Bonnard was certainly not the only artist of the late nineteenth century to be influenced by Japanese woodblock prints. The Japonisme movement swept through Paris and the rest of the art world with the opening of Japan for trade. Tissot, Degas, Van Gogh, Whistler, Pissaro, and Cassatt were among the many artists who drew inspiration from Japanese prints. Aside from borrowing compositional techniques, as Bonnard did, western artists became more devoted to  printmaking.

Le Coiffure by Mary Cassatt (1883) is a fine example of Japanese-inspired Western printmaking. Cassatt, like many other Western artists, had bought many Japanese prints for her home. She was particularly impressed by the works of Utamaro, whose influence can be seen not only in Cassatt's use of the woodblock print medium and emphasis on two-dimensional design but also in her depiction of a woman at her toilette, a subject typical of Utamaro's prints (Cate). She even has given her subject a Japanese hairstyle. However, Cassatt's print differs from those of Utamaro in her desensualization of the female nude. Many of Utamaro's prints were quite risqué, in fact, practically pornographic. Cassatt's nude is hunched over in an unflattering manner, and her body is shown only by thin outlines with very little detail.

From left to right: The Courtesan Toukasa-dayu, Choki (ca. 1770s), Courtesan Wekaume WIth Maidservant, Utamaro (ca. 1790s), Two Beauties at Bamboo Shade, Utamaro (ca. 1795)]]> 2006-11-30T16:11:00Z 2005-01-04T00:56:34Z tag:blogs.princeton.edu,2005:/writingart1/22.477 2005-01-04T00:56:34Z

Many people argue that Bonnard was not truly a colorist until his move from Paris to the South of France. While it is apparent that his naissance as a colorist occurred in conjunction with his exposure to Japanese woodblock prints in the 1890s, the Midi certainly had a profound effect on his growth as an artist as a logical continuation of his colorist tendencies. Starting in 1910, Bonnard made frequent trips to the Midi, but did not move there full-time until 1912, when he emigrated to the sunny fishing village of Saint Tropez. In Saint-Tropez Harbor (1911), we can see the brilliant light of the town entering his art. Indeed, Bonnard's environment and mood can be seen clearly reflected in all of his art. While in Paris, he incorporated in his art some of the brilliant colors of Japanese prints, but also reflected dreary city life in many subdued depictions of urban scenes. Upon his move to Saint Tropez, we can see the sunshine and beautiful environment of the South reflected in bright colors and many paintings of plant-life and the outdoors. Saint-Tropez Harbor is dominated by brilliant, sunny yellow and the vibrant blue of the sky and sea on a clear day, two colors that could be particularly appreciated by someone coming straight from Paris.

Colorful depictions of the outdoors like this one are reminiscent of impressionism. Indeed, Bonnard often sought to capture impressions daily life in his paintings. For example, in Dining Room in the Country (1913), we see a woman leaning on a window sill, relaxed and not at all posed, and in Young Girl Playing with a Dog (1913), we see simply that: a young girl enjoying a moment with her pet. While these are both certainly impressions, Bonnard was not an impressionist. He saw inadequacy in the impressionist movement's adherence to the true colors of nature and expanded on the style with more vibrant hues (Zutter). He draws our attention to the beauty of everyday life, not by faithfully capturing a moment, like the impressionists did, but by enhancing and heightening it with vivid color, which he used to help establish mood. For example, the shocking red of the walls in Dining Room in the Country is not likely

to be the true color of the house; it is simply too brilliant to be true. However, it helps to establish contrast between the harsh interior of the house and the more gentle hues of the outdoors. In Young Girl Playing with a Dog, we see more unnatural colors�the lilac of the path and of the girl's neck certainly are not faithful to nature, but help create a sense of beauty and calm in the painting.

If Bonnard's stay in Saint-Tropez marked an embracing of color as a means of depicting mood, his 1926 move to the seaside Southern town of Le Cannet inspired his final commitment to the gospel of colorism. His home here, which he called Le Bosquet, had a beautiful garden, which he painted frequently. He always carried pencil and paper for sketching, and the longer he was in the South, the more he painted nature and the outdoors. The Garden Steps (1940) is typical of his late work in that it depicts his beloved garden in beautiful, brilliant colors. A color like the blue in this sky is certainly an enhancement of the color found in nature. Along with depicting nature more frequently, as he grew older, his works became more abstract and color-based. For example, in his 1913 works Dining Room in the Country and Young Girl Playing With Dog, we can see definite, clearly recognizable flowers, plants, and even blades of grass. However, in The Garden Steps, painted thirty-seven years later, the colors are brighter and definition of the subjects is less clear. For example, we can see blobs of bright yellow flecked with orange in the foreground, which we can assume are bushes because of their placement in along garden steps. Out of context, however, we would probably not even be able to discern what they are, as there are no defined leaves or branches. These paintings from Bonnard's Southern period are clearly continuations of his growth as a colorist, a trend that was started with his discovery of Japanese woodblock prints in Paris in the 1890s.

