Long Live Painting!
PRESTEL Munich · London · New York
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 2-3 16.08.17 11:37 Long Live Painting!
PRESTEL Munich · London · New York
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 2-3 16.08.17 11:37 Contents
8 Greetings PLATES 13 Foreword 81 INTERIOR Beate Söntgen
ESSAYS
105 STILL LIFE Iris Hasler 19 MATISSE – BONNARD. “Long Live Painting!” Felix Krämer 131 LANDSCAPE/NATURE Daniel Zamani
43 FINDING THE POSE 153 WOMEN/THE NUDE Elena Schroll The Models of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse Dita Amory 183 WORKS ON PAPER Jenny Graser
55 BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION APPENDIX Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard in the Mirror of the 1940s Daniel Zamani 219 Chronology 231 List of Exhibited Works 69 WITH BONNARD AND MATISSE ON THE CÔTE D’AZUR 236 Selected Bibliography The Collector Couple Hahnloser-Bühler and Their Artist Friends 238 Colophon Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold 240 Photo Credits and Artists’ Rights
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 6-7 16.08.17 11:37 Contents
8 Greetings PLATES 13 Foreword 81 INTERIOR Beate Söntgen
ESSAYS
105 STILL LIFE Iris Hasler 19 MATISSE – BONNARD. “Long Live Painting!” Felix Krämer 131 LANDSCAPE/NATURE Daniel Zamani
43 FINDING THE POSE 153 WOMEN/THE NUDE Elena Schroll The Models of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse Dita Amory 183 WORKS ON PAPER Jenny Graser
55 BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION APPENDIX Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard in the Mirror of the 1940s Daniel Zamani 219 Chronology 231 List of Exhibited Works 69 WITH BONNARD AND MATISSE ON THE CÔTE D’AZUR 236 Selected Bibliography The Collector Couple Hahnloser-Bühler and Their Artist Friends 238 Colophon Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold 240 Photo Credits and Artists’ Rights
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 6-7 16.08.17 11:37 Matisse – Bonnard
“Long Live Painting!”
FELIX KRÄMER
“Long live painting!” This was the programmatic ex- found its analogy in their works, which they contem- clamation with which Henri Matisse greeted his friend plated and discussed together; and from these encounters Pierre Bonnard on 13 August 1925 (fi gs. 1 and 2 ).1 The few each drew the affi rmation needed to unwaveringly con- words on a postcard from Amsterdam were the beginning tinue along his own path. of a correspondence between the artist colleagues Pierre Bonnard was born in 1867 in Fonte- comprising 62 letters which lasted until 1946 and gave nay-aux-Roses near Paris. Henri Matisse came into the expression to their mutual esteem. The correspondence world two years later, in 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in was initially sporadic but intensifi ed in the 1930s. Its Northern France. As leading exponents of French nature was characterized by everyday life: accounts of the Modernism they would fi rst meet each other at the weather, their travels or illnesses. They knew each other beginning of the twentieth century. At this point in time well, the tone they used with one another was familiar, Bonnard could already look back upon a long artistic the form of address “My dear Matisse”, “My dear career. At his parents’ wish he had initially studied law at Bonnard” or “My dear friend”. Only a few places in their the Sorbonne in Paris before commencing studies at the letters contain passages about art, but in these their Académie Julian. Bonnard had enjoyed great success as mutual understanding and admiration for each other’s early as 1891 with his poster design for the brand work emerge all the more clearly. Their friendship of over “France-Champagne” (fi g. 3) and together with fellow 40 years was based on a familiarity that knew neither students founded an artist group that – half in jest and self-interest nor competitiveness, characterized instead half seriously – called itself the “Nabis”, derived from by sympathy and interest in the other’s welfare. In add- “Nebiim”, Hebrew for “prophets”. The group also in- ition to the personal level, which clearly comes to the fore cluded Édouard Vuillard and Félix Vallotton, with whom in the letters, at least equally important from an art Bonnard remained close friends even after the dissol- historical perspective is what is not found in the cor- ution of the Nabis at the end of the 1890s. Even though respondence. During the phases of their lives in which the members met regularly and exhibited together, they Matisse and Bonnard saw each other regularly they nonetheless did not form a collective “with solidly de- Figs and Postcard from Henri Matisse to Pierre Bonnard August Private collection scarcely wrote to each other. The communication then lineated contours” that “was characterized by a stylistic
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 18-19 16.08.17 11:37 Matisse – Bonnard
“Long Live Painting!”
FELIX KRÄMER
“Long live painting!” This was the programmatic ex- found its analogy in their works, which they contem- clamation with which Henri Matisse greeted his friend plated and discussed together; and from these encounters Pierre Bonnard on 13 August 1925 (fi gs. 1 and 2 ).1 The few each drew the affi rmation needed to unwaveringly con- words on a postcard from Amsterdam were the beginning tinue along his own path. of a correspondence between the artist colleagues Pierre Bonnard was born in 1867 in Fonte- comprising 62 letters which lasted until 1946 and gave nay-aux-Roses near Paris. Henri Matisse came into the expression to their mutual esteem. The correspondence world two years later, in 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in was initially sporadic but intensifi ed in the 1930s. Its Northern France. As leading exponents of French nature was characterized by everyday life: accounts of the Modernism they would fi rst meet each other at the weather, their travels or illnesses. They knew each other beginning of the twentieth century. At this point in time well, the tone they used with one another was familiar, Bonnard could already look back upon a long artistic the form of address “My dear Matisse”, “My dear career. At his parents’ wish he had initially studied law at Bonnard” or “My dear friend”. Only a few places in their the Sorbonne in Paris before commencing studies at the letters contain passages about art, but in these their Académie Julian. Bonnard had enjoyed great success as mutual understanding and admiration for each other’s early as 1891 with his poster design for the brand work emerge all the more clearly. Their friendship of over “France-Champagne” (fi g. 3) and together with fellow 40 years was based on a familiarity that knew neither students founded an artist group that – half in jest and self-interest nor competitiveness, characterized instead half seriously – called itself the “Nabis”, derived from by sympathy and interest in the other’s welfare. In add- “Nebiim”, Hebrew for “prophets”. The group also in- ition to the personal level, which clearly comes to the fore cluded Édouard Vuillard and Félix Vallotton, with whom in the letters, at least equally important from an art Bonnard remained close friends even after the dissol- historical perspective is what is not found in the cor- ution of the Nabis at the end of the 1890s. Even though respondence. During the phases of their lives in which the members met regularly and exhibited together, they Matisse and Bonnard saw each other regularly they nonetheless did not form a collective “with solidly de- Figs and Postcard from Henri Matisse to Pierre Bonnard August Private collection scarcely wrote to each other. The communication then lineated contours” that “was characterized by a stylistic
