Bonnard's Dogs

 

"Women with a Dog", P. Bonnard, 1891

Seeing the wonderful Bonnard exhibit this spring, I was struck by the darling dogs in so many of his paintings.  These sweet pups were clearly an important part of the family life that was a leading motif throughout Bonnard's work.  

"Woman with Dog", P. Bonnard, 1922

Sometimes dogs feature prominently in Bonnard's paintings, as in the first two images here.  The top painting, a very early Bonnard, shows the artist's own furry dog "Ravageau".  Don't you just want to cuddle up with him?  Ravageau also appears in the painting below, jumping for joy while out with his mistress.

"Woman in a White Polka Dot Dress", P. Bonnard, 1984

In other paintings, Bonnard's dogs are more peripheral to the overall composition--literally and figuratively.  Sometimes we just catch a pup in profile, at the edge of the canvas.  You might even have to look hard to find him.  But his presence adds a bit of humor or domesticity to the work.

"The French Window with a Dog", P. Bonnard, 1927

These painted pets also play an important compositional role.  They are often placed just so, to direct your eye around  the painting. That is noticeably so in "The French Window with a Dog" immediately above.  See how the dog's head directs our gaze from inside to outside?  A masterful device.  

"The Bathroom", P. Bonnard, 1932

Whether prominent or peripheral, Bonnard's dogs always add warmth to his paintings. They are lively additions--memorably and wonderfully captured. One early critic (Francois-Joachim Beer) even described the "hilarious dogs that [Bonnard] could draw like no one else."  Dog lovers, enjoy!

"Dogs", lithograph on paper, P. Bonnard, 1893

 

Confined or Contented?

"Woman in a Striped Dress"

Oil on Canvas, 65.7 x 58.7 cm

Édouard Vuillard, 1895

Faithful readers know how much I love the paintings of the Nabis.  The Nabis were a loose confederation of painters working in France (especially Paris) in the late 1800's, who led the way forward out of Impressionism, toward modernism.  The Nabis are not as well known as some of their predecessors (or successors, for that matter), but that may be changing.  One sign of change is a current exhibit, "Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis".  The exhibit features four chief members of the Nabis:  Édouard Vuillard, Felix Vallotton, Maurice Denis, and Pierre Bonnard.

"The Red Room, Etreat"

Felix Vallotton, 1899

The Nabis are sometimes called "Intimistes", because their work  is based on intimate scenes of daily life, often set inside cocoon-like rooms.  Hence the term "intimate".  It is lost on nobody that this exhibit coincides with a period of lockdown from the COVID pandemic--just when we have spent months confined in close quarters in our homes.  Very appropriate timing for a show that explores the life contained within the walls of home.

"Woman Sweeping"

Édouard Vuillard

A common thread through the Nabis was their ability to "draw emotion from the most modest acts of life", as Bonnard said.  Styles may differ, but the artists all portray everyday scenes around home--people at the dinner table, or patting their pets, or playing the piano. Routine tasks of housekeeping, or feeding and bathing children, occupy a central role. 

"The Lie"

Felix Vallotton, 1898

Some of these scenes are peaceful and serene.   Others have a certain tension that hints at conflict.  In fact, to illustrate the difference between these two emotions, the first room of the exhibit is titled "The Intimate Interior", and the next room is titled "The Troubled Interior".  As you might guess, the first room is filled with paintings that convey innocence, warmth and tenderness.  The next room holds works that convey drama, secrets, even betrayal.

"Washing the Baby"

Maurice Denis, 1899

"Boy Eating Cherries"

Pierre Bonnard, 1895

 

Several writers have commented on the prominent role of wallpaper in these paintings.  I see this especially in Vuillard.  Some of his figures virtually disappear into the walls, as the patterns of their clothing blend with the patterns of the wallpaper.  It makes you wonder:  Are the figures emerging? or fading away?

"Mother and Sister of the Artist

Édouard Vuillard

Speaking of interior decor, I was fascinated by another sign that the Nabis still influence contemporary tastes.  The costume designer for the Netflix series "The Crown" says that her approach to the outfits for the Royal Family is inspired by the paintings of Vuillard.  She likes the way that Vuillard emphasized the patterns of clothing and decor. She also notes that the close, confined quarters of Vuillard's paintings are consistent with the Royals' lives, "locked in their palaces." The image below shows a scene from "The Crown" that she says is "a Vuillard painting, if ever there was one."