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France-Champagne was Bonnard's first major Japanese-inspired work, created between 1889 and 1891. A lithograph advertisement for champagne, it was also his first major success as a commercial artist: the 100 francs that he was awarded for its execution provided him with the confidence and funds to quit his job as a barrister (A. Terrasse, Grove). This financial validation even convinced his conservative, financially-minded father to support his move to become an artist (Rewald). The sale was also a mandate for his use of the artistic techniques of Japanese woodblock prints, as well, as it was their use that provided him with the freedom to create art full time.

Indeed, Japanese influence is quite apparent in this work. Not only does he depict a lone female subject, reminiscent of the Ukiyo-e prints of which he collected so many, but he shows the curvaceous lines of her shoulders and breasts and draws her face in an expression of ecstasy that is quite suggestive. This sort of innuendo was to be expected in Japanese prints, some of which, such as those by Utamaro, were exceedingly risqué, but was quite unorthodox by nineteenth century French standards. This sensual, progressive approach to the female body could have been a reaction to a conservative upbringing and expectations, especially because at the time of the work's creation, he was still tied to the onerous law career his father had chose for him (Zutter). In order to portray this sense of freedom and sensuality, he utilized the calligraphic line of oriental ink painting, framing his woman with an "arabesque outline as an innovative way of rendering corporeality in the plane" (Petrucchi-Petri, 190). As Petrucchi-Petri remarks, this decorative and stylized depiction was freer and more spontaneous in comparison to typical European art, bringing a sensuality to art that was foreign and exciting to his Parisian audience. Interestingly, this newfound appearance of freedom in art brought him freedom in his artistry through the financial independence granted by the sale of the painting.

While Bonnard obviously adopted some Japanese artistic techniques for use in his France-Champagne lithograph, at the time of this work's creation he certainly had not yet developed the Japonesque penchant for bright, vibrant colors that is apparent in some of his later works. In fact, this piece is a good example of Bonnard's origins in terms of color use, as he had yet to begin his exploration of colorism. The poster was composed with muted hues that do nothing to shock the viewer, a palette that is representative of his early works. If he had created the same advertisement later in his career, he probably would have used exciting colors to reflect the happy and sensual attitude of his subject.

I was first exposed to the works of Pierre Bonnard in a visit to the 2002 Phillips Collection exhibition "Pierre Bonnard: Early and Late." I became aware colorism through the work of Louise Sennesh, who considers herself a modern colorist and influenced by Bonnard.

Enjoy!

I. Paintings

II. Other Works Cited

Cate, Phillip Dennis. "Japanese Influence on French Prints 1883-1910." Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French Art 1854-1910. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975. 53-69.
"Collections." The Phillips Collection. 10 Nov. 2004.
Exhibition of Paintings by Bonnard. New York: Wildenstein and Co., Inc., 1934.
Floyd, Phylis. "Japonisme." The Grove Dictionary of Art Online. Oxford University Press. 2004. 10 Nov. 2004. .
Gliem, David E. "Pierre Bonnard, Le Nabi Très Japonard." Diss. Pennsylvania State U, 2002.
Hempel, Rose. Gems of the Floating World. New York: Japan Society, 1995.
Hyman, Timothy. "Flatness and the Floating World." Bonnard. London: Thames and Hudson, 1998.
Michener, James A. Japanese Prints. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1959.
Petrucchi-Petri, Ursula. "Japonisme in Bonnard's Early and Late Work." Pierre Bonnard: Early and Late. London: Phillip Wilson Publishers, 2002. 190-206.
Rewald, John. Pierre Bonnard. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1948.
Soby, James Thrall. Bonnard and His Environment. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1964.
Sutton, Denys. Pierre Bonnard. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1966.
Terrasse, Antoine. Bonnard. Geneva, Switzerland: Skira, 1964.
Terrasse, Antoine. "Bonnard, Pierre." The Grove Dictionary of Art Online. Oxford University Press. 2004. 10 Nov. 2004. .
Terrasse, Antoine. "The Eye of a Painter." Bonnard: Shimmering Color. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000. 13-43.
Terrasse, Michel. "Pierre Bonnard at 'Le Bosquet.'" Bonnard at Le Cannet. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd, 1988. 11-33.
Tour of the Impressionist Wing. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 6 Nov. 2004.
Tralbout, Marc Edo. "Japan in the South." Vincent Van Gogh. New York: The Alpine Fine Arts Collection, 1981. 217-273.
Zutter, Jörg. Pierre Bonnard: Observing Nature. Canberra, Australia: The National Gallery of Australia, 2003.

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.

