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Lot Essay
By 1912, Bonnard had begun to spend much of his time away from Paris, and in that year, he purchased a modest villa at Vernonnet, a picturesque hamlet in the Seine valley not far from Giverny. During the next four decades, the artist turned increasingly for his subject matter to the rooms in which he lived, first at Vernonnet and later at Le Cannet, evoking the rhythms of domestic intimacy through paintings of still-life and interior. The present picture is an absorbing example of the work from these years, its vivid palette, luminous texture, and compressed space lending the familiar still-life motifs an air of unfamiliar enchantment.
The vase in the present picture, a fluted white pitcher with gracefully tapered sides and a design of falling cherries, was among Bonnard's favorite objects to paint. It appears in at least twenty-two compositions between 1911 and 1935, the last of which shows it with a broken handle (D1537). In some pictures, the vase is the sole element in the painting; elsewhere, it forms part of an array of decorative objects, including small bowls and jugs (as in the present work), stacks of books (D783), a tray of red and golden apples (D1015), perfume bottles and other vanity items (D772), even a checkerboard (D696). In at least one image, the pitcher is depicted in the background of an interior peopled with figures (D1031). In each case, the pitcher is filled with a spray of brightly colored wildflowers, here red poppies, tiny goldenrod, and sunny daisies; Bonnard clearly relished the simple elegance of an informal garden bouquet placed in a vessel that might otherwise hold milk or water for a weekend breakfast or casual luncheon. Often the pitcher is placed atop a rustic red-and-white checked tablecloth, the squares of vibrant color picking up the red of the cherries and the poppies. In the present work, the bouquet has begun to droop slightly, recalling a comment that Bonnard's housekeeper made to James Thrall Soby after the artist's death, that he never painted the flowers that she picked for him straight away: "He let the flowers wilt and then he started painting; he said that way they would have more presence" (quoted in S. Whitfield, Bonnard, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1998, p. 28).
The handling of space in the present painting is studied and sophisticated, the use of color richly orchestrated. The tabletop is shown as receding through space, its left edge rendered at a crisp diagonal, echoed in turn by the linear pattern of the tablecloth; the placement of the still-life elements toward the rear of the pictorial field underscores the sense of depth. In contrast, the background of the picture is abstract and planar, as if to insist upon the image's flatness; a vertical band of lighter color corresponding to the corner of the table underscores the spatial disjunction, signaling the spot where the wall too should angle. The hot orange ground presses forward, the perspectivally rendered tabletop pushes back, producing a space which seems on the one hand sealed and intimate, on the other hand tense and throbbing. The picture is unified by the use of saturated color and active brushwork, rendering the final effect shimmering and mysterious. As John Rewald has written:
With the exception of Vuillard, no painter of his generation was to endow his technique with so much sensual delight, so much feeling for the undefinable texture of paint, so much vibration. The sensitivity which guided his brush he infused into every particle of paint placed on the canvas; there is almost never any dryness, any dullness in his execution. His paintings are not merely 'flat surfaces covered with colors arranged in a certain order' [as Maurice Denis described the work of the Nabis]; they are covered with colors applied with a delicate voluptuousness that confers to the pigment a life of its own and treats every single stroke like a clear note of a symphony. At the same time Bonnard's colors changed from opaque to transparent and brilliant, and his perceptiveness seemed to grow as his brush found ever more expert and more subtle means to capture the richness both of his imagination and of nature (J. Rewald, Pierre Bonnard, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1948, p. 48).
Other critics have similarly stressed the seductive quality of Bonnard's art -- produced, as here, by a skilled play with formal components:
Objects are broken up by light in patterns of color across the surface, and the dialogue between object and color, color and pattern, pattern and surface, surface and pictorial depth becomes part of the content of the painting... Paintings begun in the memory of a visual experience encapsulated in a drawing were transformed through color into a rich, immensely varied surface made up of a tapestry of brushstrokes, glazes, scumbles, impasto highlights and pentimenti. Objects were not so much painted as felt into shape within the surface over a long period. 'The principal subject,' Bonnard maintained, 'is the surface, which has its color, its laws over and above those of objects... It's not a matter of painting life,' Bonnard concluded, 'it's a matter of giving life to painting' (N. Watkins, Bonnard, London, 1994, p. 171).
