Bonnard: Bringing Painting to Life

[Music] I hope my paintings will last without cracking I would like to appear before the young painters of the year 2000 with butterfly wings [Applause] across the globe in the world's biggest museums the air bond house paintings have stood the test of time the man who wanted to bring a live painting create work that was timeless as if suspended the air burner was known as the painter of happiness and spent his life painting intimate scenes his canvases are explosions of color which embellish reality and bring out the sacred quality of light straddling two eras and constantly bucking the trend he rejected all the theories and went his own way he made work that was both remarkable and unclassifiable and yet hiding behind his colorful paintings was a melancholic lonely and solitary man obsessed by color and a perfectionist he was ferociously hard on himself only by immersing ourselves in his work can we begin to understand quite how complex and private Pierre bond are Wars [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] nothing in pierre banas history hints at the fact that he would one day become a painter who was obsessed with color and with conveying sensuality humanity and nature in his paintings he was born in Fontana or Rose one morning in the autumn of 1867 in the countryside just outside Paris his father Eugen was a civil servant in the war ministry his mother Elizabeth was a housewife the family lived in ordinary for jawar life in this small suburban house there was no extravagance or folly pierre grew up with his head in his books studying Latin and Greek he developed his keen eye for his surroundings elsewhere on contact with nature each year he went with his family to lagron log a small village in Asare in the foothills of the Alps [Music] he spent many happy and carefree summers in this sprawling family home it was a happy house these were times he spent with his parents grandparents and siblings they were times for sharing and discovery for sensory delights he had fond memories of family holidays at LeGrande lumps the villagers would congregate in the streets in cafes surrounded by grownups the air was a very reserved and discreet boy quietly observing what went on around him in 1881 at the age of 14 he found a way of expressing himself he started doing little sketches soon despite never having had any lessons pa was showing a facility for drawing his parents and the people who crossed his path discipline ELISA watch Illinois from his first drawings it is clear that he had a good eye and the skill to capture the intricate details of village life and its inhabitants he knew how to convey an atmosphere and people's emotions and feelings to the personage [Music] [Music] little by little he discovered his surroundings for himself the luscious vegetation the golden cornfields and the colorful landscapes were etched on his memory he would lose himself in the surrounding woods and experience nature through the eyes of a child [Music] he painted a lot of country scenes though female landscapes animals cows goats images of twisted tree trunks rabbits hamsters frogs he was close to nature and I think he liked walking in the woods Pierre clearly had a gift for joy but no one ever imagined he could make a living out of it his father had big plans for him and couldn't in visit him having anything other than a respectable career Pierre was a taciturn teenager who buried himself in his drawings however Eugen Bonner was somehow convinced he would make a good lawyer naturally his father wanted him to study law so he sent his son to university at the Sorbonne that was obviously quite common in bourgeois circles [Music] in 1885 the air turned 18 after sitting his baccalaureate he moved to Paris and spent his days in the lecture theatres of the prestigious Sorbonne the atmosphere with studious but the young man was not very focused on his studies he could think only of drawing so a few months later this law student timidly pushed open the doors to the air colder bozer there he discovered another world with an artistic sensibility and creativity that he could relate to every day after revising for his law exams he'd put on a smock grab his tubes of color and head for the air colder bozer he was so enthused it took him no time at all to fit it with the other students he was soon part of a new family composed to fellow artists Paul Theru za Eduardo yar and several others young rebel artists his own violence echo aged 18 to 25 these bearded long-haired youngsters spent their time drawing having fun and paintings but however captivated he was by his new artist friends Pierre Bonnard was bored stiff in class [Music] at the ecole that bows are they were taught academic theories and to respect the hierarchy of artists they studied the great masters from antiquity up to the early 19th century so a great deal of attention was paid to lineage and to theoretic and academic principles the students had had enough of having to produce history paintings depicting bombastic figures who adopted the stance of ancient heroes disappointed the young pierre longed to rediscover the thrill of afternoons spent in the woods as a child but in 1888 at the age of 21 he saw a small painting which REME motivated him and changed his relationship with nature and color forever it had been painted by Paul Theru za one of his friends from the Ecole des Vosges ah it's an amazing story a few weeks previously in midsummer Paul Saru CA had been on holiday in Pont Aven in