As the decade progressed, Bonnard began to develop his use of color beyond a method of logically organizing a painting into a way of anchoring a scene in reality, a technique vital to the success of his later, more abstract works. Roots of this colorist idea can be seen in the tendency of Japanese artists to take artistic liberty with reality, in contrast to the European convention of art as a means of imitating nature, showing clearly that Bonnard’s form of colorism was born of Japanese influence rather than the later influence of the South of France. Antoine Terrasse recognizes this influence in his book Bonnard, although he does not connect the idea of freedom of handling with the use of color:
Bonnard was…struck by the freedom of handling he found in [Japanese art], by the importance assigned to the personal factor in the making of a picture, the artist’s right to dispense with nature imitation and to rearrange the data of reality, the images his eye has registered, in a new manner determined by his inner vision. (A. Terrasse, Bonnard, 23)
As Terrasse suggests, by developing the ‘freedom of handling’ used in Japanese art, Bonnard was able to better convey his own artistic vision. While he could take many liberties with dimension and perspective, a complete abandonment of realistic structure would have confused and disoriented viewers. Using Terrasse’s idea of a newfound freedom of handling as a starting point, we can look beyond to see that Bonnard turned once more to color, giving it an even more dominant presence in his art. Bonnard’s ability to use color as an anchor in reality was crucial to his success as a colorist. The viewer is undistracted by perspective and dimension, which is not what Bonnard is attempting to convey in his art: we see realistic three-dimensionality already in our world. The viewer can instead absorb the radical colors of Bonnard’s palette, which are being presented to him for the first time.
As Bonnard’s artwork departed from tradition more and more, as inspired by Japanese prints, his use of color became increasingly elemental to his compositional technique. We can see evidence of his adoption of Japanese freedom of handling in his screen Women in the Garden (1892-1899), for instance, where he began to rely so heavily on color that he used it as a link to tie his otherwise abstract settings to reality. None of the women have a clear anchoring in a realistic setting, so it is difficult to determine what their surroundings are without using clues from color. For example, the woman in the white spotted dress appears against a background of yellow and green dots with a branch behind her head. There is no sense of perspective at all, as the points of different colors meld together in a continuous spectrum. Simply from a constructional standpoint, she appears to be floating in space. It is the color that anchors her in reality—the green gives us a sense of plant life, suggesting an outdoor setting. The vibrant contrasts of color add interest to the flat painting as well. Bright white is juxtaposed with burgundy on the dress, which is situated right next to green.
These blocks of vibrant color, which are reminiscent of the use of colorful swatches found in Japanese woodblock prints, create a definite sense boundary between a solid, bright woman and a transient, vaporous background. In this way, color elevates the importance of the quotidian subject, this woman taking her dog for a walk, by anchoring her in reality while leaving the rest of the scene ungrounded. A daily activity transformed into a fascinating work through color—this is an important aspect of colorism that is seen particularly frequently in Bonnard’s later domestic works, like Young Girl Playing with a Dog. In Women in the Garden, Bonnard uses color as the primary vehicle for conveying the meaning of his art, showing the emergence of this central tenet of his colorist technique occurred in the 1890s, before his move South.