younger artists Pablo
Picasso and Georges
Braque. This exploration
of colour soon consumed
him, and he recognised
a need to step back and
focusonstructureinhis
work. “Certainly, colour
has carried me away,”
he told his nephew,
Charles Terrasse.
“Isacrificedformtoit
almost unconsciously.
It is therefore drawing
thatImuststudy...
Idrawcontinuously.
Andafterdrawingcomes
composition which must
be balanced.”
In 1914, when warwasimminent,a47-year-old
Bonnard repeatedlytriedtoenrolinthearmybut,
alongside Vuillard and Matisse, he was never
enlisted. When Matisse asked, “How might we
serve the country?” Marcel Semblat, then
Minister of Public Works, responded,
“By continuing as you do, to paint well.”
This message led Bonnard to the Missions
d’Artistes aux Armées in 1917, with whom he
travelled to the Somme to record the impact of
war by creating works that would be exhibited at
the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. (This year, the
same venue will stageanexhibitionofworkby
Bonnard and his contemporaries,Les Nabis et le
Décor, from 13 March to 30 June).
The years following the war proved turbulent for
Bonnard, as he sufferedthelossofhismother,works was an act of defiance typical of that
bohemian era. The artist was never one to shy
away from nudity, as later seen in photos taken
in the garden of a house in Montval in 1900
(currently on display at the Tate) that would serve
as models for his Daphnis et Chloé illustrations.
Material success in his work enabled Bonnard
to buy a car which was considered a great luxury
for the time. He eventually departed Paris in 1910
after purchasing Ma Roulette, a small house in
Normandy, bringing the artist closer to Claude
Monet, whom he would visit regularly.
In 1912, Bonnard’s second artistic career
emerged as he began to reconsider the role
of colour in his work. This move came during
a period of artistic reinvention among his
contemporaries including Henri Matisse, and
CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT:
Bonnard in 1941; The
Window (Le Fenêtre), 1925,
oil on canvas, 108.6x88.6cm;
The Garden (Le Jardin),
1936, oil on canvas,
127x100cm; Nude in an
Interior, c.1935, oil on
canvas; 134x69.2cm© ANDRÉ OSTIER; TATE