Page 22 - Studio International - February 1966

most varied painters of the century. But all I meant was
that there has been a tendency to talk about the later
Bonnards as by far the most interesting, and I don't
think this holds up. There isn't a greater Bonnard nude
than the L'Indolente from the Musée d'Art Moderne
painted about 1899.
Podro That is the first Bonnard I was ever really struck
by, when I was a schoolboy, which is also I think the
first time I ever saw a picture which really was
astonishingly erotic in its impact. It was fantastic to
look at it with the other version of the same subject
on the opposite wall, because it gave a wonderful
opportunity to watch Bonnard—I assume the Musée
d'Art Moderne's is the later one. What is fascinating is to
watch Bonnard eliminating visual cues, and stepping
up the overall pattern and so loosening our grasp of the
girl's body in the fully-developed version. By producing

La femme au bain 1933
Canvas 47 1/4 x 43 1/4 in
Signed
Lent by a private collector, Switzerland

Femme assise dans un bibliothèque this greater uncertainty, the element of sexual projection
1925
Canvas 41 1/8 x 35 5/8 in. is stimulated enormously. I think it's a very good test
Lent by a private collector, Mexico example.
Sylvester Looking at a Renoir, one has slightly the
feeling of his telling you how much girls excite him.
Bonnard doesn't seem to find this necessary. It's a
tremendously unselfconscious expression of love in
which he never has to tell you how much he's capable
of loving.
Forge Maybe this is related to the fact that he has
proved a particularly bad teacher. I think he has been on
the whole a shocking influence. I can't think of any
artist—excluding somebody like Giacometti—of any
somewhat lesser artist, who has learned anything of
any value directly from Bonnard. q