérodiade,” 31, 44nn. 6 and 13, 45n.54
at Nice (fig. 66), 172 Les Mots anglais, 39
Hahnloser, Hedy, 23, 28n.60 Nabis’ use of line and, 33–34, 36–37, 39
Hals, Frans, 23 photographs of (figs. 35, 40, and 42), 35, 39, 41
Heron, Patrick, 28n.40 Valvins home of (fig. 31), 31, 32, 32
Huysmans, J.-K., 40 Manet, Édouard, 5, 7, 15, 16, 27n.20, 31, 42–43
Hyman, Timothy, 76 Mann, Sargy, 72
Mantelpiece, The (fig. 52), 63, 65, 66
I Ma Roulotte, Vernon, 171, 172
Impressionism, 7, 9, 27nn. 20 and 32, 39–40, 42–43, 50, 56, 58n.11, images set at (cat. no. 2, fig. 61), 82, 82, 83
64 Marthe Entering the Room (cat. no. 73), 22, 68 (detail), 69, 70, 71, 77,
Bonnard’s misalignment with, 3, 4, 34, 48 166, 166, 173
191 �
� bon na r d
Marthe entrant le salon (cat. no. 73), 22, 68 (detail), 69, 70, 71, 77, Nature morte aux pommes, Le Cannet (cat. no. 10), 92, 92
166, 166, 173 Nature morte avec études des détails (cat. no. 33), 120, 120
Marthe in the Dining Room (fig. 56), 72, 73, 76 Nature morte jaune et rouge (cat. no. 29), 115, 115
Marthe Standing in the Sunlight in the Garden at Montval (fig. 39), 38, étude pour (cat. no. 28), 114, 114
38 Nature morte sur une nappe à carreaux rouges (cat. no. 54), 16, 145, 145
Matinée au Cannet (La Porte-Fenêtre) (cat. no. 42), 2 (detail), 10, Nochlin, Linda, 61
18–20, 70, 132, 132–33 Nu au miroir (La Toilette) (cat. no. 31), 34, 116, 118, 119
Matisse, Henri, 3, 4, 11, 21, 23, 48–50, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59n.20, 80, 104, Nude at the Mirror (The Toilette) (cat. no. 31), 34, 116, 118, 119
140, 168 Nude by the Bathtub (fig. 22), 18, 19
Asia (fig. 25), 22 Nude in Front of a Mirror, probable study for (fig. 15), 14, 15
Bonnard’s letters to, 22, 39, 42, 62, 63, 171, 173 Nude in the Bath and Small Dog (fig. 51), 64, 65
cutouts of, 53, 59n.16
Large Interior in Red (fig. 44), 53, 53 O
The Moroccans, 25 odalisque theme (fig. 20), 17, 17–18
“Notes of a Painter,” 50 Ostier, André, 61, 173
Odalisque with a Turkish Chair (fig. 20), 17, 17–18 Bonnard in His Studio (fig. 50), 64, 64
parallels between careers of Bonnard and, 48–49, 56 Pierre Bonnard in the Dining Room at Le Bosquet with a Basket of
self-portraits of, 47 Fruit, frontispiece
studio of (fig. 66), 17, 172
Woman in White (fig. 26), 22 P
Matisse, Pierre, 48 Palais de Luxembourg, Paris, 16
Medici Venus, 116 Panier de fruits (ca. 1923, cat. no. 18), 102, 102
Metzinger, Jean, 49 Panier de fruits (1930, cat. no. 9), 92, 92
modernism, 4, 8, 11, 48, 49 Panier de fruits au soleil (cat. no. 5), 87, 87
Monchaty, Renée, 23, 29n.67, 100 Pétain, Maréchal, 173
images of, 23, 26, 65, 164. See also cat. no. 72 Petit Déjeuner, Le (1930, cat. no. 27), 113, 113
Mondrian, Piet: Pier and Ocean 2, 1914 (fig. 18), 15, 16 Petit Déjeuner, Le (1936, cat. no. 55), 10, 52, 75, 76, 146, 146–47, 172
Monet, Camille, 19 Petit Déjeuner, Le, or Déjeuner (ca. 1932, cat. no. 23), 61 (detail), 66,
Monet, Claude, 4, 7, 17, 19 108, 109
Morning at Le Cannet (The French Window) (cat. no. 42), 2 (detail), Picasso, Pablo, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 29n.74, 59n.20
10, 18–20, 132, 132–33 Bonnard’s work dismissed by, 3, 12, 13, 17, 54–55, 66, 70
Munch, Edvard, 56 Still Life with Palette, Candlestick, and Head of Minotaur (fig. 21),
18, 18
N Plat de fruits (cat. no. 21), 106, 106
Nabis, 4, 8, 12, 23, 31, 33–34, 36–37, 39, 43, 48, 49, 90 Plate, Orange Jug, and Casserole (cat. no. 45), 136, 136
Nadar, Paul: Stéphane Mallarmé in a Shawl (fig. 42), 41 Plateau, cruche orange et casserole, Le (cat. no. 45), 136, 136
Nappe blanche, La (cat. no. 6), 20, 23–24, 88, 88–89, 98 Plate of Apples, The (cat. no. 11), 93, 93
Natanson, Alexandre, 32 Plate of Fruit (cat. no. 21), 106, 106
Natanson, Alfred, 32 Plato, 33
Natanson, Cipa (fig. 32), 33 Pleasure: Decorative Panel, or Games (fig. 37), 36, 37
Natanson, Ida (fig. 32), 33 plein air painting, 4
Natanson, Misia (fig. 32), 33, 90 Pollock, Jackson, 17
Natanson, Thadée (fig. 32), 32, 33, 39, 44nn. 7, 27, and 30, 90 Porte-Fenêtre, La (Matinée au Cannet) (cat. no. 42), 2 (detail), 10,
Nature morte (cat. no. 32), 120, 120 18–20, 70, 132, 132–33
Nature morte à la bouteille de vin rouge (cat. no. 65), 25, 158, 158 Portrait de l’artiste dans la glace du cabinet de toilette (Autoportrait)
Nature morte à la fenêtre (cat. no. 39), 128, 128 (cat. no. 76), 18, 168–69, 169
