Pierre Bonnard: Nature morte (1939)

Pierre Bonnard, Nature morte signed Bonnard (lower left) oil on canvas 21 by 20 ¾ in. 53.3 by 52.7 cm. Executed in 1939, Image Source: Sotheby’s

“A scintillating vision of the domestic everyday, Nature morte from 1939 embodies the expressive possibilities of light and color. A superlative example of Pierre Bonnard’s late still lifes, the present work dates to the year in which the artist permanently relocated to the Côte d’Azur as a consequence of the Second World War and subsequently experimented with his most radically vibrant palettes. Nature morte typifies the revolutionary vitalization of still life scenes that positions Bonnard as among the greatest twentieth-century pioneers of this genre…Communicating a potent dialogue between forms, Nature morte evinces Bonnard’s radical approach to spatial design. The voluminous modeling of the fruit contradicts the surrounding interior, whose myriad juxtaposing patterns defy a fixed sense of perspective. Instead of recessing towards a vanishing point, the purple and blue stripes of the rightmost cushion, the golden hues of the wall and the fluorescent scarlet and teal swathes of the floor compete for space on the surface of the picture plane. Employing one of Bonnard’s favorite compositional strategies, the off-white ground of the tablecloth at once anchors and animates its own pattern rendered in a series of repeated dashes of intense blues and pinks.”
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Bonnard, Pierre, Colta Feller Ives, Helen Emery Giambruni, and Sasha M. Newman. 1989. Pierre Bonnard, the graphic art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15324coll10/id/92079 , (accessed 8 Nov 2018).