Pierre Bonnard: biography and creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Pierre Bonnard is a painter, engraver and one of the great colorists of French origin. His work has had an invaluable influence and contribution to contemporary fine arts and culture in general. Although his activities are no longer chronologically part of the golden age of French painting, he is undoubtedly part of it.

Pierre Bonnard: biography

The future painter and artist was born on 1867-03-10 in Le Cannet, a resort town on the French Riviera.

His father was an official, so there was no question of any art. He wanted his son to get a law degree, which he studied at the Sorbonne University. But the young man managed to defend his point of view, so Pierre Bonnard entered the private art academy of Julian.

Continued to receive art education at the Paris School of Fine Arts. It was here that the association of artists "Nabis" was formed, which was headed by Bonnard. In addition to him, it included Paul Serusier Coeur-Xavier Roussel and Ambroise Vollard, with whom they became very good friends.

Pierre Bonnard even captured it in several of his paintings. While exhibiting his works at the Salon of Independent Artists in Paris, he met Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.

He traveled a lot, having traveled all over Europe and North Africa. Since 1925, he finally settled on the Cote d'Azur in his hometown. He bought a cozy house near the sea, where he continued to actively create.

He had to endure the Nazi occupation, after being liberated from which he arranged an exhibition of his old works in retrospective.

Pierre Bonnard: works

Among the most famous works of the painter are: "White Cat" (1894), "Cherry Pie" (1908), "In the Rays of the Sun" (1908) and many others. He has a whole series of paintings depicting cats and cats. They are frequent heroes on his canvases.

However, one of his most famous paintings, of course, is the above-mentioned work "In the Rays of the Sun". Hood. Pierre Bonnard depicted on this canvas a young naked girl who stands in her bedroom near the bed. The warm rays of the morning sun warm her body. The artist often created images of completely naked women or in a negligee. He was a great connoisseur of female beauty, so he sought to capture her on his canvases.

Another famous work by Pierre Bonnard - "Morning in Paris", which depicts the capital's street. Fussy people are in a hurry somewhere, the figures of most of them are half-blurred. By this the artist wanted to say that in a big city all people merge, lose their individuality.

There are a huge number of works in his creative piggy bank, but within the framework of this article there is no needconsider them all.

Art Style

This French artist, who worked at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, entered the history of art as one of the most prominent colorists. He was always an opponent of impressionism, because he believed that their compositional style was very underdeveloped, and besides, the color scheme was far from reality.

Pierre Bonnard, whose paintings are saturated with various shades, was distinguished by the fact that he always strove for unsharp, even muted colors. It is generally accepted that he was among the first artists who managed to slightly open and understand the inner world of a woman and her intimate side of life.

He was very fond of painting landscapes of Paris and the Mediterranean coast of France. Towards the end of his creative career, he began to use more saturated shades and create complex compositions.

Artist's personal life

At the age of 26, Bonnard, like a boy, fell in love with Martha de Maligny, who was selling flowers. His feelings for her were unbridled, passionate, but that doesn't mean he didn't cheat on her.

Martha was his constant model, which he depicted on almost 4 hundred of his canvases. 32 years after they met, they finally became spouses. It was then that he learned her real name, which he did not know before. It turned out that the woman's name was Marie Boursin. However, in this story, not everything is so smooth and prosperous.

Pierre Bonnard (artist) regularly made fleeting relationships on the side, and in 1918 he got a permanent model,who was his mistress. Her name was René Monchaty. She was so deeply in love with Pierre that, upon learning of his marriage to Martha, she committed suicide.

Monchati was the model for many of his paintings, in particular, for the canvas "Nude in the bathroom".

Nabi

As mentioned above, Pierre Bonnard was one of the leaders of a group of artists called "Nabis". At the same time, he always emphasized the fact that he did not belong to any direction and current. He constantly strived to show his individuality, to find his own unique style.

Already since the mid-90s. XIX century, he increasingly begins to move away from their principles. The tendency to linearity and ornamentality of the Nabids no longer interests him. Since then, he has been creating exclusively in "his" style, not identifying himself with any of the famous schools of painting.

Travel

Bonnar traveled a lot, visiting different cities and countries. Biographers and contemporaries of the artist note that although he did not have a shortage of money, the painter never sought to waste. He was very restrained in spending and unpretentious in everyday life. The most important thing for him was that there was enough space for an easel, there were always paints and brushes.

On his travels, he is often accompanied by fellow painters. During his life he traveled almost all of Western Europe and North Africa. Among the countries he visited are: Great Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, andalso Spain and Italy. From African states, he visited Algeria and Tunisia, which at that time were French colonies.

In 1926, Pierre Bonnard became a member of the jury of the major art award "Carnegie", which was held in the United States. Exactly ten years later, he himself became the owner of this award.

Contribution to art

Bonnard's works are the beauty and grace of the female body, the softness and tenderness of colors, saturation. He received recognition and respect during his lifetime, which not every artist succeeded. But P. Bonnard himself was not too worried about the huge fees from the sale of paintings, since he was always cold to money.

His paintings have had a huge impact on contemporary art and culture in general. He created countless paintings, most of which are rightfully considered the property of France and the whole world.

Today, the world's largest museums and art connoisseurs are proud if their collection contains at least one work by Bonnard. No wonder he is considered a true genius of painting.

Success and recognition

The artist himself spoke of his financial success as follows: "All these zeros annoy me." And indeed it is. He never showed interest in money, did not chase after it, and lived quite modestly, even with a huge amount of money.

His paintings are highly valued. Many of them are sold for big money at art auctions. Even during his lifetime, he was already selling his works for good money, which for his contemporary artists was the ultimate dream.

Today his work continues to be in great demand. He had followers, and connoisseurs and admirers of his work still praise the artist and his works.

However, success cannot be measured only by the amount of money. Here an important role is played by the recognition of people, especially colleagues in the pictorial craft. However, he never had a problem with that either. While still young, he already began to command respect in the eyes of even older and more experienced painters. Over the years, his authority only increased.

Conclusion

Pierre Bonnard, of course, is one of the outstanding and prominent artists of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Each of his works is brilliant in its own way. They convey not only the artist's worldview, but also his attitude to this or that action, person or something.

His contribution to painting is enormous, he actually became the last painter of the golden age in France. He is a younger contemporary of such great painters as Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, P. Gauguin, as well as many impressionists and post-impressionists.

He, so to speak, closed this era in the history of French art. After him, art not only in his homeland, but throughout the world began to change dramatically. Many new trends and schools appeared, including Picasso, S. Dali, and later E. Warhol, Pollock, etc. It cannot be said that he had a great influence on the work of each artist individually, but he had a considerablenumber of followers, and many painters today often turn to his motives and technique, creating their works.