Nature morte à la levrette (cat. no. 1), 7, 25, 80, 81 Portrait of the Artist in the Bathroom Mirror (Self-Portrait) (cat. no.
Nature morte au bouquet de fleurs (La Vénus de Cyrène) (cat. no. 7), 76), 18, 168–69, 169
90, 90 Post-Impressionism, 4, 49
Nature morte au jambon (cat. no. 43), 134, 134 postpainterly abstraction, 55
Nature morte au melon (cat. no. 70), 162, 162 Proust, Marcel, 33, 44n.10, 80
Nature morte au noyaux de prunes (cat. no. 34), 121, 121 Provençal Jug, The (fig. 24), 21, 21–22, 150
Nature morte aux fruits (pencil and gouache on cream-colored paper,
cat. no. 25), 111, 111 R
Nature morte aux fruits (watercolor and gouache over pencil, cat. no. Radiator, The, 70, 77n.7
48), 139, 139 see also Marthe Entering the Room
Nature morte aux paniers de fruits (cat. no. 67), 159, 159 Realism, 8, 56
� 192
Index �
Redon, Odilon, 31, 35 Still Life with Plum Pits (cat. no. 34), 121, 121
Reflecting on the Day (cat. no. 3), 84, 85 Still Life with Studies of Details (cat. no. 33), 120, 120
Reflection (The Tub) (1909, Villa Flora Winterthur, Sammlung Studio with Mimosa, The (fig. 45), 46 (detail), 53, 54, 65–66, 75
Hahnloser, Switzerland), 63 Study for “Dining Room Overlooking the Garden (The Breakfast
Rembrandt, 23 Room)” (cat. no. 40), 129, 129
Renoir, Auguste, 4, 7 Study for “Large Yellow Nude” (cat. no. 30), 116, 117
photographs of (figs. 32 and 40), 33, 39 Study for “Le Café” or “Breakfast” (cat. no. 50), 142, 142
Revue blanche, La, 32, 33, 44n.10, 50 Study for “Still Life, Yellow and Red” (cat. no. 28), 114, 114
Rewald, John, 9 Sun-Filled Terrace, The (fig. 46), 56, 57
Richardson, John, 18 Surrealism, 4, 56, 59n.23
Rosenberg, Pierre, 6 Sylvester, David, 42, 61–62, 66
Rothko, Mark, 17, 55
Rouault, Georges, 71, 168 T
Roussel, Ker-Xavier, 50 Table, La (cat. no. 15), 23, 42, 84, 98, 99
Rydbeck, Ingrid, 172 Table, The (cat. no. 15), 23, 42, 84, 98, 99
Ryman, Robert, 23 Table de travail, La (cat. no. 20), 104, 105
Table devant la fenêtre, La (cat. no. 37), 20, 65–66, 75, 126, 126, 127
S Table in Front of the Window (cat. no. 37), 20, 65–66, 75, 126, 126,
Sailing, 28n.60 127
Salle à manger, La (cat. no. 71), 76, 163, 163 Table servie pour le petit déjeuner, Une (cat. no. 52), 144, 144
Salle à manger sur le jardin, La (cat. no. 41), 18, 20, 35, 72–74, 128, Table Set for Breakfast, A (cat. no. 52), 144, 144
130, 131, 138 Tasse de thé au radiateur, La (cat. no. 51), 143, 143
étude pour (cat. no. 40), 129, 129 Terrasse Family, The (The Bourgeois Afternoon) (fig. 36), 35, 36
Salon d’Automne, Paris: Tériade, 152, 173
1905, 50 Terrace at Vernonnet, The (fig. 54), 61, 69–70, 71, 71, 75, 140
1906, 84 Terrasse, Antoine, 24
1923, 171 Terrasse, Charles, 4, 23, 28n.58, 39, 44n.27, 62, 171
Salon des Indépendants, Paris (1926), 171 Terrasse, Michel, 72, 103
Salon des Refusés, Paris (1863), 7 Terrasse, Renée, 173
Self-Portrait (1930, fig. 41), 30 (detail), 38, 40 Time magazine, 146
Self-Portrait (ca. 1938–40, cat. no. 74), 47, 167, 167, 169 Titian, 5
Self-Portrait (Portrait of the Artist in the Bathroom Mirror) (1939–45,
cat. no. 76), 18, 168–69, 169 U
Sentimental Alphabet (fig. 34), 34, 34 Untitled (Basket of Fruit) (cat. no. 17), 102, 102
Seurat, Georges, 29n.74 Ustensiles de cuisine, Les (cat. no. 75), 29n.70, 168, 168
Soby, James Thrall, 69
Still Life (1930, cat. no. 32), 120, 120 V
Still Life (ca. 1935, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), 43 Valéry, Paul, 71
still life, as genre, 6–7, 12, 27nn. 19 and 20 Van Gogh, Vincent, 90
Still Life, Yellow and Red (cat. no. 29), 115, 115 Vase de fleurs sur la nappe rouge (cat. no. 63), 156, 156
study for (cat. no. 28), 114, 114 Vase of Flowers on a Mantelpiece (1930, private collection), 34
Still Life at the Window (cat. no. 39), 128, 128 Vase of Flowers on a Red Cloth (cat. no. 63), 156, 156
Still Life in Front of the Window (fig. 64), 128, 128, 130 Venice Biennale (1926), 171
Still Life on a Red Checkered Tablecloth (cat. no. 54), 16, 145, 145 Vénus de Cyrène, La (Still Life with Bouquet of Flowers) (cat. no. 7),
Still Life with Apples, Le Cannet (cat. no. 10), 92, 92 90, 90
Still Life with Baskets of Fruit (cat. no. 67), 159, 159 Verlaine, Paul, 31, 35, 39, 44n.1
Still Life with Bottle of Red Wine (cat. no. 65), 25, 158, 158 Vermeer, Johannes, 4, 29n.74
