Pierre Bonnard

Jos Hessel (until 1933)
Private Collection

Paris, Galerie Braun, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard et son époque, 1932, no. 7
Paris, Pavilion de Marsan, Le Décor de la vie sous la III^e République, 1933, no. 51

André Fontainas, Bonnard: 24 phototypes, Paris, 1928
Heinrich Rumpel, Bonnard, Bern, 1952, no. 6, illustrated on p. 18
Pierre Courthion, Montmartre, Geneva, 1956, p. 80
Pierre Courthion, Paris des temps nouveaux, Geneva, 1957, p. 69
Alfred Martini, "Gli Inizi difficile di Pierre Bonnard," Arte antica i moderna, 1959, no. 3, pp. 268, 269, 275 and 278
Jean & Henry Dauberville, Bonnard, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, 1888-1905, vol. I, Paris, 1992, no. 131, illustrated p. 171

Work has been signed at a later date. Good condition. Scattered small losses at extreme upper and lower edges; hard crease to lower left corner. Under UV: a heavy layer of varnish makes it difficult to read; no apparent inpainting visible
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The present work is the recently discovered third panel of the triptych Le Moulin Rouge or Place Blanche (Terrasse de Café).

Painted in 1896, Le Moulin Rouge dates from the artist's renowned period of association with the Nabis, a group of young artists including Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier and Félix Vallotton.  Following upon the example of Paul Gauguin and his Pont-Aven style, the Nabis concerned themselves with the textural quality of painting, or as Denis once explained, "expression through decorative quality, through harmony of forms and color, through the application of pigments, to expression through subject" (quoted in John Rewald, Pierre Bonnard (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1948, p. 15).  Bonnard incorporated these stylistic qualities into Marchande de fleurs, particularly in the way he has flattened the perspective of his composition so that all of the figures appear on an equal register.  We can also see evidence of Bonnard's early training as a printmaker: the sharp contrast of dark and bright colors and the absence of tonal gradation are similar to the quality of a woodcut or decorative wall panel. He offers in this work an eloquent and boldly modern interpretation of the bustling outdoor cafes of Paris - then the center of cultural vivacity and bohemian splendor. As elegantly appointed women enjoy the outdoor tables, a flower-girl offers her wares and a stagecoach passes through the street beyond them. What might be customarily displayed as a horizontal narrative has here been presented in a vertical format that illustrates Bonnard's artistic abilities with spatial representation

The verticality of this work also demonstrates Bonnard's fascination with Asian visual culture (see fig. 1). The artist had seen several reproductions of Japanese art in the department stores around Paris and once explained his good fortune at having come across these images:  "...I found for one or two sous thick crepe material or crushed rice paper in astonishing colors.  I'm filling up my room with this naïve and boisterous imagery.  Gauguin, Serusier looked back to the past, in fact.  But here, what I had in front of me, was something that was completely alive, extremely sophisticated" (quoted in Michael Terrasse, Bonnard, From the Drawings to the Paintings, Paris, 1996, p. 17).

Fig. 1 Utagawa Utamaro, Seirô niwaka no asobi, circa 1800, Private Collection