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 18-19 16.08.17 11:37 consistency”.2 But as a group they were convinced that art positions, as a pioneer who already anticipated much should embrace all aspects of life and be an expression of later twentieth-century developments. This distorted something unseen. Works from Bonnard’s Nabi period view may well have arisen from the fact that Bonnard had are characterized by a free play of perspectives and a already enjoyed success as a young artist whereas markedly fl at handling of paint (see fi g. 4 ). Matisse’s career began only after the turn of the century, Like Bonnard, Matisse also initially aspired to but then developed so rapidly that after the First World a career as a lawyer and worked as a paralegal in War he was already one of the best-known artists inter- Saint-Quentin. Concurrently he also took private art nationally. Bonnard added fuel to this idea by referring to courses. In 1891 Matisse decided in favour of a life as an himself, in an oft-quoted statement, as “the last of the artist and went to Paris. But his application to the École Impressionists”.5 Even today many museums classify the des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He was only admitted on two artists in diff erent epochs. It is thus unsurprising that becoming a student of the symbolist painter Gustave there are only very few collectors who are equally en- Moreau. For many years Matisse sold scarcely any works thusiastic about Bonnard and Matisse – despite the close and had to support his family with odd jobs. For a meagre connection between their oeuvres. hourly wage, he painted the Grand Palais for the Paris While at fi rst the two artists met only occa- World Exhibition of 1900 with a kilometres-long frieze of sionally their friendship intensifi ed through the years. laurel garlands.3 Until after the turn of the century They met regularly in the studio and discussed their Matisse’s career was dominated by uncertainty and works. When they transferred their main residences from experimentation with various styles. He achieved his the art metropolis of Paris to the French Riviera, their breakthrough only in 1905 with Woman with a Hat, a por- artistic exchange increased even more. Matisse broke the trait painted with raw brushstrokes and glowing colours fi rst ground at the end of 1917 when he began spending (p. 56, fi g. 2) that aroused a scandal when he presented it more and more time in Nice. In 1921 he rented an im- at the Salon d’automne that year. One critic reviled him posing apartment there with a view of the promenade and and the artist friends who had exhibited with him – among beyond it the sea. Henceforth he lived on the Côte d’Azur; them André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Albert Mar- his wife Amélie and their children Jean and Pierre re- quet – as “fauves” (wild beasts). Intended as an insult, the mained in Paris. Bonnard decided only in 1926 to move term was self-confi dently adopted by the painters as the permanently to Southern France. Whereas in 1912 he had name of their group. initially purchased a small country house in the Seine The fi rst documented meeting between Bon- valley near Giverny, he now bought the house Le Bosquet, nard and Matisse occurs around this time. In April 1906 which was located on a hill in Le Cannet and had a view Matisse visited Bonnard’s solo exhibition in the Galerie of the Mediterranean, and moved there with his wife Ambroise Vollard in Paris at 6, rue Laffi tte, where his own Marthe. The couple was joyfully greeted by Matisse, who fi rst monographic exhibition had taken place two years travelled there from Nice, roughly 30 kilometres away, earlier. The dealer, whom Bonnard portrayed in his studio and was one of their fi rst guests. Since both artists owned at the time (p. 27, cat. 4), played an important role espe- cars – Matisse even employed a chauff eur – the distance cially in the early years of the two artists’ friendship.4 The presented no obstacle to regular visits. Numerous works invitation card to the Bonnard exhibition, to which of the 1930s and 1940s have the surroundings of Le Matisse added a drawing on the back and which he care- Bosquet as their theme – among them the sun-drenched fully retained, is the earliest evidence of their bond landscape Le Cannet, la route rose (p. 22, cat. 3), which (p. 220, fi g. 2). But by this time the two had probably Bonnard donated to a charity auction for child war refu- already known each other for several years, since they gees in 1944; the only other artist who participated was moved in the same circles of artists and friends. Matisse with his now missing painting The Black Door In compendia on the history of painting (fi g. 5). Bonnard and Matisse are generally classifi ed in two Just how close the exchange between the two opposing currents: Bonnard, with his airy, loose brush- fellow artists in every respect was can be seen in their work and use of delicate, shimmering colours, is regarded painting and in their intensive exploration of similar as a successor to the Impressionists, a painter of the motifs and themes. Each artist’s oeuvre consists largely nineteenth century; Matisse, with his interest in brilliant of interiors, images of women – frequently nudes –, Fig Pierre Bonnard FranceChampagne Bibliothèque nationale de France Paris colours and planar, starkly contoured pictorial com- (fl oral) still lifes and landscapes. The latter are present in Fig Pierre Bonnard Woman with Dog Sterling and Francine Clark Institute Williamstown Massachusetts
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 20-21 16.08.17 11:37 consistency”.2 But as a group they were convinced that art positions, as a pioneer who already anticipated much should embrace all aspects of life and be an expression of later twentieth-century developments. This distorted something unseen. Works from Bonnard’s Nabi period view may well have arisen from the fact that Bonnard had are characterized by a free play of perspectives and a already enjoyed success as a young artist whereas markedly fl at handling of paint (see fi g. 4 ). Matisse’s career began only after the turn of the century, Like Bonnard, Matisse also initially aspired to but then developed so rapidly that after the First World a career as a lawyer and worked as a paralegal in War he was already one of the best-known artists inter- Saint-Quentin. Concurrently he also took private art nationally. Bonnard added fuel to this idea by referring to courses. In 1891 Matisse decided in favour of a life as an himself, in an oft-quoted statement, as “the last of the artist and went to Paris. But his application to the École Impressionists”.5 Even today many museums classify the des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He was only admitted on two artists in diff erent epochs. It is thus unsurprising that becoming a student of the symbolist painter Gustave there are only very few collectors who are equally en- Moreau. For many years Matisse sold scarcely any works thusiastic about Bonnard and Matisse – despite the close and had to support his family with odd jobs. For a meagre connection between their oeuvres. hourly wage, he painted the Grand Palais for the Paris While at fi rst the two artists met only occa- World Exhibition of 1900 with a kilometres-long frieze of sionally their friendship intensifi ed through the years. laurel garlands.3 Until after the turn of the century They met regularly in the studio and discussed their Matisse’s career was dominated by uncertainty and works. When they transferred their main residences from experimentation with various styles. He achieved his the art metropolis of Paris to the French Riviera, their breakthrough only in 1905 with Woman with a Hat, a por- artistic exchange increased even more. Matisse broke the trait painted with raw