Coup de soleil (La terrasse de 'Ma roulotte' à Vernonnet)

'Show nature when it's beautiful. Everything has its moment of beauty. Beauty is the fulfillment of seeing.' (Bonnard, quoted in A. Terrasse, 'Bonnard's Notes,' pp. 51-70, Bonnard: The Late Paintings, ed. S.M. Newman, exh.cat., New York, 1984, p. 69).

Bathed in the luminous glow of a sunny day in Normandy, Coup de soleil (La terrasse de 'Ma roulotte' à Vernonnet) invites us to stand upon a balustrade and gaze across the rich greenery of Vernonnet. The vibrant blue hues of the water draw and soothe the eye - in the distance, a few figures lounge beneath a tree, engaged in lively conversation — they seem ready to rise at any moment and welcome us into their gathering. Only a few clouds drift on the horizon, unable to alter the bliss of this idyllic scene.

Coup de soleil captures a fleeting, enchanting moment in Bonnard’s love affair with the village of Vernonnet, on the left bank of the Seine. The artist had settled there in 1912 with his lifelong partner, Marthe, seeking the climate of the Seine valley, beneficial for her health. Together they would spend more than a decade in Bonnard’s beloved ‘Ma roulotte’ (‘my caravan’), his nickname for their idyllic retreat. Surrounded by what he described as a jardin sauvage, this modest, somewhat secluded house provided the perfect environment for his artistic practice: its wild, verdant garden became an endless source of colour, light, and atmosphere.

The lessons Bonnard absorbed during his formative Nabis years are here interpreted with his own personal touch, characteristic of his work in the 1910s: flat planes and vibrant, at times acidic, colours are employed with freedom to depict an intimate, everyday scene. It is precisely such subjects that would occupy the majority of his artistic production in the years to come, ultimately bringing him widespread recognition. The 1910s are undoubtedly one of the most special in his oeuvre, a period marked by daring experimentation and the development of his distinctive visual language.

Bonnard’s — and, before him, the Nabis’ — characteristic interest in the interplay between interior and exterior is expressed in Coup de soleil in one of its most fully realised iterations. The dialogue unfolds between the artist’s home - his interior world of comfort, suggested by the geometric forms of the terrace - and the vibrant life of his jardin sauvage. When contemplating this picture, it is easy to imagine the long afternoons that the solitary and yet contented artist must have spent on the terrace, gazing out over the landscapes and Marthe and his friends below. In a sense, we are invited to share his quiet company.

It is certainly striking to consider that this joyful, luminous scene was painted in 1916, amid the First World War. Bonnard, then in his late 40s, was not mobilised for military service, and Vernonnet offered a haven from the chaos beyond its borders. The artist’s paintings executed during this period of conflict are able to render a private, almost utopian world: a lush green paradise imbued in sunlight. Here, the natural beauty of the Seine valley is rendered in vibrant, luminous hues, capturing an eternal refuge, preserved forever in the richness of Bonnard’s palette.