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Pierre Bonnard
(1867-1947)
Pierre Bonnard was born October 3, 1867 at Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Paris, into the family of a high-ranking official in the French War Ministry. After an idyllic and happy childhood, in 1886, Pierre entered the University of Paris to study law.
In 1887, he also enrolled for evening classes at the Acad¨¦mie Julian, a liberal Parisian art school, where he made friends with Paul S¨¦rusier (1864-1927), Mauris Denis (1870-1943), Henri Ibels (1867-1936) and Paul Ranson (1862-1909). The five friends formed a society known as Nabiim or the Nabis after the Hebrew for 'prophets'.
After graduating from the University, Bonnard was obliged to train as a civil servant in the Paris Registry Office from 1888. At the same time he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, an academic institution with a solid reputation. Evidently the Ecole did not contribute much to Bonnard's artistic development, but there he made friends with Ker-Xavier Roussel (1867-1944) and Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940), who were both initiated into the Nabis.
In 1889, Bonnard won a competition to design a poster advertising French champagne. Revolutionary in its manner this poster greatly influenced Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), whose famous posters of the end of the 19th century were created in the same innovative style.
After failing his civil service examination and a six-month military service, which followed, Bonnard rented his first studio with his father's consent. Bonnard exhibited paintings at the Salon des Ind¨¦pendants from 1891. In the autumn of the same year he took part in the first exhibition of the Nabis in the Gallery of Le Barc de Boutteville. He worked much in all directions; apart from paintings, Bonnard designed furniture and textile patterns, painted screens and stage sets and made puppets for puppet shows, illustrated books. His friends nicknamed him ¡®a highly Nipponized Nabi¡¯, because his individual style at that time developed under a strong influence of Japanese prints.
In 1893, he met 16-year-old Marthe de M¨¦ligny, of whose real name of Maria Boursin Bonnard was not aware of until they got married 32 years later. From their meeting a large part of his art revolved around her. His paintings of the late 1890s are very personal and intimate, e.g. Indolence (1899), Man and Woman (1900).
From 1900, the artist started spending more and more time out of Paris, in the countryside between Paris and Normandy. His numerous landscapes of the period are influenced both by the Impressionists and Gauguin. From 1906, Bonnard began to have annual one-man exhibitions, the Bernheim-Jeune art-dealing firm signed an exclusive contract for the exhibition of his works. While his compositions and brushwork remained 'traditionally Impressionistic', close to Degas', he gradually develop.... |
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