brushstrokes and glowing colours fi rst ground at the end of 1917 when he began spending (p. 56, fi g. 2) that aroused a scandal when he presented it more and more time in Nice. In 1921 he rented an im- at the Salon d’automne that year. One critic reviled him posing apartment there with a view of the promenade and and the artist friends who had exhibited with him – among beyond it the sea. Henceforth he lived on the Côte d’Azur; them André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Albert Mar- his wife Amélie and their children Jean and Pierre re- quet – as “fauves” (wild beasts). Intended as an insult, the mained in Paris. Bonnard decided only in 1926 to move term was self-confi dently adopted by the painters as the permanently to Southern France. Whereas in 1912 he had name of their group. initially purchased a small country house in the Seine The fi rst documented meeting between Bon- valley near Giverny, he now bought the house Le Bosquet, nard and Matisse occurs around this time. In April 1906 which was located on a hill in Le Cannet and had a view Matisse visited Bonnard’s solo exhibition in the Galerie of the Mediterranean, and moved there with his wife Ambroise Vollard in Paris at 6, rue Laffi tte, where his own Marthe. The couple was joyfully greeted by Matisse, who fi rst monographic exhibition had taken place two years travelled there from Nice, roughly 30 kilometres away, earlier. The dealer, whom Bonnard portrayed in his studio and was one of their fi rst guests. Since both artists owned at the time (p. 27, cat. 4), played an important role espe- cars – Matisse even employed a chauff eur – the distance cially in the early years of the two artists’ friendship.4 The presented no obstacle to regular visits. Numerous works invitation card to the Bonnard exhibition, to which of the 1930s and 1940s have the surroundings of Le Matisse added a drawing on the back and which he care- Bosquet as their theme – among them the sun-drenched fully retained, is the earliest evidence of their bond landscape Le Cannet, la route rose (p. 22, cat. 3), which (p. 220, fi g. 2). But by this time the two had probably Bonnard donated to a charity auction for child war refu- already known each other for several years, since they gees in 1944; the only other artist who participated was moved in the same circles of artists and friends. Matisse with his now missing painting The Black Door In compendia on the history of painting (fi g. 5). Bonnard and Matisse are generally classifi ed in two Just how close the exchange between the two opposing currents: Bonnard, with his airy, loose brush- fellow artists in every respect was can be seen in their work and use of delicate, shimmering colours, is regarded painting and in their intensive exploration of similar as a successor to the Impressionists, a painter of the motifs and themes. Each artist’s oeuvre consists largely nineteenth century; Matisse, with his interest in brilliant of interiors, images of women – frequently nudes –, Fig Pierre Bonnard FranceChampagne Bibliothèque nationale de France Paris colours and planar, starkly contoured pictorial com- (fl oral) still lifes and landscapes. The latter are present in Fig Pierre Bonnard Woman with Dog Sterling and Francine Clark Institute Williamstown Massachusetts
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 20-21 16.08.17 11:37 Landscape/Nature
DANIEL ZAMANI
By the beginning of the twentieth century, landscape had One of the most significant junctures in long established itself as a key genre of modern art. Once Matisse’s early development was his 1904 journey to regarded as a minor subject when compared to the grand- Saint-Tropez – an idyllic peninsula on the Côte d’Azur eur of history painting, it gained significant new impetus which was then largely untouched by modern tourism. in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. As a reaction to Prompted by an invitation from his colleague and friend, the processes of mechanization and urbanization, depic- the painter Paul Signac, this was the first of a series of tions of idyllic nature became increasingly associated longer painting stints that paved the way for his more or with ideals of purity and elevation, encapsulating modern less permanent residence in the South of France, collo- man’s longed-for communion with the outside world. quially known as the Midi. Hailed as “the most beautiful Moreover, from the mid nineteenth century onwards, place in the world” by Auguste Renoir, the Mediterranean landscape became a central “vehicle of modernist in- had by then long become an important source of inspira- novation”,1 significantly contributing to the avant-garde’s tion for modern artists.2 More specifically, Matisse’s jour- increasing appreciation of colour and form as independ- ney was in keeping with the heritage of painters such as ent, painterly values. Following their nineteenth-century Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Henri-Edmond Cross, predecessors, both Bonnard and Matisse experimented whose highly idealized works typically cast the Medi- with the genre. However, its role significantly diverged in terranean as the Arcadian landscape par excellence, often their respective oeuvres. In the case of Bonnard, it was on replete with pastoral and utopian associations.3 a par with his exploration of interior, still life and the The most important painting of Matisse’s nude. Indeed, much of his reputation as a leading heir of sojourn in Saint-Tropez was The Gulf of Saint-Tropez Impressionism was due to his exuberant depictions of (cat. 53), which clearly reflected his nascent fascination sun-drenched Mediterranean vistas, Northern landscapes with the light of the Midi. Already before the turn of the and pastoral scenes. Conversely, Matisse was never century, Matisse had read Signac’s treatise From Eugène considered much of a landscapist per se, his forays into Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism. Written in 1898, the essay the genre sporadic and typically prompted by the direct owed a significant debt to contemporary developments in experience of travel. optical theory. In it, Signac argued that separate, carefully
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 130-131 16.08.17 11:42 Landscape/Nature
DANIEL ZAMANI
By the beginning of the twentieth century, landscape had One of the most significant junctures in long established itself as a key genre of modern art. Once Matisse’s early development was his 1904 journey to regarded as a minor subject when compared to the grand- Saint-Tropez – an idyllic peninsula on the Côte d’Azur eur of history painting, it gained significant new impetus which was then largely untouched by modern tourism. in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. As a reaction to Prompted by an invitation from his colleague and friend, the processes of mechanization and urbanization, depic- the painter Paul Signac, this was the first of a series of tions of idyllic nature became increasingly associated longer painting stints that paved the way for his more or with ideals of purity and elevation, encapsulating modern less permanent residence in the South of France, collo- man’s longed-for communion with the outside world. quially known as the Midi. Hailed as “the most beautiful Moreover, from the mid nineteenth century onwards, place in the world” by Auguste Renoir, the Mediterranean landscape became a central “vehicle of modernist in- had by then long become an important source of inspira- novation”,1 significantly contributing to the avant-garde’s tion for modern artists.2 More specifically, Matisse’s jour- increasing appreciation of colour and form as independ- ney was in keeping with the heritage of painters such as ent, painterly values. Following their nineteenth-century Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Henri-Edmond