Scene from Netflix series "The Crown"

The Nabis exhibit completed its run at the Cleveland Museum this fall, and is open at the Portland (Oregon) Museum of Art through January 23, 2022.  Since I won't get to see the show, I might just splurge and buy the catalog, which gets great reviews.  There is also a good UTube video chat by the Portland curator of the exhibit, discussing some key works and curatorial themes of the show.  Enjoy!

Salute to the Silhouette

"Woman at a Window"

Oil on Canvas, 72 x 47 cm

Edgar Degas, 1875-78

One of the greatest revelations during the course my painting instruction has been the power of the silhouette.  Surprisingly, I was told (and found it to be true) that if you paint the space AROUND your subject, you can practically skip painting the subject itself.  The viewer's eye tends to fill in all the missing information. And if the "background" forms an interesting shape around the subject, like it does in the painting below, the viewer's eye is completely enthralled.

"Madame Camus with a Fan"

Oil on Canvas, 72.7 x 91.1 cm.

Edgar Degas, 1869-70

One artist who used this phenomenon to great advantage was Edgar Degas.  His backlit figures are breathtaking.  Degas' "Woman at a Window" (top photo) is a masterpiece of simplicity--and yet it conveys plenty of detailed information.  He tells us just enough, and our experience in the world fills in the rest.

"Grandmother Michaud in Silhouette"

Oil on Canvas, 65 x 54 cm

Édouard Vuillard, 1890

Édouard Vuillard was also a master of this approach.  Who can leave his portrait of his grandmother (immediately above) off the "Best Hits" list when it comes to silhouettes?  This particular painting is almost a classic side profile, which we commonly call "silhouettes". But keep in mind that many of these paintings are not simple side profiles, but rather show figures in full volume.  

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"In the Lamplight"

Oil on Canvas, 37.5 x 45.5 cm

Édouard Vuillard, 1892

Vuillard's women in the lamplit room is an another example of the power of the outlined form.  Simple shapes of color are all we are given to describe these two women.  There is absolutely no modeling of their figures. Yet we know exactly what they are doing, and can take a good guess at the fabric of the clothes they are wearing.  

"Intérieur au Cannet"

Pierre Bonnard, 1938

The power of the silhouette is effective in still lifes and other subjects, as well as human figures.  I'll conclude with a painting by Pierre Bonnard, showing an room with an open window.  Even though the table and chair--even the walls and bed--are scarcely painted, we understand exactly what they are and where they are placed.  It goes to prove the maxim that sometimes "less is more"!

Why Bother?

Lesley with Diebenkorn

I recently visited The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The impetus for my visit was the special exhibit "Bonnard to Vuillard: The Intimate Poetry of Everyday Life." And it did not disappoint! I broke one of my usual rules, and allowed myself to study the exhibition catalog in advance of my trip. Comparing my experience with the catalog to that of my in-person  visit, I was struck by the rewards I got from making the effort to go to the show in person. In today's world where almost everything can be done "virtually", why bother to go in person? Read on for my top three reasons.

Visiting the Nabis Exhibit

1.  You can't appreciate the scale of a painting from an image in a catalog. Paintings presented on the pages of a book are necessarily of somewhat the same dimensions. After all, a page is only so large! It would be far too distracting to show a person standing by each painting in order to show its relative size. We can read the actual dimensions in the descriptions of the paintings, but even knowing that information doesn't convey the "feel" that we get from confronting the painting in person. A small painting encourages you to step close, to peer in. A huge painting encourages you to step back, to let the whole of it wash over you. Just look at the dramatic difference is scale between the Diebenkorn painting at the top of this post, and the Nabis' paintings following it. Two different worlds!

"The Door and the Sewing Table"
Oil on Cardboard, 16.75 x 17.5 inches
Édouard Vuillard, c. 1900

2.  Reproductions don't show the true colors of the original. Even though we have wonderful new technologies for reproducing images, the reproduced image just cannot tell the real truth of the original. Oftentimes the reproduction comes very close to the original, but falls slightly short. Occasionally the reproduced image is so poor that it doesn't even seem like the same painting as the original. The catalog for the Nabi exhibition is a wonderful one, with excellent quality images overall. Even so, there are exceptions. For example, one of my favorite paintings in the exhibit was the one pictured immediately above. I swore to my husband that I had not seen it in the catalog--I was adamant that it was definitely NOT in the catalog. Upon returning home and consulting the catalog, I found that it was in fact pictured there. But the reproduction was so far off the mark that I didn't even recognize the painting. See the reproduction below (photo from the catalog). I rest my case.