Still Life with Bouquet of Flowers (La Vénus de Cyrène) (cat. no. 7), Vernon, Bonnard’s home in (Ma Roulotte), 171, 172
90, 90 images set at (cat. no. 2, fig. 61), 82, 82, 83
Still Life with Fruit (oil on canvas, cat. no. 44), 135, 135 Verve magazine, 173
Still Life with Fruit (pencil and gouache on cream-colored paper, cat. cover of (cat. no. 59), 152, 152, 173
no. 25), 111, 111 Villa Bosquet, Le Cannet, Morning (cat. no. 68), 160, 160
Still Life with Fruit (watercolor and gouache over pencil, cat. no. 48), Villa Castellamare (Arcachon), 172
139, 139 images set at. See cat. nos. 22, 39–41, and 47
Still Life with Greyhound (cat. no. 1), 7, 25, 80, 81 Villa du Bosquet, Le Cannet, le matin (cat. no. 68), 160, 160
Still Life with Ham (cat. no. 43), 134, 134 Villon, Jacques, 70, 166, 173
Still Life with Melon (cat. no. 70), 162, 162 Vollard, Ambroise, 31, 44n.6
193 �
� bon na r d
Vuillard, Édouard, 16, 18, 31, 32, 33, 39, 44nn. 6, 23, and 27, 50, 172, Woman at the Dining Table, Le Cannet (cat. no. 66), 159, 159
173 Woman with Basket of Fruit (cat. no. 16), 5, 7, 20, 100, 101
Album, 90 Woman with Mimosa (cat. no. 8), 91, 91, 150
Mallarmé’s House at Valvins (Winter) (fig. 31), 30, 31 Work Table (cat. no. 20), 104, 105
World War II, 4, 17, 61, 63, 104, 169, 173
W
Watteau, Jean-Antoine, 4, 5 Y
Weyhe Gallery, New York, 173 Yellow Interior, The (fig. 57), 72, 73
White Interior (cat. no. 36), 10, 24, 65, 70, 75, 75 (detail), 100, 124, Yellow Shawl, The (cat. no. 22), 106, 107, 122
125 Young Women in the Garden (Renée Monchaty and Marthe Bonnard)
White Tablecloth, The (cat. no. 6), 20, 23–24, 88, 88–89, 98 (cat. no. 72), 23, 65, 70, 164, 165
Whitfield, Sarah, 61, 70
Window at Le Cannet (1925, Tate, London), 29n.74 Z
Window Opening onto the Garden at Le Cannet (ca. 1944, private Zarraga, Angel, 71
collection), 43 Zervos, Christian, 48
� 194
Photograph and Copyright Credits
Photographs were in most cases provided by the institutions or © Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow:
individuals owning the works of art and are published with their fig. 6
permission; their courtesy is gratefully acknowledged. Additional Bob Kolbrener: cat. no. 44
information and credits from photographic sources follow:
Kunstmuseum Basel (photo: Martin P. Bühler): cat. no. 7
Robert Lorenzson: cat. no. 72
© MBA Lyon (photo: Alain Basset): fig. 56; cat. nos. 12, 13
All works by Pierre Bonnard © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
© Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/ADAGP, Paris.
New York: figs. 20, 25, 26, 44
Cindy Momchilov: cat. 40
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Photography Studio:
Courtesy Acquavella Galleries, Inc.: cat. nos. 37, 42 figs. 11, 54, 58; cat. no. 19
L’Agence Roger-Viollet, Paris: fig. 20 Digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by
Art Resource, NY (Photo: Erich Lessing): figs. 5, 36, 60 SCALA/Art Resource, NY: figs. 3, 38; cat. nos. 41, 56, 59
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, Courtauld Gallery, London: fig. 9 Musée de Grenoble: cat. nos. 28, 29, 36
© The Art Institute of Chicago: cat. no. 60 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.:
© Frederic Aubert, Marseilles: cat. nos. 10, 51 cat. no. 20
© Estate Brassaï—RMN (Photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ Bill Orcutt and Ilonka Van der Putten, New York: cat. nos. 27, 69
Art Resource, NY): fig. 23 Reto Pedrini: cat. no. 39
Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY: cat. no. 31 Robert Pettus: cat. no. 43
© Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos: figs. 10, 19 Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY: figs. 7 (photo:
CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art H. Lewandowski), 39; cat. nos. 26, 27 (photos: Gerard Blot)
Resource, NY: figs. 22 (photo: Adam Rzepka), 28, 44, 45; cat. Malcolm Varon: cat. no. 64
nos. 35, 76 (photo: Arnaudet) © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (photo: Katherine Wetzel):
Ali Elai, New York: cat. no. 53 cat. no. 71
Roy Fox, Fine Art Photography, Long Melford, Suffolk, England: © Tate, London 2008: figs. 27, 49; cat. no. 15
cat. no. 50 Yale University Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY: cat. nos. 5, 22
195 �
continued from front flap
on paper, many of them rarely seen in public Pierre Bonnard