Cross, predecessors, both Bonnard and Matisse experimented whose highly idealized works typically cast the Medi- with the genre. However, its role significantly diverged in terranean as the Arcadian landscape par excellence, often their respective oeuvres. In the case of Bonnard, it was on replete with pastoral and utopian associations.3 a par with his exploration of interior, still life and the The most important painting of Matisse’s nude. Indeed, much of his reputation as a leading heir of sojourn in Saint-Tropez was The Gulf of Saint-Tropez Impressionism was due to his exuberant depictions of (cat. 53), which clearly reflected his nascent fascination sun-drenched Mediterranean vistas, Northern landscapes with the light of the Midi. Already before the turn of the and pastoral scenes. Conversely, Matisse was never century, Matisse had read Signac’s treatise From Eugène considered much of a landscapist per se, his forays into Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism. Written in 1898, the essay the genre sporadic and typically prompted by the direct owed a significant debt to contemporary developments in experience of travel. optical theory. In it, Signac argued that separate, carefully
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 130-131 16.08.17 11:42 choreo graphed dots of interwoven colour could give Indeed, as noted by the art historian James D. Herbert, greater vibrancy to a painting. In search of “a maximum Matisse’s iconography was in keeping with the tenor of of colour and light”, pure, high-pitched hues should come contemporary travel accounts such as that of Casimir together in an “optical mixture of pigments” (mélange Stryieuski, whose 1907 trip along the Rivera was cast in optique), producing the effect of a pulsating shimmer emphatically poetic tones: across the surface.4 In The Gulf of Saint-Tropez, Matisse “Certain sunny mornings there, you see as dialogues with some of Signac’s premises, vividly captur- if in a land of dreams, and, if you distance yourself a ing the glimmering sheen of the sunset spreading over the bit from our city, seeking refuge under the olive trees bay on the island. In the foreground, we see his wife with light foliage, you can believe yourself really trans- Amélie and their son Pierre, both resting by the seaside ported into some sort of Virgilian atmosphere. You and rendered in a sketch-like manner; cast in darker look for the statue of Pan, garlanded with flowers; shades of blue, violet, brown and green, they are set off you hear the flute of Thyrsis; you think you see Clytie against the ground’s intense shades of orange, yellow and offering herself to Helios: an entire living mythology red, all rendered in short, staccato brushstrokes of pure animates the solitude.”9 colour. Across the bay, parts of the sky are left unpainted, Matisse’s journey to Saint-Tropez triggered a the white ground heightening the effect of luminosity, as lifelong fascination with the landscape and light of the the intense yellow of the fading sunlight is played out Mediter ranean, and he vividly evoked his personal asso- against the cooler tones of violet and blue that mark ciation with the coastal towns of the Midi in his strikingly mountain and sea. bold Self-Portrait of 1906 (p. 1, cat. 1). Eschewing all sig- Back in Paris, Matisse turned to the work’s nifiers of the painter’s craft, he here shows himself in the basic locality as the point of departure for a more monu- striped jersey of a contemporary mariner, championing mental canvas (fig. 1). This composition, which he later the natural, indigenous and ‘primitive’ over academic described as “a picture made of pure rainbow colours”,5 conventions or Old Masterly tradition. Of all the South- dialogued even more conspicuously with the stylistic the- ern seaside towns that attracted the artist in these years, ories of Signac, who promptly acquired the work after it the most significant was undoubtedly Collioure, located was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants of 1905. In- near Perpignan in the Pyrénées. In 1905, he embarked on tensely coloured, its palette consists exclusively of high- his first journey there alongside his colleague André De- pitched, jewel-like tones; the carefully applied, dotted rain, returning almost annually over the following sum- brushstrokes are again set off against the pure white of mers. On one such sojourn in 1911, Matisse painted The the canvas, cloaking the scene in a vibrant haze. The orig- Open Window (cat. 56), brilliantly capturing the harbour inal title – Luxe, Calme et Volupté – is derived from a line town’s fabled light. Ever since the Renaissance, painting in Charles Baudelaire’s poem “Invitation to a Voyage” had been considered as a “window” onto the world. How- (1857), in which the oneiric effect of sunlight over ocean ever, it was in the wake of Romanticism that the trope and earth (compared to a “warmly glowing gown”) is became specifically associated with a powerful longing for explicitly evoked.6 Here, an anonymous narrator envi- nature, often used to express man’s yearning for the out- sions the journey to an idyllic seaside place, where “all is side world. In Matisse’s composition, the rectilinear order and measure, / Luxury, beauty and pleasure [Luxe, frame creates a “picture within the picture”, an effect calme et volupté].”7 Staunchly romantic in tone, this pan- heightened by the prominent inclusion of two smaller egyric to nature is centred on the nostalgia for a lost paintings on the right-hand wall, as well as the cropped- Golden Age, interweaving an imaginary sailing trip with off view of his 1907 composition Le Luxe I to the upper traditional tropes of the pastoral. Akin to a “Baudelairean left. Through the diagonal thrust of the open shutters, painting”,8 Matisse’s composition goes beyond the mun- Matisse directs the viewer’s gaze away from the solid- dane setting of The Gulf of Saint-Tropez, as the real-life ity of the flat, largely monochrome walls, channelling figures of Amélie and Pierre are now accompanied by a it across the sill and towards the harbour town’s sun- group of naked women who luxuriate in the warmth of drenched hills. The room’s reduced colour scheme, es- the sinking sun, their poses reminiscent of Renaissance sentially consisting of pink, violet and green, is again goddesses or nymphs. Instead of a contemporary scene of taken up in the landscape beyond, visually linking both Fig Henri Matisse Luxury Calm and Pleasure Centre Pompidou Paris bourgeois recreation, we here encounter a more oneiric picture planes and resulting in a remarkably unified Fig Henri Matisse Moroccan Landscape Acanthes Moderna Museet Stockholm image of the Midi as a space of timeless beauty and joy. composition. As the art historian Shirley Neilsen Blum