Reproduction of Vuillard

3. A well curated exhibit places the paintings in a context that enhances your enjoyment and appreciation of the artwork. No question about this. I have attended exhibits that were so well staged that I felt as if I had entered a time machine and had been taken to the painter's world. The Anders Zorn retrospective in Paris is one that comes to mind, and I tell you why here. The Nabi exhibit at The Phillips was in that same category. Because the Nabis believed that art should be part of everyday life, they created not only paintings, but also decorative items such as stained glass, screens, tapestries, and vases. The Phillips included all of these types of objects. The curators went even further, and wallpapered some of the gallery spaces to reflect the style of the Nabis' era, and the nature of the interiors they painted.  I'm including an example below. The colors, the textures and the placement of the art evoked the decade of the Nabis at their zenith. A great job!

Gallery in the Nabis Exhibit, The Phillips Collection

If you can get to Washington for the Nabis exhibit at The Phillips, it's worth a journey. The show runs through January 26, 2020. If you've been, or if you go, let me know what you think!

Going Public

"Passerby"
Oil on Cardboard, 7 7/8 x 11
Félix Vallatton, 1897

Whenever I visit a special exhibit at a museum, I always catch my breath to see a previously unexhibited painting that is on loan from a private collection. Such a rare treat! I marvel at the luxury it must be for those private collectors to live every day with paintings by Manet, or Bonnard, or Vuillard--right there in their dining rooms. 

"Yellow Gable"
Oil on Cardboard, 11 7/8 x 10 5/8 in.
Maurice Denis, c. 1895

Occasionally, through the great generosity of a collector, an entire collection comes into the public realm (rather than being parceled off and auctioned to private purchasers). One such occasion is being heralded now, at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The Nabis collection of Roger Sant and his late wife Vickie Sant has been pledged as a future gift to The Phillips Collection, and the works are now being shown in a special exhibit that runs through January 26, 2020. The exhibit is entitled "Bonnard to Vuillard: The Intimate Poetry of Everyday Life".

"Apprentices"
Oil on Cardboard, 12 x 9 in.
Édouard Vuillard, c. 1891-92

You don't have to have been reading this blog very long to know how much I love the Nabi painters, and especially Vuillard and Bonnard. The Nabis were a loosely organized group of avant-garde French painters working in the 1890's. They rebelled against the old-line, classical academies of art, as well as against the new-fangled Impressionists. 

"Street Scene"
Oil on Cardboard, 10 1/4 x 133/8 in.
Félix Vallotton, 1895

Although their styles were diverse, the Nabis were united by certain common factors. Their paintings tended to focus on scenes of domestic life, and they employed abstracted shapes of vibrant color. They often disregarded the rules of vanishing point perspective, so that their scenes were "flattened" into into an arrangement of color patterns. In fact, the words of one of the Nabis, Maurice Denis, became a sort of rallying cry for the group:

Remember that a painting--

before being a bottle horse, a nude woman,

or an anecdote of some sort--

is above all a flat surface

covered with colors

arranged in a certain order.

"Sleeping Woman"
Oil on Cardboard, 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.
Édouard Vuillard, 1892

The term "Nabi" is from the Hebrew word for prophet. Some say that these painters paved the way to what we know today as modern art. And yet their diversity and the quickly changing times led to an early disbandment. The Nabis held their final exhibit in 1900, and then went their separate ways, each going on to develop his own style and body of work. But the Phillips exhibit shows the group at its zenith.  I can't wait to see it.  If you can't make it to the exhibit, the book that accompanies the exhibit is excellent--well worth a look. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Sant family for this transformative gift.

PS: It seems that the Nabis are having "a moment"--another Nabi, Félix Vallotton (some of whose works are pictured above), is the subject of a major current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York....

Finishing Touches

"Lady with an  Ermine"
Leonardo daVinci, c. 1489

I have written before about the painter's struggle to decide when to stop work on a painting. Many of us wrestle with the same question: "Is it the best it can be? Is it finished?". The answer is not always obvious. In fact, sometimes we think we have placed the final brushstrokes, but then we change our minds.

"Patina"
12 x 16, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2016
SOLD

For some artists, a painting is never finalized. At least not until it leaves the studio--and sometimes not even then (see below). As time passes, you have the opportunity to reflect on the painting. You may return to it after a few weeks with fresh eyes. Sometimes that fresh vision causes you to notice something that just begs to be adjusted. Then out come the brushes again! Just above you can see a painting that I THOUGHT was finished, until I