Lot Essay
The present picture appears to originally have been slightly larger. In Dauberville where an old Bernheim-Jeune illustration is used there is more sky. By 1947, when the work was illustrated in Beer, the size of the canvas had been reduced from 75 x 49cm. to its present size.
The view from a balcony or through an open window is a motif Matisse used at Collioure in 1905 and continued to explore in Nice between 1917 and 1925 when his relationship with Bonnard was particularly close. In the 1920s Bonnard painted a number of landscapes which made explicit use of the architectonic form of french windows or open doors to frame his views. These devices simultaneously gave the canvas a sense of order whilst also demarcating two very separate realms of experience: the interior world of man and the exterior world of nature.
Nuages sur les Toits achieves this effect with great subtlety. It offers us an alluring view over sun-drenched rooftops and flourishing greenery, into an immense, cloudy sky. The presence of a balustrade in the immediate foreground anchors the composition as well as creating the impression that we are looking out onto this gloriously sunny scene from a cool, shaded terrace.
This essentially colourist composition formed part of the celebrated collection of Monsieur Pierre Levy. Particularly rich in fine fauve paintings the collection is now housed in the Musée de Troyes, France.
The view from a balcony or through an open window is a motif Matisse used at Collioure in 1905 and continued to explore in Nice between 1917 and 1925 when his relationship with Bonnard was particularly close. In the 1920s Bonnard painted a number of landscapes which made explicit use of the architectonic form of french windows or open doors to frame his views. These devices simultaneously gave the canvas a sense of order whilst also demarcating two very separate realms of experience: the interior world of man and the exterior world of nature.
Nuages sur les Toits achieves this effect with great subtlety. It offers us an alluring view over sun-drenched rooftops and flourishing greenery, into an immense, cloudy sky. The presence of a balustrade in the immediate foreground anchors the composition as well as creating the impression that we are looking out onto this gloriously sunny scene from a cool, shaded terrace.
This essentially colourist composition formed part of the celebrated collection of Monsieur Pierre Levy. Particularly rich in fine fauve paintings the collection is now housed in the Musée de Troyes, France.