and, in some cases, little known. Although The Late Still Lifes and
Bonnard’s legacy may be removed from the
succession of trends that today we consider
Interiors
the foundation of modernism, his contribu-
tion to French art in the early decades of the Edited by
twentieth century is far more profound than Dita Amory
history has generally acknowledged. In their
insightful essays and catalogue entries the With essays by
authors bring fresh critical perspectives to Dita Amory, Rika Burnham, Jack Flam,
the ongoing reappraisal of Bonnard’s reputa- Rémi Labrusse, and Jacqueline Munck
tion and to his place within the narrative of
twentieth-century art. and contributions from

DITA AMORY is associate curator, Robert
T
Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. he vibrant late paintings of Pierre
Bonnard (1867–1947) are considered
by many to be among his finest
achievements. Working in a small converted
bedroom of his villa in the south of France,
Bonnard suffused his late canvases with radi-
ant Mediterranean light and dazzling color.
Although his subjects were close at hand—
usually everyday scenes taken from his
immediate surroundings, such as the dining
room table being set for breakfast, or a jug of
flowers perched on the mantelpiece—Bonnard
rarely painted from life. Instead, he preferred
to make pencil sketches in small diaries and
then rely on these, along with his memory,
once in the studio. Bonnard’s late interiors
thus often conflate details from his daily life
with fleeting, mysterious evocations of his
208 pages; 146 illustrations, including 125 in full past. The spectral figures who appear and
color; selected chronology; bibliography; index.
disappear at the margins of these canvases,
overshadowed by brilliantly colored baskets of
Jacket/cover: Pierre Bonnard, Corner of the fruit, dishes, or other still-life props, create
Dining Room at Le Cannet, 1932 (detail). Oil an atmosphere of profound ambiguity and
on canvas, 317/8 x 351/2 in. (81 x 90 cm). Centre puzzling abstraction: the mundane rendered
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art in a wholly new pictorial language.
Moderne/Centre de Création Industrielle,
Yale University Press
This volume, which accompanies the first

