High colored reopening for the Museum of
Modern art of the Town of Paris after two years of total structural
restoration. 80 works of Bonnard will be shown to better
know this unclassable painter, with the rather easy seduction but with
the often ignored visual message. One had not thus seen it in
Paris for 22 years. This modern with the relents of late
impressionism was often satisfied with simple subjects, close to him,
but which take today the particular relief of strong daily
testimonies. The simple representation of his wife taking her
bath
in the family bath-tub classified Bonnard during a while in the
category
of the "ingenuous" artists. His wife Marthe will remain
the ultimate icon of the majority of her paintings. Bonnard the nabi
is actually much more sophisticated
than it does appear
usually. The subjects are simple, the colors are bright and
richly
dispersed, but, a hidden expressionism, an abstract melancholy often
surrounds these flowered appearances. Time for us to change our
glance and to appreciate these paintings like as many felt
emotions but moderately spread out, to exceed the simple scene of kind
and its banal reputation. Let us observe how Marthe, the model
wife, gradually loses her face with the evolution of time, to become
universal woman. The construction of the paintings also deserves
a special attention. Their geography is often an smart
mathematics which articulates several subjects in one, invading space
with elaborate gradations.
