Background
Pierre Bonnard was born on October 3, 1867 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France.
Pierre Bonnard was born on October 3, 1867 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France.
After taking his baccalaureate, in which he distinguished himself in classics, Bonnard studied law at the insistence of his father.
In the meantime he attended the École des Beaux-Arts, but, failing to win the Prix de Rome (a prize to study at the French Academy in Rome), he transferred to the Académie Julian, where he came into contact with some of the major figures of the new artistic generation—Maurice Denis, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Paul Sérusier, Édouard Vuillard, and Félix Vallotton.
For a short time in 1888 he worked in a government office.
In 1890, after a year’s military service, he shared a studio in Montmartre with Denis and Vuillard. Later they were joined by the theatrical producer Aurélien Lugné-Poë, with whom Bonnard collaborated on productions for the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre, in Paris. At this time he became influenced by Japanese prints, which had earlier attracted the Impressionists.
Bonnard’s pictures of charming interiors lighted by oil lamps, nudes on voluptuous beds, and Montmartre scenes made him a recorder of France’s Belle Époque. It was typical of his humour and taste for urban life at the time that he illustrated Petites scènes familières and Petit solfège illustré (1893), written by his brother-in-law Claude Terrasse, and executed the lithograph series Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris (“Aspects of Paris Life”), which was issued by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard in 1899. He also contributed illustrations to the celebrated avant-garde review La Revue blanche. A new phase in book illustration was inaugurated with Bonnard’s decoration of the pages in Paul Verlaine’s book of Symbolist poetry, Parallèlement, published by Vollard in 1900. He undertook the illustration of other books during the 1900s.
Bonnard’s ability as a large-scale decorator is sometimes overlooked, in view of his more quiet, domestic paintings in the Intimist style. But about 1906 he painted Pleasure, Study, Play, and the Voyage, a series of four decorations made to resemble tapestries, for the salon of Misia Natanson, the wife of one of the editors of La Revue blanche. These pictures show that he was an heir to the French grand tradition of pictorial design that may be traced to Charles Le Brun, the director of all artistic activity under Louis XIV, and François Boucher, the most fashionable painter in the mid-18th century.
By about 1908 Bonnard’s Intimist period had concluded. A picture such as Nude Against the Light (1908) was painted not only on a bigger scale but also with broader and more colouristic effects. Because of his increasing interest in landscape painting, he had begun painting scenes in northern France. In 1910 he discovered the south of France, and he became the magical painter of this region. The Mediterranean was considered by many of the period to be a source of French civilization. Bonnard was eager to emphasize the connections between his art and France’s classical heritage. This was evident in the pose of certain of his figures, which hark back to ancient Hellenistic sculpture. He was also enamoured of the colouristic tradition of the 16th-century Venetian school. The Abduction of Europa (1919), for example, is in a direct line of descent from the work of Titian.
The subjects of Bonnard’s pictures are simple, but the means by which he rendered such familiar themes as a table laden with fruit or a sun-drenched landscape show that he was one of the most subtle masters of his day; he was particularly fascinated with tricks of perspective, as the Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne had been. In The Dining Room (1913), for example, he employed different levels of perspective and varied the transitions of tone, from warm to cool.
By about 1915 Bonnard realized that he had tended to sacrifice form for colour, so from that point until the late 1920s he painted nudes that reflect a new concern for structure without losing their strong colour values. In the 1920s he undertook a series of paintings on one of his most famous themes—a nude in a bath. From the end of the 1920s onward, the subject matter of his pictures hardly varied—still lifes, searching self-portraits, seascapes at Saint-Tropez on the Riviera, and views of his garden at Le Cannet, near Cannes. These are paintings intense with colour.
The chronological order of Bonnard’s paintings is difficult to determine, for he would make sketches in pencil or colour and then use them as the basis for several pictures on which he would work simultaneously. When working in the studio, he would rely on his memory of the subject and constantly retouch the surface, building up a mosaic of colours. It is impossible, therefore, to give more than approximate dates for many of his works. In 1944 Bonnard illustrated a group of early letters, which were published in facsimile under the appropriate title of Correspondances. Formes et couleurs.
During World War II he lived in Le Cannet, and there he died on January 23, 1947.