Paris (State Purchase, 1933)
exhibition to focus on the interior and related
still-life imagery from the last decades of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Bonnard’s long career, presents more than
Yale University Press, New Haven and London seventy-five paintings, drawings, and works
PR I N T E D I N I TA LY The Metropolitan Museum of Art continued on back flap

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What was Bonnard's approach to painting?

What was Bonnard's approach to painting?

What subjects did Bonnard depict in his late works?

What subjects did Bonnard depict in his late works?

continued from front flap

on paper, many of them rarely seen in public Pierre Bonnard

This volume, which accompanies the first

PR I N T E D I N I TA LY The Metropolitan Museum of Art continued on back flap

and contributions from

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The catalogue is made possible by the Janice H. Levin Fund.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Typeset in Fournier and Rotis

Copyright © 2009 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-58839-308-1 (hc: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Director’s Foreword Thomas P. Campbell vi

Contributors to the Catalogue ix

The Presence of Objects: Still Life in Bonnard’s Late Paintings Dita Amory 3

A Desire for Dispossession: Portrait of the Artist as a Reader of Mallarmé Rémi Labrusse 31

Bonnard in the History of Twentieth-Century Art Jack Flam 47

Intelligent Seeing Rika Burnham 69

Selected Chronology 171

As I inaugurate my tenure as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is a par-

In catalogue entries, references to Jean and Henry Dauberville’s catalogue raisonné of

“That’s not painting, what he does.”—Pablo Picasso

I tried to paint [a bouquet of roses] directly, scrupulously, I was absorbed by the

If we consider Bonnard’s oeuvre as part of the grande tradition of French painting, we

Fig. 2. Pierre Bonnard, The Cherry Tart,

What makes Chardin so compelling a compari-

Fig. 5. Jean Siméon Chardin, Basket

Fig. 7. Maurice Denis, Homage to

Cézanne turned his custom-built studio at Les Lauves into a labo-

In these well-trodden but evanescent interi-

Fig. 11. Paul Cézanne, Still Life with

Fig. 12. Georges Braque, Large Interior

Fig. 15. Probably study for Nude in

Fig. 16. Detail, Bouquet of Flowers,

Manet); curved and rounded curlicues, spirals, loops, and waves;

©2008 mondrian/ holtzman trust c/o hcr international, warrenton, va

Fig. 19. Henri Cartier-Bresson,

his work was finished only when, as he put

and allow the spectacle of perceptual activity to

Fig. 22. Pierre Bonnard, Nude by

Fig. 23. Brassaï, Pierre Bonnard

Fig. 24. Pierre Bonnard, The Provençal

Bonnard’s peripheries create a kind of cinematic vision of a world in motion.57 Work-

Fig. 25. Henri Matisse, Asia, 1946. Oil

Fig. 26. Henri Matisse, Woman in White,

Fig. 27. Pierre Bonnard, The Bowl

Fig. 28. Pierre Bonnard, Almond Tree

Fig. 29. Paul Gauguin, Vision after the

Fig. 31. Édouard Vuillard, Mallarmé’s

Fig. 33. Pierre Bonnard, Faun,

Fig. 32. Pierre Bonnard, Auguste Renoir,

snaking lines—weaving in and out, vanishing and then

Elle, défunte nue en le miroir, encor

[Though she in the oblivion that the mirror frames

Fig. 35. Dornac (Paul François