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 132-133 16.08.17 11:42 choreo graphed dots of interwoven colour could give Indeed, as noted by the art historian James D. Herbert, greater vibrancy to a painting. In search of “a maximum Matisse’s iconography was in keeping with the tenor of of colour and light”, pure, high-pitched hues should come contemporary travel accounts such as that of Casimir together in an “optical mixture of pigments” (mélange Stryieuski, whose 1907 trip along the Rivera was cast in optique), producing the effect of a pulsating shimmer emphatically poetic tones: across the surface.4 In The Gulf of Saint-Tropez, Matisse “Certain sunny mornings there, you see as dialogues with some of Signac’s premises, vividly captur- if in a land of dreams, and, if you distance yourself a ing the glimmering sheen of the sunset spreading over the bit from our city, seeking refuge under the olive trees bay on the island. In the foreground, we see his wife with light foliage, you can believe yourself really trans- Amélie and their son Pierre, both resting by the seaside ported into some sort of Virgilian atmosphere. You and rendered in a sketch-like manner; cast in darker look for the statue of Pan, garlanded with flowers; shades of blue, violet, brown and green, they are set off you hear the flute of Thyrsis; you think you see Clytie against the ground’s intense shades of orange, yellow and offering herself to Helios: an entire living mythology red, all rendered in short, staccato brushstrokes of pure animates the solitude.”9 colour. Across the bay, parts of the sky are left unpainted, Matisse’s journey to Saint-Tropez triggered a the white ground heightening the effect of luminosity, as lifelong fascination with the landscape and light of the the intense yellow of the fading sunlight is played out Mediter ranean, and he vividly evoked his personal asso- against the cooler tones of violet and blue that mark ciation with the coastal towns of the Midi in his strikingly mountain and sea. bold Self-Portrait of 1906 (p. 1, cat. 1). Eschewing all sig- Back in Paris, Matisse turned to the work’s nifiers of the painter’s craft, he here shows himself in the basic locality as the point of departure for a more monu- striped jersey of a contemporary mariner, championing mental canvas (fig. 1). This composition, which he later the natural, indigenous and ‘primitive’ over academic described as “a picture made of pure rainbow colours”,5 conventions or Old Masterly tradition. Of all the South- dialogued even more conspicuously with the stylistic the- ern seaside towns that attracted the artist in these years, ories of Signac, who promptly acquired the work after it the most significant was undoubtedly Collioure, located was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants of 1905. In- near Perpignan in the Pyrénées. In 1905, he embarked on tensely coloured, its palette consists exclusively of high- his first journey there alongside his colleague André De- pitched, jewel-like tones; the carefully applied, dotted rain, returning almost annually over the following sum- brushstrokes are again set off against the pure white of mers. On one such sojourn in 1911, Matisse painted The the canvas, cloaking the scene in a vibrant haze. The orig- Open Window (cat. 56), brilliantly capturing the harbour inal title – Luxe, Calme et Volupté – is derived from a line town’s fabled light. Ever since the Renaissance, painting in Charles Baudelaire’s poem “Invitation to a Voyage” had been considered as a “window” onto the world. How- (1857), in which the oneiric effect of sunlight over ocean ever, it was in the wake of Romanticism that the trope and earth (compared to a “warmly glowing gown”) is became specifically associated with a powerful longing for explicitly evoked.6 Here, an anonymous narrator envi- nature, often used to express man’s yearning for the out- sions the journey to an idyllic seaside place, where “all is side world. In Matisse’s composition, the rectilinear order and measure, / Luxury, beauty and pleasure [Luxe, frame creates a “picture within the picture”, an effect calme et volupté].”7 Staunchly romantic in tone, this pan- heightened by the prominent inclusion of two smaller egyric to nature is centred on the nostalgia for a lost paintings on the right-hand wall, as well as the cropped- Golden Age, interweaving an imaginary sailing trip with off view of his 1907 composition Le Luxe I to the upper traditional tropes of the pastoral. Akin to a “Baudelairean left. Through the diagonal thrust of the open shutters, painting”,8 Matisse’s composition goes beyond the mun- Matisse directs the viewer’s gaze away from the solid- dane setting of The Gulf of Saint-Tropez, as the real-life ity of the flat, largely monochrome walls, channelling figures of Amélie and Pierre are now accompanied by a it across the sill and towards the harbour town’s sun- group of naked women who luxuriate in the warmth of drenched hills. The room’s reduced colour scheme, es- the sinking sun, their poses reminiscent of Renaissance sentially consisting of pink, violet and green, is again goddesses or nymphs. Instead of a contemporary scene of taken up in the landscape beyond, visually linking both Fig Henri Matisse Luxury Calm and Pleasure Centre Pompidou Paris bourgeois recreation, we here encounter a more oneiric picture planes and resulting in a remarkably unified Fig Henri Matisse Moroccan Landscape Acanthes Moderna Museet Stockholm image of the Midi as a space of timeless beauty and joy. composition. As the art historian Shirley Neilsen Blum
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 132-133 16.08.17 11:42 Cat Pierre Bonnard The Family in the Garden GrandLemps ca Kunsthaus Zürich Cat Henri Matisse The Gulf of SaintTropez Kunstsammlung NordrheinWestfalen Düsseldorf
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 138-139 16.08.17 11:42 Cat Pierre Bonnard The Family in the Garden GrandLemps ca Kunsthaus Zürich Cat Henri Matisse The Gulf of SaintTropez Kunstsammlung NordrheinWestfalen Düsseldorf
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 138-139 16.08.17 11:42 Women/The Nude
ELENA SCHROLL
“My models, human figures, are never just ‘extras’ in an realized this differed markedly, in both of their works the interior. They are the principal theme of my work,” de- female figure appeared primarily in connection with the clared Henri Matisse in 1939 in his essay “Notes of a interior. In Matisse’s work she encounters the viewer Painter on His Drawing”.1 Throughout his life, there was first and foremost in the form of a dreamy, self-engrossed scarcely any other subject that was as fascinating to him odalisque set against an Oriental décor, whereas Bonnard as the female nude. When he began painting around the took in timate scenes of the bath and boudoir as his turn of the century, he approached the human body in preferred theme. classic studies after the model, placing it in traditional With the painting Olympia of 1863 (fig. 1) studio poses. In addition to experimentation with the Édouard Manet had not only aroused great indignation application of paint, bodily proportions were the focus of among his contemporaries but also initiated a develop- his work, whereas space was often only suggested through ment in nude painting that would inspire numerous broad brushstrokes (cat. 64). Over time the background artists to follow. In terms of composition the represen- took on a greater relevance, often acquiring elaborately tation of unclothed women reclining on pillows stands in staged backdrops. the tradition of Renaissance nudes such as Titian’s Venus Images of the opposite sex are also of central of Urbino (1538, Uffizi, Florence). But although Manet importance in the oeuvre of his fellow painter and clearly looks to the works of his predecessors and sug- long-time friend, Pierre Bonnard. Like Matisse, Bonnard gests a mythologizing context with the title, he departs first studied in Paris at the private Académie Julian and from previous pictorial conventions by presenting a real later at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he learned woman and not a goddess. Up to that point the profane to draw after the live model as well as from sculptures unclothed body had been subject to a taboo, so that in the collection of the Musée du Louvre. However, he nudity generally appeared under the pretext of religious, soon abandoned the traditional gestures of painting the mythologizing or historical guises. Manet liberated the nude. The ossification in classically arranged poses nude from this corset and placed it in the present day, an yielded to the free movement of his protagonists in artistic strategy on which Matisse and Bonnard would domestic inter iors. Although the ways the two artists also draw in their images of nude women.
