Page 65 - Studio International - July 1966

ness of Bonnard's colours; some of them, quite key fact is his insistence on painting from trospective analysis... is in fact like seizing a
idiotically, are printed so as to spread over memory. He never, apparently, made even spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to
two pages and thus seem to spring out of the colour sketches from the motif; at most he did turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the
crack between them. But they serve as re- a drawing on which he noted colour values darkness looks.' What captivates us, ulti-
minders, which is all one should reasonably in writing. In 1890 (at very nearly the moment mately, is Bonnard's success in keeping the
expect where painting depends so much on when Bonnard committed himself to paint- top spinning in his hand—not because it is a
nuances. ing), William James wrote: 'Remembrance feat of unique dexterity but because of its
What is most obvious, taking a general view is like direct feeling; its object is suffused direct relevance to our own, much clumsier
of Bonnard's work, is how un-Impressionist with a warmth and intimacy to which no attempts at re-experiencing.
he is. If Impressionism can be said to stand for object of mere conception ever attains.' This applies particularly to our memories of
something, it is the attempt to render the James's words read almost like a recipe for woman as mother and lover. It would be in-
appearance of nature—with special stress on Bonnards, except that he might have added teresting to have a woman's reading of Bon-
the word 'appearance'. It is founded on unmi- `perception' to 'conception'. A few pages nard's pictures of girls. Seen from Bonnard's
tigated contact with nature, and it avoids further he seems to produce prophetic in- side of the sexual frontier, his nudes and their
interference from subjective states in the per- sights into the difficulties inherent in Bon- setting have just the emotional keenness and
ceiver. Bonnard's work is never objective. The nard's kind of painting : 'The attempt at in- visual elusiveness that characterizes one's own
memory images. Seen more impersonally,
they also tell us a good deal about Bonnard.
Commentators have remarked on their eter-
nal youth and rightly seen it as evidence of the
painter's reliance on memory. But we should
ask also why he should have fastened on this
particular long-limbed, small-breasted, ele-
gant and insubstantial image. Beckett said
of Proust that he was 'conscious of humanity
as flora, never as fauna'. Bonnard's girls are
flowers rather than animals : they exist to
evoke his tenderness. They will never make
demands. Their bodies, their spiritual dis-
tance (in spite of compositional devices that
should make for physical immediacy), the
precious cocoon of light and colour in which
Bonnard enshrines them, all point to a pain-
ful but inescapable sexual relationship in
which a largely aesthetic longing is detached
from, and insufficiently supported by, physical
desire and action. Charles Terrasse has quoted
Bonnard as saying: 'Faced with Nature I am
very weak.'
Painting thus serves Bonnard as a partially
compensating means of erotic expression.
Other men have painted women to celebrate
their virility and also to compensate for their
lack of it through imaginary encounters in
which their dreams come true. But Bonnard's
honesty is unique—is an essential and in-
separable aspect of his almost religious atten-
tion to the visual and emotional qualities of
memory. We know it took him many months
to finish a Nu dans la baignoire picture : 'I shall
never dare to embark on such a difficult sub-
ject again', yet one attempt leads to another.
Again and again he struggles to recapture a
moment long ago, and its bitter-sweet burden
of flawed anticipation.
The descriptions we have of Bonnard work-
ing— the patterned wall-paper; the length of
canvas, pinned to the wall, on which he paints
several pictures before cutting it up; Bonnard
Left opposite Above standing with his nose against the picture, and
Illustration for Marie Nu a la baignoire c.1930 ceasing work suddenly when he feels he has
Oil on canvas 40 1/2 x 25 in.
published in La Revue Blanche 1897
Private collection U.S.A. lost contact with his vision—all fit very well