The vase in the present picture, a fluted white pitcher with gracefully tapered sides and a design of falling cherries, was among Bonnard's favorite objects to paint. It appears in at least twenty-two compositions between 1911 and 1935, the last of which shows it with a broken handle (D1537). In some pictures, the vase is the sole element in the painting; elsewhere, it forms part of an array of decorative objects, including small bowls and jugs (as in the present work), stacks of books (D783), a tray of red and golden apples (D1015), perfume bottles and other vanity items (D772), even a checkerboard (D696). In at least one image, the pitcher is depicted in the background of an interior peopled with figures (D1031). In each case, the pitcher is filled with a spray of brightly colored wildflowers, here red poppies, tiny goldenrod, and sunny daisies; Bonnard clearly relished the simple elegance of an informal garden bouquet placed in a vessel that might otherwise hold milk or water for a weekend breakfast or casual luncheon. Often the pitcher is placed atop a rustic red-and-white checked tablecloth, the squares of vibrant color picking up the red of the cherries and the poppies. In the present work, the bouquet has begun to droop slightly, recalling a comment that Bonnard's housekeeper made to James Thrall Soby after the artist's death, that he never painted the flowers that she picked for him straight away: "He let the flowers wilt and then he started painting; he said that way they would have more presence" (quoted in S. Whitfield, Bonnard, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1998, p. 28).
The handling of space in the present painting is studied and sophisticated, the use of color richly orchestrated. The tabletop is shown as receding through space, its left edge rendered at a crisp diagonal, echoed in turn by the linear pattern of the tablecloth; the placement of the still-life elements toward the rear of the pictorial field underscores the sense of depth. In contrast, the background of the picture is abstract and planar, as if to insist upon the image's flatness; a vertical band of lighter color corresponding to the corner of the table underscores the spatial disjunction, signaling the spot where the wall too should angle. The hot orange ground presses forward, the perspectivally rendered tabletop pushes back, producing a space which seems on the one hand sealed and intimate, on the other hand tense and throbbing. The picture is unified by the use of saturated color and active brushwork, rendering the final effect shimmering and mysterious. As John Rewald has written:
With the exception of Vuillard, no painter of his generation was to endow his technique with so much sensual delight, so much feeling for the undefinable texture of paint, so much vibration. The sensitivity which guided his brush he infused into every particle of paint placed on the canvas; there is almost never any dryness, any dullness in his execution. His paintings are not merely 'flat surfaces covered with colors arranged in a certain order' [as Maurice Denis described the work of the Nabis]; they are covered with colors applied with a delicate voluptuousness that confers to the pigment a life of its own and treats every single stroke like a clear note of a symphony. At the same time Bonnard's colors changed from opaque to transparent and brilliant, and his perceptiveness seemed to grow as his brush found ever more expert and more subtle means to capture the richness both of his imagination and of nature (J. Rewald, Pierre Bonnard, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1948, p. 48).
Other critics have similarly stressed the seductive quality of Bonnard's art -- produced, as here, by a skilled play with formal components:
Objects are broken up by light in patterns of color across the surface, and the dialogue between object and color, color and pattern, pattern and surface, surface and pictorial depth becomes part of the content of the painting... Paintings begun in the memory of a visual experience encapsulated in a drawing were transformed through color into a rich, immensely varied surface made up of a tapestry of brushstrokes, glazes, scumbles, impasto highlights and pentimenti. Objects were not so much painted as felt into shape within the surface over a long period. 'The principal subject,' Bonnard maintained, 'is the surface, which has its color, its laws over and above those of objects... It's not a matter of painting life,' Bonnard concluded, 'it's a matter of giving life to painting' (N. Watkins, Bonnard, London, 1994, p. 171).