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 152-153 16.08.17 11:43 Women/The Nude
ELENA SCHROLL
“My models, human figures, are never just ‘extras’ in an realized this differed markedly, in both of their works the interior. They are the principal theme of my work,” de- female figure appeared primarily in connection with the clared Henri Matisse in 1939 in his essay “Notes of a interior. In Matisse’s work she encounters the viewer Painter on His Drawing”.1 Throughout his life, there was first and foremost in the form of a dreamy, self-engrossed scarcely any other subject that was as fascinating to him odalisque set against an Oriental décor, whereas Bonnard as the female nude. When he began painting around the took in timate scenes of the bath and boudoir as his turn of the century, he approached the human body in preferred theme. classic studies after the model, placing it in traditional With the painting Olympia of 1863 (fig. 1) studio poses. In addition to experimentation with the Édouard Manet had not only aroused great indignation application of paint, bodily proportions were the focus of among his contemporaries but also initiated a develop- his work, whereas space was often only suggested through ment in nude painting that would inspire numerous broad brushstrokes (cat. 64). Over time the background artists to follow. In terms of composition the represen- took on a greater relevance, often acquiring elaborately tation of unclothed women reclining on pillows stands in staged backdrops. the tradition of Renaissance nudes such as Titian’s Venus Images of the opposite sex are also of central of Urbino (1538, Uffizi, Florence). But although Manet importance in the oeuvre of his fellow painter and clearly looks to the works of his predecessors and sug- long-time friend, Pierre Bonnard. Like Matisse, Bonnard gests a mythologizing context with the title, he departs first studied in Paris at the private Académie Julian and from previous pictorial conventions by presenting a real later at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he learned woman and not a goddess. Up to that point the profane to draw after the live model as well as from sculptures unclothed body had been subject to a taboo, so that in the collection of the Musée du Louvre. However, he nudity generally appeared under the pretext of religious, soon abandoned the traditional gestures of painting the mythologizing or historical guises. Manet liberated the nude. The ossification in classically arranged poses nude from this corset and placed it in the present day, an yielded to the free movement of his protagonists in artistic strategy on which Matisse and Bonnard would domestic inter iors. Although the ways the two artists also draw in their images of nude women.
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 152-153 16.08.17 11:43 Inspired by travels to Algeria and Morocco, away from her body and glides to the green and yellow the motif of the odalisque became a favourite subject in striped upholstery, the fiery red floor, the tambourine in Matisse’s oeuvre. The artist was filled with admiration for the upper right-hand corner and the wallpaper decorated the Orient and avidly collected foreign artefacts, dec- with flower tendrils. The model appears as part of a orative fabrics, garments and rugs. In his studio on Place decorative ensemble; she becomes the centre of an Charles-Félix in Nice he arranged exotic objects into Orientalizing fantasy in which the ideal of an atmosphere theatrical stage sets that served him until 1938 as scenery withdrawn from earthly concerns is given visual form. for many of his works. In contrast to Bonnard, he worked In the 1930s Matisse increasingly devoted his predominantly with professional models who appear like attention to the simplification of forms and surfaces. actresses in exotic attire in a meticulously conceived mise This is evidenced by the 1935 painting Large Reclining en scène. Frequently the odalisques lie stretched out on a Nude (cat. 79), for which his studio assistant Lydia diwan with heavy pillows, thus following the pictorial Delectorskaya posed. Stretched out upon a blue and formula of Manet and his predecessors. white chequered ground lies a naked woman. Her upper In Reclining Nude with a Drape (cat. 74), for body is supported by her left arm while the right one rests example, the model rests on a white chaise longue that is serenely behind her head. She directs her face at the only rendered in a cursory manner. The woman’s upper viewer and at the same time her slightly bent leg denies body is supported by two colourfully decorated pillows. him a view of her pudendum. The female form takes up She has raised her arms provocatively to her head, em- almost the entire pictorial space, in the background only phasizing her bare breasts. Her crotch, in contrast, is a vase with yellow flowers and the spiral-shaped back of covered by the light-coloured harem pants. In com- a chair can be made out. Matisse devoted more than five parison with Matisse’s other odalisque images the sim- months to working out this motif, documenting the plicity of the room is striking; the background is merely various stages of the painting’s development with a total suggested by means of a red fabric. The artist repeatedly of 22 photographs taken from May to October 1935 (see devoted himself to the same motif, in which the trad- pp. 24/25). These reveal that he increasingly reduced the itional Venus pose remained a fixed component of his forms of figure and space in favour of an emphatically visual repertoire, as in the paintings Nude on a Yellow Sofa flat design. The largely realistic proportions of the body (cat. 76) and Odalisques (cat. 75). Just how much his work gradually yielded to a flat, elongated torso with stocky is associated with this pictorial arrangement is also limbs and a comparatively small head. The model’s curvy revealed by the humorous 1929 photograph of Bonnard, silhouette thus stands out from the uniform grid-like who posed as an odalisque in the Oriental decoration of pattern of the ground where in the earlier versions a a niche in Matisse’s studio in Nice (see p. 68, fig. 1). simple monochrome lounge could still be discerned. The The erotically charged presentation of young, bouquet of flowers and the chair were also increasingly reclining odalisques must be understood in the context reduced to their outlines during the process, until ultim- of nineteenth-century French Orientalizing painting. ately their basic features could only be intuited. The Matisse was eminently familiar with the harem scenes of painter’s reiteration of the flesh tone of the female body Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, in in the vase can be interpreted as an allusion to the equal measure decadent and sensual (see fig. 2). However, connection between femininity and nature – a common he soon developed the motif into his own visual idiom: feature in Matisse’s work; the snail-like decorative elem- much more so than his predecessors, he aspired to a unity ent of the chair back might function as a further sym- of figure and surrounding space, which he sought to bol of florescence and fertility. With its extreme reduc- achieve through an interplay of colourful and ornamental tion to essentials the composition was an important har- surface designs; in this the ornament functioned not only binger of Matisse’s late working phase, anticipating the as decorative accessory but rather as an essential means stencil-like flatness of his cut-outs (see cat. 114–133). of expression. What catches the eye in the composition The formal correspondences between this Odalisque with a Tambourine (cat. 69) is the woman major work by Matisse and Bonnard’s Reclining Nude stretched out in an armchair, with a transparent material against a White and Blue Plaid (cat. 78), painted almost playing around her naked curves. Although she looks at 30 years earlier, are striking. It is well conceivable that the viewer from the front, she seems inaccessible and her Matisse’s redesigning of the composition was inspired in Fig Édouard Manet Olympia Musée d’Orsay Paris face lies in shadow. The viewer’s gaze inevitably wanders important ways by Bonnard’s image. Both works captivate Fig JeanAugusteDominique Ingres Grande Odalisque Musée du Louvre Paris
