The Reading Warehouse

Bonnard found early fame among the Nabis, the radical young disciples of Gauguin, and went on with Vuillard to create a new intimist art of psychologically charged interiors. But from 1900 he turned back toward Impressionism, and his art recreates moments of heightened subjectivity, color and space. This new account shows how these beautiful and lyrical pictures sometimes emerged from terrible circumstances; as Bonnard himself wrote shortly before his death in 1947, "one does not always sing out of happiness." Bonnard's reassessment over the past thirty years has centered on the extraordinary late pictures that were inspired by Mallarme and Symbolism, by Jarry and anarchism, and by the philosophy of Bergeson. These works are among some of the most enduring images of the twentieth century. 169 illus.