Pierre Bonnard's works and artistic style

Pierre Bonard

Pierre Bonnard was born into a bourgeois family in 1867 in a village outside Paris. Although he received his law degree in 1888, Bonnard would go on to study art at Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. Bonnard conceived of art as a lifestyle: "What attracted me then was less art itself than the artist's life, with all that I thought in terms of free expression, of imagination and liberty to live as one pleased," (cited by Thomas). Bonnard became a founding member of Les Nabis. The members of Les Nabis sought to integrate art into everyday life "through a synthesis of nature and a personal aesthetic and symbolism," (Thomas). Graphic art and posters were the primary legacies of Les Nabis and of Bonnard himself. In fact, some Bonnard's posters appear as unmistakable prototypes of those later painted by Henri Toulouse Lautrec (Thomas).

Bonnard's work is described as "reductionist," as he reduces form to "abstracted visual surrogates," (O'Connor). Indeed, his execution of the female form in paintings like Woman Seated in Her Bath (Femme assise dans sa baignoire) appears almost hasty in its simplicity. The lithograph hearkens to the forms depicted on graphic arts posters, as the one Bonnard produced for French Champagne in 1891 (cited by Thomas).

Moreover, Woman Seated in Her Bath connotes "extremely discrete moments of perception," (O'Connor). The artist offers a glimpse, or a peek, into a lady's bath. The effect is like that of a photographic snapshot, in spite of the deliberate lack of realism in Bonnard's execution. Wall tiles appear haphazard, as if they are merely suggesting the possibility of geometry. The tiles are purely representational, as they are distilled into a series of maze-like scratches. In spite of this, the woman's form is deftly clear. The lines comprising her form are deceptively simple. She cleans her ankle, her back turned away from the viewer. The overall impact of the lithograph is ironically complete in spite of its sketch-like appearance.

Woman Seated in Her Bath exemplifies Bonnard's work and his approach to art as an everyday experience. The lithograph has features of graphic art, as it resembles the reductionist forms on late 19th century posters. Graphic art is by definition art which can be replicated, reproduced, and incorporated into everyday life. Moreover, the lithograph is quintessentially modern and post-impressionist as well as being one of the main media of the graphic artist.

In Woman Seated at Her Bath, Bonndard also minimizes color. A skin tone permeates the canvas, thereby drawing and keeping the viewer's attention on the woman. The subtle effect of the almost monotone color scheme is to punctuate the painting with its key element and disregard all else. Bonnard depicts the literal and mundane act of a woman taking a bath.