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 154-155 16.08.17 11:43 Inspired by travels to Algeria and Morocco, away from her body and glides to the green and yellow the motif of the odalisque became a favourite subject in striped upholstery, the fiery red floor, the tambourine in Matisse’s oeuvre. The artist was filled with admiration for the upper right-hand corner and the wallpaper decorated the Orient and avidly collected foreign artefacts, dec- with flower tendrils. The model appears as part of a orative fabrics, garments and rugs. In his studio on Place decorative ensemble; she becomes the centre of an Charles-Félix in Nice he arranged exotic objects into Orientalizing fantasy in which the ideal of an atmosphere theatrical stage sets that served him until 1938 as scenery withdrawn from earthly concerns is given visual form. for many of his works. In contrast to Bonnard, he worked In the 1930s Matisse increasingly devoted his predominantly with professional models who appear like attention to the simplification of forms and surfaces. actresses in exotic attire in a meticulously conceived mise This is evidenced by the 1935 painting Large Reclining en scène. Frequently the odalisques lie stretched out on a Nude (cat. 79), for which his studio assistant Lydia diwan with heavy pillows, thus following the pictorial Delectorskaya posed. Stretched out upon a blue and formula of Manet and his predecessors. white chequered ground lies a naked woman. Her upper In Reclining Nude with a Drape (cat. 74), for body is supported by her left arm while the right one rests example, the model rests on a white chaise longue that is serenely behind her head. She directs her face at the only rendered in a cursory manner. The woman’s upper viewer and at the same time her slightly bent leg denies body is supported by two colourfully decorated pillows. him a view of her pudendum. The female form takes up She has raised her arms provocatively to her head, em- almost the entire pictorial space, in the background only phasizing her bare breasts. Her crotch, in contrast, is a vase with yellow flowers and the spiral-shaped back of covered by the light-coloured harem pants. In com- a chair can be made out. Matisse devoted more than five parison with Matisse’s other odalisque images the sim- months to working out this motif, documenting the plicity of the room is striking; the background is merely various stages of the painting’s development with a total suggested by means of a red fabric. The artist repeatedly of 22 photographs taken from May to October 1935 (see devoted himself to the same motif, in which the trad- pp. 24/25). These reveal that he increasingly reduced the itional Venus pose remained a fixed component of his forms of figure and space in favour of an emphatically visual repertoire, as in the paintings Nude on a Yellow Sofa flat design. The largely realistic proportions of the body (cat. 76) and Odalisques (cat. 75). Just how much his work gradually yielded to a flat, elongated torso with stocky is associated with this pictorial arrangement is also limbs and a comparatively small head. The model’s curvy revealed by the humorous 1929 photograph of Bonnard, silhouette thus stands out from the uniform grid-like who posed as an odalisque in the Oriental decoration of pattern of the ground where in the earlier versions a a niche in Matisse’s studio in Nice (see p. 68, fig. 1). simple monochrome lounge could still be discerned. The The erotically charged presentation of young, bouquet of flowers and the chair were also increasingly reclining odalisques must be understood in the context reduced to their outlines during the process, until ultim- of nineteenth-century French Orientalizing painting. ately their basic features could only be intuited. The Matisse was eminently familiar with the harem scenes of painter’s reiteration of the flesh tone of the female body Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, in in the vase can be interpreted as an allusion to the equal measure decadent and sensual (see fig. 2). However, connection between femininity and nature – a common he soon developed the motif into his own visual idiom: feature in Matisse’s work; the snail-like decorative elem- much more so than his predecessors, he aspired to a unity ent of the chair back might function as a further sym- of figure and surrounding space, which he sought to bol of florescence and fertility. With its extreme reduc- achieve through an interplay of colourful and ornamental tion to essentials the composition was an important har- surface designs; in this the ornament functioned not only binger of Matisse’s late working phase, anticipating the as decorative accessory but rather as an essential means stencil-like flatness of his cut-outs (see cat. 114–133). of expression. What catches the eye in the composition The formal correspondences between this Odalisque with a Tambourine (cat. 69) is the woman major work by Matisse and Bonnard’s Reclining Nude stretched out in an armchair, with a transparent material against a White and Blue Plaid (cat. 78), painted almost playing around her naked curves. Although she looks at 30 years earlier, are striking. It is well conceivable that the viewer from the front, she seems inaccessible and her Matisse’s redesigning of the composition was inspired in Fig Édouard Manet Olympia Musée d’Orsay Paris face lies in shadow. The viewer’s gaze inevitably wanders important ways by Bonnard’s image. Both works captivate Fig JeanAugusteDominique Ingres Grande Odalisque Musée du Louvre Paris
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 154-155 16.08.17 11:43 Cat Henri Matisse Nude on a Yellow Sofa National Gallery of Canada Ottawa Cat Pierre Bonnard The Fireplace Woman at Her Toilet Private collection
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 172-173 16.08.17 11:44 Cat Henri Matisse Nude on a Yellow Sofa National Gallery of Canada Ottawa Cat Pierre Bonnard The Fireplace Woman at Her Toilet Private collection
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 172-173 16.08.17 11:44
Chronology
LISA PREGITZER
Pierre Bonnard is born in Fontenay- Henri Matisse is born on 31 December From the beginning of the twentieth aux-Roses, near Paris, on 3 October 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in the century Bonnard and Matisse move 1867. In 1885 he begins studying law North of France. After studying law in in the same circles. However, their and also attends painting courses at Paris as well as working briefly as a first personal encounter is not docu- the Académie Julian in Paris. He sub- paralegal, he abandons law in 1891, mented. The following chronology sequently enrols at the École des instead enrolling at the Académie gives insights into important stages of Beaux-Arts. In 1893 he makes the Julian. His lover, Caroline Joblaud, their lives through the course of their acquaintance of Maria Boursin, who gives birth to their daughter Marguer- artistic friendship, which lasted over calls herself Marthe de Méligny and ite in 1894. Four years later Matisse 40 years, from Bonnard’s solo exhib- who remains his life companion and marries Amélie Parayre. Their sons ition at the Vollard gallery in 1906 most important model until her death Jean Gérard and Pierre are born in until his death in 1947. in 1942. With his designs for prints 1899 and 1900. Whereas Bonnard is and advertising graphics as well as his already one of the most renowned connection to the painters’ group artists in France in the 1890s, Matisse known as the Nabis he already be- only attains increasing recognition in comes well known in the 1890s and the French art scene after participat- enjoys considerable financial success. ing in the Salon d’automne of 1905.