Two Poodles
Still LIfe with Lemons
Parisian Boulevard
Night Landscape
Natanson Girls
Girl Playing with a Dog (Vivette Terrasse)
Garden with Red Tree
Early Spring (Little Fauns)
Landscape with Three Figures and Willow
Boats in Port at Low Tide
Evening in Paris
Nude Washing Feet in a Bathtub
Nude Bending Down
Fruit on the red carpet
Interior
Marthe and the dog, Black
Study for Afternoon in the Garden
Red Roofs in Cannet
The Toilet
Nude and Fur Hat
Two elegant Place de Clichy
Landscape, Sunset
Dusk, or A Round of Croquet
Vase with Anemonies and Empty Vase
Child at Table
Hamburg, Picnic
Figures in the Street
Woman Reclining on a Bed, or The Indolent Woman
Woman at Her Window
Woman Washing Her Feet
Jakten
Cagnes Landscape
Woman in a Polka Dot Dress
Self Portrait
The Luncheon
The Fireplace
Self Portrait with a Beard
The exit of the bath
The Red Cupboard
The Pont des Arts
Nude at the Fireplace
The big blue naked
Woman with Black Stockings
Pot of Flowers
Workers
The Pony
Siesta
Flowers on a Red Carpet
The terrace at Grasse - 1912
The Open Window
Dauphine Landscape
Man and Woman
Before Dinner
The grey nude
Poppies
In the Woods (study)
Fruit Basket
Tall Nude (also known as Woman Nude Standing)
The Merchant of Four Seasons
The workshop with Mimosa
Nude in an Interior
Woman in a Tub (also known as Nude Crouching in a Tub)
Landscape in Normady
Nude Before a Mirror
The Seine
Study for Profile of a Woman in a Bow Tie
Sea Landscape
Landscape at Vernon
The Lodge
Lunch at Le Grand Lamps
Young Woman Before the Window
Woman on the Street
Snowballs
Model in Backligh
The Red Garter
The Solfege
At the Races, Longchamp
Pitcher
Landing Stage
Pots
Bunch of Mimosa
Nude at the Toilet Table
In Summer
View from the Artist's Studio, Le Cannet
The Pont de Vernon
Joseph Bernheim Jeune and Gaston Bernheim de Villers
Madame Claude Anet
Not detected
The Garden
Boulevard des Batignolles
Momisa
Woman leaning
Sitting Woman with a Cat
Self Portrait
Portrait of a girl, Mademoiselle Renee Terrasse
The Tea
In the Bathroom
The House of Misia Sert
Going Rowing
Saint Tropez, Pier
Not detected
Fruit Bowl
At Sea
Tub in a Mirror
The White Cat
Misia
The Bourgeois Afternoon or The Terrasse Family
Carriage Horse
Fruit Basket
Landscape with freight train
The Port of Cannes
The Dressing Gown
Interior with Flowers
La Place Clichy
Cow behind a Tree
The door window with dog
Girl with Parrot
The Dining Room in the Country
Siesta
Ice Palace
Little Girl with a Cat
The Window
Children and Kid
Cherry Pie
Family
By the Sea, Under the Pines
Woman in a Blue Pelerine
The garden steps
Woman in a Green Dress in a Garden
Gardens of Tuileries
Woman with Dog (also known as Marthe Bonnard and Her Dog)
Misia at the Piano (also known as Portrait of Misia Natanson)
Woman with Dog
Toilet with a bouquet red and yellow
Landing Stage
Ambroise Vollard
Still life with flowers or the Venus of Cyrene
Landscape of Cote d Azur
The Vase of flowers
Girl with a Dog in the Park at Grand Lemps (also known as Dauphine)
The Palm
Playing Catch (also known as Children in a Garden)
Children Playing in a Garden
Basket and Plate of Fruit on a Red Checkered Tablecloth
Race at Bologne
The Bowl of Milk
The Last Self Portrait
Mirror on the Wash Stand
Standing Nude
Sombre Nude
A Plate of Figs
The Washing
Morning in Paris
Earthly Paradise
Young Girl with Umbrella
Street in Eragny-sur-Oise or Dogs in Eragny
Young Girl Sitting with a Rabbit
Figure Studies for Le Printemps
Fish in a Dish
The Yacht
The Terraces
Garden at Midday
Nude in the Bathtub
Woman in a Checked Dress
Peaches and Grapes
Self Portrait in a Shaving Mirror
Nude in the Bathtub
Autumn: The Fruit Pickers
Flowers on a Mantlepiece
The Terrasse Children with Black Dog
On the Track
Tree by the River
Eiffel Tower and The Seine
Self Portrait
At the Fence
The Toilet
Bather
Nude by the Bath Tub
The terrace at vernon
Misia with a Pink Corsage
A Woman in a Room
Woman in Black Stockings
Avenue du Bois in Boulogne
Carafe, Marthe Bonnard with Her Dog
Young Womwn in an Interior
Bull and Child
Woman in a Blue Hat
Norman Earthenware (also known as A Pot from Rouen)
View of Le Cannet, Roofs
Intimit
A spring landscape
Child Eating Cherries
Horse Hair Glove
Striped Blouse
At the Circus
Nude with Covered Legs
The Letter
The Lunch of the Little Ones
Poster advertising France Champagne
Still LIfe with Earthenware Dish
Quotations:
"My first pictures were done by instinct, the others with more method perhaps. Instinct which nourishes method can often be superior to a method which nourishes instinct."
"I work in the mornings and in the afternoons I go to the Latin Quarter. It is a long way from the Batignolles district to the Pantheon: Fortunately there is the Metro. It amuses me to see the people squashed together, and among them are some pretty faces which I draw in the evenings, from memory, in my sketchbook."
"It would bother me if my canvases were stretched onto a frame. I never know in advance what dimensions I am going to choose."
During the 1890s Bonnard became one of the leading members of the Nabis, a group of artists who specialized in painting intimate domestic scenes as well as decorative curvilinear compositions akin to those produced by painters of the contemporary Art Nouveau movement.
He became a member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium in 1936.
Bonnard was mild in manner and in appearance. He had a reputation for witty commentary and a sharp critical sense.
Quotes from others about the person
"Bonnard was the humorist among us; his nonchalant gaiety, his wit was evident in his pictures [many of daily-life in the Paris' streets], in which a kind of satiric quality was always embodied n the decorative spirit.. Bonnard did not resemble Denis or Vuillard in any way, yet all three approached life with a noble determination which was a god-send to me."
Lugné-Poë, in a later writing; as quoted in Pierre Bonnard, by John Rewald; MoMA - distribution, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1918, p. 18 - note 13
Pierre Bonnard married Maria Boursin.