It was this central element of color that led to his later, more thorough exploration of color in his subsequent paintings of the 1890s, in conjunction with the increasing presence of Japanese compositional techniques in his work. By 1892, two years after his first experimentation with Japanese styles, he had gained the confidence to rely solely on color to highlight the subject, abandoning traditional European concepts of depth and three-dimensionality. He expressed this idea in his journal in the following words:

Using only one color as a basis, you structure the entire painting around it. Color represents a logic that is just as unrelenting as the logic of form. (Bonnard, qtd. Phillips)

We can see this revelation of color as a method of logically organizing a painting, inspired by Japanese prints, represented graphically in his painting The Checked Blouse (1892). Like many Japanese prints, the entire work exists in one plane, with no apparent depth. As opposed to creating chaos, as we might expect, this lack of perspective allows color to take over and highlight what is important in the scene, a central tenet of Bonnard's colorist method. Upon first looking at the painting, we are immediately attracted to the bright red and white checks that are its namesake. The color draws our eye to the center of the painting, while the horizontal and vertical lines create a very definite plane. Further framing the vibrant blouse are three blocks of pink, the woman's face and hands. This hue is clearly not a true skin color, showing the development of Bonnard's colorist tendency to exaggerate natural colors to a more heightened reality. The pink of the woman's face is surrounded by the brown of the wall behind her, further inspiring us to look into this domestic scene. A planar work such as this one would be impossible without color, making it necessarily the chief means of organization in the piece, a method adapted from the Japanese woodblock prints. Bonnard's palette is obviously brighter here than in his earlier works: the violent reds and pinks of The Checked Blouse outshine the more peaceful blues and earth tones of Woman at the Piano and Women with Dogs. While his colors have not yet reached the intensity of those seen in his later works, like Dining Room in the Country, they are clearly progressing in a more vibrant direction.

As we can see in Young Woman at the Piano, Bonnard's initial reaction to the Japanese prints had been an appreciation for the strong blocks of color, a simple passion which helped him to recognize the importance of color and which he incorporated into his own work for their eye-catching appeal, however, it was his later realization of the compositional value of these colors that most profoundly influenced his development as a colorist. Japanese woodblock prints lacked the European techniques of one-point perspective and three-dimensional shading, yet they maintained a sense of depth through color. Objects in the foreground are depicted in bright colors and eye-catching prints, prioritizing what we should focus on in the painting. Indeed, Bonnard stated his revelation on color as a means for composition as follows:

I understood … from these crude images that color could express anything, without needing modeling or [three-dimensional] relief. It seemed to me then that it was possible to translate light, form, and character with nothing more than color. (Pierre Bonnard, qtd. A. Terrasse, Shimmering Color 22)

In this passage, we see that Bonnard's eyes were clearly opened to the potential of color to express every element of an artistic composition by the bright Japanese prints. Here, Bonnard himself recognized that it was from Japanese art that he learned how to convey space and perspective using only color�the prints make logical sense to the eye, but have none of the perspective of classical western art. Ironically, Antoine Terrasse quoted this passage to draw our attention to the influence of Japanese prints on Bonnard, but he fails to make the seemingly obvious connection between this early use of color and his later identification of himself as a colorist. Despite recognizing through this quotation that Japanese prints taught Bonnard the great value of color, he makes the contradictory claim in the same book that Bonnard doesn't appreciate this value until his move South.

We can see Bonnard's incorporation of the Japanese reliance on color to create a sense of depth into his own work, a vital step in his development as a colorist. In Women With Dog (1891), for example, Bonnard experiments with this concept without entirely abandoning European compositional techniques. Specifically, there is a clear distance between the women and dog in the foreground and the men in the background. A plane is defined by the straight, intersecting lines of the plaid in the central woman's dress, which capture our attention by the dramatic juxtaposition of white against bright blue. Boundaries of this frontal plain are created with shocks of yellow in the blonde woman's hair, the dog, and the flowers, which contrast the greens and blues that dominate the rest of the work. Even the women's skin tones are a brighter pink that seems natural. In contrast, the men, clearly in the background, are duller, painted with colors that seem more reserved. The smaller size of the men is consistent with traditional perspective techniques, but less obviously so than the diagonal lines used in Young Woman at the Piano. Here, Bonnard compensates for lack of three-dimensional modeling techniques like shading and one-point perspective by cropping the front three figures by the edges of the picture on every side, creating a sense of a close-up view. Along the same lines, figures in Japanese prints frequently were cropped in such a manner. By not distracting the viewer with three-dimensional modeling techniques, Bonnard causes us to focus on his use of color in the frontal plane. Color obviously plays a crucial role in the organization of this painting. The use of color as a method of compositional organization was the backbone of his blossoming colorist technique; a pivotal element apparent as early as 1891 in Women With Dog, which was created far before his exposure to the bright light of the South.

It was in the midst of this cultural mélange that Bonnard began his career as an artist. He had struggled to create an identity for himself as an artist until one fateful day in the spring of 1890, when Siegfried Bing launched an exhibition on the history of the Japanese woodblock print at the École des Beaux-Arts (Petrucchi-Petri). It was this exposure to Japanese prints, not his later move to the South, that inspired Bonnard to develop the unique colorist style that would earn him the wide recognition in the art world that he so deserved. These 700 prints from private Parisian collections so enthralled Bonnard that he began a collection of his own. He described this excitement in his own words as follows:

In a department store, for a few pennies, I found some [printed] crepe paper or crinkled rice paper in stunning colors. I covered the walls of my room with this bright, naïve imagery… these things that I had there in front of me were extremely skillful and lively. (Bonnard, qtd. Petrucchi-Petri 190)