Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was one of the most important printmakers of the fin-de-siècle. Like his fellow Nabi artists, he expressed his personal experiences and feelings in a decorative visual language.

Bonnard spent his days roaming the streets of Montmartre in Paris in search of new ideas and fleeting scenes he could use in his lithographs. He translated these impressions onto the stone in highly refined compositions that nevertheless retain the spontaneity of his sketches.

The city as theatre

Bonnard saw the vibrant French capital as a theatre of everyday life – a spectacle for the passer-by. He was an aficionado of modern French drama and designed stage sets and programmes for avant-garde theatres. The buildings and streets along which the Parisians move in Bonnard’s prints can also be read as living stage sets.

Pierre Bonnard, Boulevard, 1899 — Pierre Bonnard, *Boulevard*, 1899

Japanese colours

Bonnard’s friends called him ‘the very Japanese Nabi’. He later said of a visit to an exhibition of Japanese prints:

‘It was through contact with these popular images that I realized that colour could express anything, with no need for relief or modelling.’

His love of Japanese printmaking inspired him to create his own colour lithographs with bright expanses of colour and decorative lines.

Pierre Bonnard, Family Scene (Scène de famille), 1893 — Pierre Bonnard, *Family Scene (Scène de famille)*, 1893

Pierre Bonnard, In the Street (Dans la rue), 1900 — Pierre Bonnard, *In the Street (Dans la rue)*, 1900

Pierre Bonnard

The city as theatre

Japanese colours

Further reading