Pierre Bonnard at Tate Modern: first major show of the French Post-Impressionist in the UK for 20 years shows a home full of colour and light
At this dreary time of year, the sunny scene of enjoying a meal by a window open to a garden or a view of the sea would be heaven, and French painter Pierre Bonnard evidently thought the same.
Today, nearly 100 of his works go on show at Tate Modern, the first major show of the great colourist’s work in the UK for 20 years.
What a blinding revelation, what colours, what intense exploration of daily life.
From a red-and-white chequered tablecloth strewn with fruit, bread, wine and all the paraphernalia of homely eating — carafes, glass tumblers, porcelain plates, bone-handled knives, silver spoons, coffee pots, cups and pie plates — to a glittering glass fruit table centrepiece, it’s all here, so delicious that you want to pluck a stewed fig or glistening grape.
Bonnard painted this lovely idea repeatedly. That dining table before a door bringing in the deep scents and colours of the garden never changes much, yet is always different — whether the cloth is white, made of many flicks of coloured paint or red-and-white woven squares.
In his series of bath paintings, the fat, curved enamel bath with gleaming, thick rim stays the same, but the carpets, wallpaper, tiles, clothes dumped on a chair, shift and change.
Some paintings seize your heart with instant recognition. In Coffee, 1915, look at the naughty dachshund, paws on the table, and someone handing a small liqueur glass as the coffee is finished.
A giant tortoise appears to wander on the lawn beyond. In The Chequered Tablecloth, 1916, a battered silver spoon gleams, and that uneven slab of white Normandy butter calls out, not to mention a white juicy halved pear.
In his 1913 Dining Room in the Country, sizzling colours intensify the cool white tablecloth against searing heat outside. Wicker baskets enforce the idea of informal indoor picnics.
In The Table, 1925, the cloth is loaded with treats, especially a wavy-edged fruit tart on a stand. There’s a basket for bread — just the heel in a napkin; another for damsons, yet another for peaches. A woman polishes off a bowl of something delicious, while the other diner has gone.
In a particularly inviting variant, Open French Window, Vernon, 1921, a casual woven-reed shopping basket strung crookedly on the door knob begs us to go to the market.
Bonnard was comfortably brought up in the Paris suburbs, his father a high-ranking civil servant. Trained as a barrister, he painted instead, and made money. In 1893, he met Marthe de Méligny.
Living first in Paris, married in 1925, they were together 50 years until she died in 1942. She is the woman in the bath. Bonnard had several affairs with models, but Marthe dominates the paintings.
In 1909, he visited the south of France and found the colours, the sea and the reflected light magical. He bought a house near Cannes, Le Bosquet, in 1926. He owned another in Normandy within visiting distance of his friend Monet, at Giverny.
In later works, Bonnard almost never used black paint, though he drew with it. This results in a vibrantly coloured surface where everything has equal importance, even shadows.
It’s very clear in The Window, 1925, where a window closed with a classic espagnolette lock looks out to serried pink rooftops. He worked in his studio from memory, never the actual thing, and it’s this vivid recollection that makes his pictures feel so real.
The timing of Tate Modern’s show is brilliant, as Bonnard (1867-1947), who painted for 60 years, had the artistic misfortune to straddle a century.
His young 1890s works were applauded, but these later works from about 1912, mainly interiors, were compared with those of Picasso and Braque, and he was considered unambitious, or old hat.
This show proves that he was ahead, not behind. And that Pierre Bonnard never wanted to be Picasso or Braque — just the great artist he always was.
The CC Land Exhibition — Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory — opens at Tate Modern today and runs until May 6.