‘Bonnard’s Worlds,’ a joyful and personal exhibit at the Kimbell, is what we need right now
The bright and intimate “Bonnard’s Worlds,” on display at the Kimbell Art Museum through Jan. 28, features 70 paintings spanning the delightful, amusing and deeply emotive French artist Pierre Bonnard’s career.
While exhibitions take years to plan — so the timing may be unintentional — this show is perfect antidote to a dark world and what we need right now.
Deputy Director George Shackelford always knows how to breathe new life into old dogs and is unafraid to dabble in the erotic. (His 2019 show, for instance, “Renior: The Body, The Senses,” co-organized with the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, focused on the artist’s nude paintings.) The show isn’t chronological. It’s almost like how a therapist gets to know their patient, slowly unraveling layers to reveal the patient’s true self. It’s not chronological (an easy route) but instead shows just how intimate Bonnard could get. That is, pretty steamy.
Bonnard first crept into the Kimbell’s collection in 2018, when it acquired his “Landscape at Le Cannet” (1928), a gigantic landscape surrounding his villa in southern France. It’s an optimistic, mystical scene, described as a paradise where human beings are in harmony with nature. He even throws himself in it in the bottom far right corner, appearing as a gray character, slumped against a stone wall taking in the sun.
He lived for color. (Of yellow, he said, you can never have enough.) Along with wispy lines, these vivid colors dominate the landscapes and continue as the show slowly moves into his apartment, then his kitchen, then his bathroom.
The starkest visual contrast in his early works, and a sign of how he distinguished himself from his peers, is so bold you almost think it’s misplaced. “Twilight (Game of Croquet)” (1892) is inspired by Japanese woodblocks, which he first encountered in Paris. Here, he experiments with a dark green and players wearing checkered patterned outfits, unseen in the rest of the show. Still, there is joy, with dancing figures in white outfits in the background.
A similar work, “The Terrassee Family” (1902), is almost a trope about family reunions. He features occasional subject, his sister Sarah and her in-laws. There’s the matriarch, who looks like a moose, is wearing a floppy hat. A girl in the background is hiding something in a planter. There’s the lonely woman. The patriarchs and young boys are just fine, however. Fitting for the time.
A landscape artist needs to be a good voyeur. Bonnard was a complete voyeur. Shackelford notes among his recurring themes were the relationship between the mirror and reflection, and how the viewer is perceived. It’s disturbing. It’s also funny.
There’s also what distinguished him from his post-Impressionist peers: that is, rebellion, pushing away from Impressionist influences toward a post-Impressionism and early Modernism. Some fantastic examples of his experimentation are on display, “In Table Corner” (1935), painted late in his career, he throws perspective out the window. The baskets, bowls, table chair all look like they are falling. There’s no focal point, only chaos.
Once we’re allowed into his home, he doesn’t back down from the big splashes of color. We’re invited to his red kitchen, and even inside cupboards, where he explores concepts of depth and perception. He continues perfecting form and color with “Work Table” (1926), a glimpse of his desk, topped with packages with two pets relaxing in the background.
Like his contemporaries, he really dug nudes, and he especially dug them of his wife Marthe de Méligny. But his portraits of her make him stand out from his contemporaries. They’re spellbinding and perhaps some of his best works from his personal life.
The lighting in the second gallery of the Piano Pavilion, typically reserved for the Oceanic and Asian art collections, is always dark. But as you enter what essentially becomes the couple’s bedroom, the soft, dark lights add some sensuality to the rest of the show.
In “Man and Woman,” (1900), a naked woman lounges on a bed. To her left is a naked man. The work is supposedly a fable and not representative of the couple. But judging by the self portraits, including the studly “Self Portrait With Beard” (1920), and Marthe’s round forms, we’re clearly seeing the couple.
In three paintings, we see Marthe, naked, floating in a bath of varying sizes and from varying perspectives. In “Nude in the Bath,” (1936), he abandons perspective and throws off our guard. Some of the colorful tiles seem to dissolve into the wall. But something is also not right with the love of his life. “Large Bathtub Nude” (1937-39) features a calmer, more serene Marthe, floating in a sort of magical world.
In the final painting, “Nude in a Bathtub” (1941-46), the colors are at their brightest and painted with flair. She is illuminating. It’s a tribute she never saw. Marthe died in 1942.
The show ends with a punch in the gut. A pale skeleton of a man is looking at a mirror. There is little color. It’s a self-portrait of someone barely noticeable. “Portrait of Artist in Dressing Room” was painted in 1945, two years before he died. It’s a reminder that even when we’ve experienced such joy, we can never escape sorrow.