Art Blog: 14 Paintings by Pierre Bonnard

Le grand jardin (The Large Garden), 1895, L’Amandier en fleurs (The Almond Tree in Blossom), 1946-1947, Le Boxeur (portrait de l’artiste) (The Boxer, portrait of the artist), 1931, La Symphonie pastorale (The Pastoral Symphony) , 1916-1920, L’Après-midi bourgeoise, dit aussi La Famille Terrasse (A Bourgeois Afternoon or the Terrasse Family), 1900, Les Frères Bernheim - Jeune [Josse Bernheim-Jeune et Gaston Bernheim de Villers] (The Bernheim-Jeune Brothers), 1920, La loge (The Box), 1908, L'Homme et la femme (The Man and The Woman), 1900, La Soirée sous la lampe (Evening By Lamplight), 1921, Femme assoupie sur un lit, dit aussi L’Indolente (Woman Dozing on a Bed or The Indolent Woman), 1899, Femmes au jardin, Femme à la robe quadrillée (Women in a Garden: Woman in a Checked Dress), 1890-1891, Femmes au jardin, Femme assise au chat (Women in the Garden, Seated Woman with a Cat), 1890-18901, Femmes au jardin, Femme à la robe à pois blanc (Women in a Garden: Woman in a Polka Dot Dress), 1890-1891, Femmes au jardin, Femme à la pèlerine (Women in a Garden, Woman in a Blue Pelerine), 1890-1891

Pierre Bonnard

Le grand jardin (The Large Garden), 1895

Oil on canvas

66 1/10 × 87 in

168 × 221 cm

Known for painting light-soaked interiors, nudes and still lives, Pierre Bonnard’s lush canvases echo Claude Monet and Henri Matisse. Bonnard played a central role in Nabis, a group emphasizing the basic aesthetic properties of painting. Describing his method, Bonnard has said, “the principal subject is the surface, which has its color, its laws over and above those of object.” Rather than simply observe and reproduce the world around him, Bonnard sought to instill each picture with, in the words of Nabis colleague Maurice Denis, “a beauty outside nature.”

Pierre Bonnard

L’Amandier en fleurs (The Almond Tree in Blossom), 1946-1947

Oil on canvas

21 7/10 × 14 4/5 in

55 × 37.5 cm

Born just outside of Paris in 1867, Pierre Bonnard was the son of a high-ranking bureaucrat in the French War Ministry. In 1887 he enrolled in classes at the Académie Julian in Paris, where he became a student and follower of Paul Gauguin. Gauguin’s teaching inspired a group of young painters known as Les Nabis (after the Hebrew words navi or nabi, meaning prophet), with whom Bonnard joined. By the early years of the twentieth century, the Nabis had disbanded, and for the remainder of his career, Bonnard resisted affiliation with any particular school. Instead, he alternated between the themes and techniques of the Impressionists and the abstract visual modes of modernism.

Pierre Bonnard

Le Boxeur (portrait de l’artiste) (The Boxer, portrait of the artist), 1931

Oil on canvas

21 3/10 × 29 3/10 in

54 × 74.3 cm

Bonnard worked in many genres and techniques, including painting, drawing and photography. From the domestic and urban scenes of his early Nabi period to the great elegies of the twentieth century, Bonnard’s output is grounded in a modernity that was transformed by his knowledge of works from other cultures, including Japanese woodblock prints and Mediterranean mosaics.