Pierre Bonnard: The Work of Art, Suspending Time

by Pierre Bonnard (Painter)

Among those painters who incontestably left their mark on twentieth-century art, Bonnard rises to the top again and again. Museums, scholars and viewers regularly return to his oeuvre for reinterpretation, passionate and contradictory, of what it means to be Modern. In having followed a very personal calling--literally and figuratively interior, particularly compared to the work of friends like Matisse--Bonnard created work as innovative as any of his contemporaries'. His recurring themes--the nude (both classical and erotic), the landscape, domestic life, and the self-portrait--evolve with him from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, from Paris to the south of France, alive with constant reinvention. Although for Bonnard the subject was always important, his work navigates a sophisticated dialectic between the givens of perception and memory, between the image before our eyes and all that it suggests. This substantial reference includes work from the Hermitage and the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, which sponsored its publication. Contributors include Yve-Alain Bois, Sarah Whitfield, and Georges Roque. Photographs from Dina Verny and Henri Cartier-Bresson among others document the era and Bonnard's models as he saw them.

Genres: Art

400 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2006

Reviews

[Max Maslansky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic catalogue of a show I never got to see that re-positions Bonnard as more than just a painter of pleasant landscapes and domesticity. He used his amazing talent for color in the service representing the process of remembering. He did crazy stuff with the temporal and spacial. He was special. This book is chock full of awesome essays and interviews with other artists influenced by Bonnard's vision like Peter Doig and Karel Appel.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I write about Bonnard at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090420....

[Obscureason · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite painter of all time -- and this book/exhibition catalogue is filled with insightful essays about his work.