The charms associated with finde-siecle Paris continue to delight us after nearly a century. No matter how much contemporary historians may choose to focus on the harsher social realities of the era - the political corruption of the Third Republic, its rabid nationalism, the anti-Semitism of the Dreyfus Affair - nothing seems to lesson the spell of the “Belle Epoque.”
One reason for the extraordinary ongoing interest in the years 1880-1914 is its depiction by such artists as Pierre Bonnard in both his paintings and graphic work, as well as in works of fellow artists like Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Forain, and Vauillard. The art of that era recording the lively Parisian boulevards, cabarets, elegant private dinners, graceful nudes, and pastoral outings created a certain image, however specialized, of an appealing style of life that lingers on in our memories.
What distinguishes Bonnard's work from that of his peers, as a seen most recently in the exhibition Pierre Bonnard: The Graphic Work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is a sociability tempered by introspection. Here was a man enamored of the sweep and color of urban life, but more often concerned with the isolated figure, the small, singular detail, or the intimate moment. It is interesting to note that in his early ears Bonnard created graphic work destined for a large popular audience while continuing to paint for a more select clientele.
Spectacularly Popular
Between 1889 and 1902 Bonnard produced over 2,590 lithographs. His first commission, at age twenty-two, was for a poster advertising Debray's France-Champagne. The result was a spectacularly popular, career-launching poster which showed a stylized, high-spirited young woman in light golden tones with a fan in one hand and a glass of champagne raised in the other. Her drink bubbles over into a foam that fills the bottom of the picture, where the words "E. Debray, Proprietaire" are prominently displayed.
If this image of worldly frivolity seems in opposition to Bonnard's later, a best-known works of intimate family scenes and magical rendering s of the French Riviera, it was still a way to launch a young artist. The year marked by the inauguration of the Universal Exposition and the Eiffel Tower saw young Bonnard - fresh from law school and determined to break free from his parents' desire for a safe career - throwing himself into Parisian bohemian life.
Bonnard fell in with a group of artists known as the Nabis, who gave him much to think about as well as offering him useful contacts. Rejecting the subject matter of both the Salon painters and the impressionists, the Nabis - influenced in part by Japanese prints - advocated spare, flat forms and bright colors, always striving to evoke a mood rather than merely record a scene. This suited Bonnard's temperament perfectly. His 1894 color lithograph La Revue Blanche, for instance, which was printed as an advertisement for the famous avant-garde magazine of that title, makes remarkable us e of compressed space and a patterned background. A gamin is pointing to an elegantly dressed woman holding a copy of the journal. Like Toulouse-Lautrec's posters, Bonnard's graphic art created an immediate impact while suggesting a certain sense of
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