Fig Brassaï Pierre Bonnard in his studio in Le Cannet Private collection
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 218-219 16.08.17 11:47
Chronology
LISA PREGITZER
Pierre Bonnard is born in Fontenay- Henri Matisse is born on 31 December From the beginning of the twentieth aux-Roses, near Paris, on 3 October 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in the century Bonnard and Matisse move 1867. In 1885 he begins studying law North of France. After studying law in in the same circles. However, their and also attends painting courses at Paris as well as working briefly as a first personal encounter is not docu- the Académie Julian in Paris. He sub- paralegal, he abandons law in 1891, mented. The following chronology sequently enrols at the École des instead enrolling at the Académie gives insights into important stages of Beaux-Arts. In 1893 he makes the Julian. His lover, Caroline Joblaud, their lives through the course of their acquaintance of Maria Boursin, who gives birth to their daughter Marguer- artistic friendship, which lasted over calls herself Marthe de Méligny and ite in 1894. Four years later Matisse 40 years, from Bonnard’s solo exhib- who remains his life companion and marries Amélie Parayre. Their sons ition at the Vollard gallery in 1906 most important model until her death Jean Gérard and Pierre are born in until his death in 1947. in 1942. With his designs for prints 1899 and 1900. Whereas Bonnard is and advertising graphics as well as his already one of the most renowned connection to the painters’ group artists in France in the 1890s, Matisse known as the Nabis he already be- only attains increasing recognition in comes well known in the 1890s and the French art scene after participat- enjoys considerable financial success. ing in the Salon d’automne of 1905.
Fig Brassaï Pierre Bonnard in his studio in Le Cannet Private collection
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 218-219 16.08.17 11:47 lead. What an intensive life the ture , which he loved and cele brated colours have, and how they vary so much, herself was sharing in with the light! I make discoveries our grief.” every day, and I have to thank you In the winter of 1947 Christian Zervos, for this pleasure and this instruc- a prominent critic and editor of the tion. […]” journal Cahiers d’art, publishes an es- In August the French-Hungarian pho- say on Bonnard, in which he answers to grapher Brassaï visits Matisse and the central question – “Is Pierre Bon- Bonnard, whom he portrays in front of nard a great painter?” – with a clear four of his late works (fig. 1), including “No”. Matisse reacts with a fierce his last painting, Almond Tree in Blos- letter of complaint and paints over his som (p. 65, fig. 9). In his reminiscences, own issue of the journal with the published under the title Les Artistes de words “Yes! I certify that Pierre Bon- ma vie (1982), he draws a comparison nard is a great painter, for today and between the luxury and opulence of definitely also for the future […].” Matisse’s rooms in Le Rêve and the (fig. 20). Fig André Ostier Pierre Bonnard in his ascetic humbleness of Bonnard’s rus- Studio in Le Cannet tic furnishing in Le Bosquet. Bonnard ends his notes on painting, which he had begun in 1927, with a final journal entry in 1946: “I hope that my painting will en - dure without craquelure. I should like to present myself to the young painters of the year 2000 with the wings of a butterfly.”
Bonnard dies on 23 January and is bur- ied beside his wife in the cemetery of Le Cannet. Among the numerous honours bestowed upon the artist in the year of his death is also a compre- hensive retrospective in the Parisian Musée de l’Orangerie, for which Ma- Fig Willy Maywald Henri Matisse’s tisse provides Bonnard’s Evening in the studio in Vence Living Room (cat. 20) as a loan. Ma- tisse discusses the death of his friend with Charles Terrasse, to whom he suggests that a death mask of his uncle be made. Terrasse reports to him on 2 March about the funeral: “You, who knew my uncle Bon- nard so well, you understand all that we have lost with him. […] He rests now in Le Cannet. We led him to his final resting place on a Fig Christian Zervos’ article in Cahiers d’art with a handwritten statement by Henri Matisse “Yes! I certify that Pierre Bonnard is a cold day. […] It seemed as if na- great painter for today and definitely also for the future … ”
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 228-229 16.08.17 11:48 lead. What an intensive life the ture , which he loved and cele brated colours have, and how they vary so much, herself was sharing in with the light! I make discoveries our grief.” every day, and I have to thank you In the winter of 1947 Christian Zervos, for this pleasure and this instruc- a prominent critic and editor of the tion. […]” journal Cahiers d’art, publishes an es- In August the French-Hungarian pho- say on Bonnard, in which he answers to grapher Brassaï visits Matisse and the central question – “Is Pierre Bon- Bonnard, whom he portrays in front of nard a great painter?” – with a clear four of his late works (fig. 1), including “No”. Matisse reacts with a fierce his last painting, Almond Tree in Blos- letter of complaint and paints over his som (p. 65, fig. 9). In his reminiscences, own issue of the journal with the published under the title Les Artistes de words “Yes! I certify that Pierre Bon- ma vie (1982), he draws a comparison nard is a great painter, for today and between the luxury and opulence of definitely also for the future […].” Matisse’s rooms in Le Rêve and the (fig. 20). Fig André Ostier Pierre Bonnard in his ascetic humbleness of Bonnard’s rus- Studio in Le Cannet tic furnishing in Le Bosquet. Bonnard ends his notes on painting, which he had begun in 1927, with a final journal entry in 1946: “I hope that my painting will en - dure without craquelure. I should like to present myself to the young painters of the year 2000 with the wings of a butterfly.”
Bonnard dies on 23 January and is bur- ied beside his wife in the cemetery of Le Cannet. Among the numerous honours bestowed upon the artist in the year of his death is also a compre- hensive retrospective in the Parisian Musée de l’Orangerie, for which Ma- Fig Willy Maywald Henri Matisse’s tisse provides Bonnard’s Evening in the studio in Vence Living Room (cat. 20) as a loan. Ma- tisse discusses the death of his friend with Charles Terrasse, to whom he suggests that a death mask of his uncle be made. Terrasse reports to him on 2 March about the funeral: “You, who knew my uncle Bon- nard so well, you understand all that we have lost with him. […] He rests now in Le Cannet. We led him to his final resting place on a Fig Christian Zervos’ article in Cahiers d’art with a handwritten statement by Henri Matisse “Yes! I certify that Pierre Bonnard is a cold day. […] It seemed as if na- great painter for today and definitely also for the future … ”
MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 228-229 16.08.17 11:48