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Lot Essay
Le compotier of 1914 was painted two years after Bonnard's move to Vernonnet, a small hamlet to the north-west of Paris not far from Givenchy. His purchase of a small property there prompted him to turn his attention indoors, seeking subject matter in the everyday objects that populated his domestic environment. The resulting interior scenes and still-lifes from this period are rich, explorative studies into striking an aesthetic balance between the foreground and background planes. As well as the surface, of primordial importance in Bonnard's oeuvre from this period, and notably from 1900 onwards, coinciding with the dissolution of the Nabi group, was the handling of colour. As Nicholas Watkins writes about Bonnard's work from this period 'Paintings begun in the memory of a visual experience were transformed through colour into a rich, immensely varied surface made up of a tapestry of brushstrokes, glazes, scumbles, impasto, highlights and pentimenti. Objects were not so much painted as felt into shape within the surface over a long period. 'The principal subject is the surface, which has its colour, its laws over and above those of objects. It's not a matter of painting life, it's a matter of giving life to painting''(Bonnard, London, 1994, p. 171).
The present painting centres on a luminous earthenware bowl of lusciously evoked fruit and foliage on a vividly patterned table cloth. The vibrant pigments applied in painterly brushstrokes recall the artist's frequent correspondence with Henri Matisse on the importance of colour. In 1935, he wrote to Matisse, 'I agree with you that the painter's only ground is the palette and colours, but as soon as the colours achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged' (quoted in Pierre Bonnard: Early and Later, exh. cat., Washington D.C., London, 2002, p. 44). Undeniable in the present painting is also the influence of Japanese graphic art on Bonnard, known among his Nabi cohorts as le nabi très japonard. He was inspired by the East Asian devices of cropping, close-ups and unconventional perspectives and, above all, the use of bold colour. He acknowledged the importance of these woodblock prints, with which he covered his walls: 'It was through contact with these popular images that I realised that colour could express anything, with no need for relief or modelling. It seemed to me that it was possible to translate light, forms and character using nothing but colour, without recourse to values (quoted in ibid, p. 202).
The present painting centres on a luminous earthenware bowl of lusciously evoked fruit and foliage on a vividly patterned table cloth. The vibrant pigments applied in painterly brushstrokes recall the artist's frequent correspondence with Henri Matisse on the importance of colour. In 1935, he wrote to Matisse, 'I agree with you that the painter's only ground is the palette and colours, but as soon as the colours achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged' (quoted in Pierre Bonnard: Early and Later, exh. cat., Washington D.C., London, 2002, p. 44). Undeniable in the present painting is also the influence of Japanese graphic art on Bonnard, known among his Nabi cohorts as le nabi très japonard. He was inspired by the East Asian devices of cropping, close-ups and unconventional perspectives and, above all, the use of bold colour. He acknowledged the importance of these woodblock prints, with which he covered his walls: 'It was through contact with these popular images that I realised that colour could express anything, with no need for relief or modelling. It seemed to me that it was possible to translate light, forms and character using nothing but colour, without recourse to values (quoted in ibid, p. 202).