The Quiet and Intimate Spaces in Pierre Bonnard Paintings Revealed at Phillips Collection

Possibly begun during Pierre Bonnard's 1912 stay in Grasse or at least reflecting a view from the South of France, Southern Landscape with Two Children depicts a view from the terrace. The method of portraying a view of a landscape from within is a recurrent subject in Bonnard's paintings, often introducing the artist's intimate view of a sun-drenched garden.

The rich yellow and orange hues suffuse the trees, fruit, and the two children's figures, generating an impression of warmness, complemented by the turquoise and blue tones that contrast it. Located in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Bonnard's Southern Landscape with Two Children immortalized the painter's memory of a summery day on the French Riviera.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – Southern Landscape with Two Children, 1916. Oil on canvas 54 3/4 x 77 7/8 in. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Gift of Sam and Ayala Zacks, 1970.

After marrying his lover and lifelong muse, Marthe de Méligny, in 1925, the couple moved to Le Bosquet, a poetic house in Le Cannet that dominated much of Bonnard's work. The Le Cannet home was a frequent subject in Bonnard's work, with its corners and details often being the protagonist.

In The Garden, Bonnard gave center stage to the almond tree in front of their bedroom and the rich, vibrant foliage that surrounded their house. Confessing to Marguerite Maeght that he pressed himself "to paint it every year," Bonnard employed the tree and the surrounding flowers and bushes to chart the changing seasons. Pierre Bonnard's The Garden is in the collections of Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – The Garden, c. 1936–37, Oil on canvas. 50 x 39 3/8 in. Musée d’art moderne de Paris. Purchased from the artist, 1937.

Mesmerized by light, Bonnard often depicted outside views from an interior, employing the expressiveness of windows to reflect a sensory and symbolic effect. The Open Window attests to his explorations of outdoor light permeating the rooms, furniture, and rays of sunshine dancing across an interior.

Part of the Phillips Collection, The Open Window features an entire intimate gaze throughout the window, which occupies the biggest portion of the painting. In the lower-left corner, a female figure plays with a cat, elevating the scene from a mere landscape to a caption of a private moment in the artist’s life.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – The Open Window, 1921. Oil on canvas. 46 1/2 x 37 3/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. Acquired 1930

Among the paintings documenting Pierre and Marthe Bonnard's trips to the southwest Atlantic coast of France is the Dining Room on the Garden. They first traveled to Arcachon for Marthe's health and then visited Le Baule in 1935. Bonnard painted from memory, claiming that the subject or object is a distraction from the process.

Acquired by the Guggenheim Museum in 1938, the Dining Room on the Garden disregards the rules of light, color, and volume in a stunning, colorful vision in which each hue gains maximum intensity. The objects lose their volume and echo the works of Matisse with their flat silhouette-like portrayal.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – Dining Room on the Garden, 1934-35. Oil on canvas. 50 x 53 1/4 in. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, By gift.

Part of the collection at the Tate, Bonnard's Coffee is one of the many paintings featuring the beloved dachshund, one of the six pets of the same breed that Pierre and Marthe owned. The painting depicts the dining room of a house the couple stayed at in Saint-Germain-en-Laye around 1915-1916. The table and the red-and-white checkered cloth dominate the painting of a seemingly ordinary, intimate ritual of sipping coffee.

Unusually cropping the painting, Bonnard portrayed the pet and Marthe in the upper-right corner of the painting, while the left provides a partial glimpse of the maid’s hand and torso. The background features a fragmentary view of a tapestry or a painting, possibly a work Bonnard loaned from fellow Nabi Maurice Denis, whose house was nearby.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – Coffee, 1915. Oil on canvas, 28 3/4 x 41 7/8 in. Tate, London. Presented by Sir Michael Sadler through the Art Fund, 1941.

A similar scene appears in Bonnard's 1922 Woman with Dog, featuring Marthe holding a brown dachshund in her lap. The female figure seems distracted, and while she is lost in thought, the dog seems to gaze eagerly toward the leftover food on the table as if waiting to snatch a piece.

Part of the Phillips Collection, Woman with Dog extends beyond a portrait or a private mundane scene, transforming into the artist's expression of love toward his lifelong companion. However, in the composition itself, Bonnard gives prominence to the dog, who gracefully poses looking toward the painter.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – Woman with Dog, 1922. Oil on canvas 27 1/4 x 15 3/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1925.

Numerous nudes and studies of the female body while standing, crouching, bending, bathing, or just sprawling on the bed testify to Bonnard's comprehensive exploration of the nude. However, one painting differs. Located in the National Gallery of Art, the 1935 Nude in an Interior demonstrates Bonnard's revolutionary composition method in places parallelograms to 'frame' a view.

Emerging behind a warm yellow floral wall, a fragment of the female silhouette transforms the artwork from a nude study into an act of timidness. Bonnard invites us into the frame, providing an intimate glimpse reserved for the artist that becomes almost voyeuristic.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – Nude in an Interior, 1935. Oil on canvas, 52 3/4 x 27 1/4 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.

Among Pierre Bonnard's most celebrated paintings are depictions of Marthe bathing, including the remarkable Nude in the Bath (1936) at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. Several nude studies capture Marthe in the action of bathing, just finishing the chore or preparing for it. However, in a highly captivating series of paintings, Bonnard portrayed Marthe fully submerged in the bathtub. Evoking the iconic 1851 Ophelia by John Everett Millais, Bonnard's Nude in the Bath is suffused with a melancholy, a state of in-between, contemplation, and lament.

Featured image: Pierre Bonnard – Nude in the Bath, 1936. Oil on canvas, 36 5/8 x 57 7/8 in. Musée d’art moderne de Paris, Purchased from the artist, 1937, for the Universal Exposition of 1937.