Brittany at the boarding house where he stayed he met an artist in his forties Paul Gauguin goken who was still unknown at the time and penniless grew fond of the young Paul's suruci a he wanted to help him develop his observational skills and style the two men sat in front of a very simple landscape a wood and a river and Paul Saru CA started painting listening carefully to gogans instructions it's a tiny painting rapidly executed on the lid of a cigar box forming a wooden panel Paul Gaga had dictated to him how to paint it Govan had said to him how do you see those trees you see yellow so paint them yellow how do you see that leaf red so used vermilion goken dictated the colors so he ended up with a landscape full of very bold colors that were completely unrealistic he used red blue green and yellow which are very distinct colors the colors are pure they haven't mixed and this was a time when artists painted in dull colors that summer the genial Paul Gauguin gave him some invaluable advice art is an abstraction take inspiration from nature and think of the creative process rather than the result on his return to Paris Paul Theru CA took his friends aside in the corridors of the Ecole de bolsa and discreetly took out this small painting as if it were a hidden treasure the painting was passed around when Pierre bon Arland over it he was speechless he was bowled over by these bold abstract blocks of bright colors by this unrealistic but expressive landscape the students were all filled with enthusiasm for the bold colors and the simplicity of this small painting which became a sort of talisman it revealed to them what nature could look like if you dared to heighten the tones Goggan was quick to understand that these young artists were the new generation who wanted to take risks this was something new for them here was a doorway a portal even for them to go through it opened up new possibilities [Music] the possibilities were endless Mona and his friends started a rebel against the overstretch theories at the Ecole de bursa one evening at 28 Rupa girl over an animated discussion they started their own movement they set up a group called linear B which means profits in Hebrew NoHo called home they sometimes met in secret presenting their new works and reading texts they held initiation ceremonies for new members this was a spiritual Brotherhood of about a dozen young artists who wanted to celebrate color and simplify forms at the meetings they all showed their paintings and discussed new ideas Paul Saru CA took the simplification process further he attempted a new style of painting with pared down forms Edouard Villar turned to abstraction [Music] within this group painting took on new meaning for Pierre Bonner becoming a painter became a necessity in 1889 he painted his first self-portrait what he was saying about himself was radical no his eyes are dark and quite piercing and his gaze is directed staring out from behind his small round glasses in his hand he is holding paintbrushes and a palette this painting is almost like an identity card with it he is saying I am a painter I have decided to become a painter it is as if he is taking his vows as a painter instead of becoming a lawyer he has decided to become a painter with this painting Pierre Bana is drawing a line under his intended career as a lawyer he has always been hesitant and a bit withdrawn but now he seems more self-assured than ever at the age of 22 he has chosen freedom sake let's see what he wants is to be free he wants to be an artist he's wanted that all along like any young man he's rebelling against his father and against the establishment he wants to be free he wants to be able to do what he likes doing and what he feels he does best and that's painting in 1890 he found somewhere to work he set up his first studio in Rula Chappellet in burton you're taking his first step towards freedom [Music] through this life as an artist that he had long dreamed of bana discovered a Paris that was unpredictable and liberated the Paris of Moe March and it's Bohemians cafe life Atlas Shinhwa and the Petit poussey on place Clichy [Music] the buzz of pig out with its new cabarets which were flourishing and liven up Parisian nights this bustling nightlife provided him with a new subject matter sir Bobby the fair this was the Paris of wild parties the Paris of the Moulin Rouge of the newly built Eiffel Tower of the World Fair of the Metro of horse-drawn carriages of crinoline dresses this was a place not of debauchery but of pleasure and fun this was somewhere it was possible to live the bohemian life and that's the life that Pierre bon are wanted to discover he might have seemed like a sensible man but he was attracted to that lifestyle as citizen I'm Ramesh what's Candido passenger died in these streets teeming with life his curiosity was boundless the young painter drew everything around him passes by and marched street scenes always on the lookout for something new to feed his work he trolled museums and galleries his curious gaze lingering [Music] then one day in 1890 he and his fellow nabi witnessed an event which over the next few months would take the Parisian art world by storm a major exhibition of Japanese art [Music] is the most must have a lecture this exhibition was a huge revelation to the artists the sheer number and vast array of works on show made a real impact not only on the more academic artists but also on all these artists of the avant-garde this liberated expressive use of color was a real revelation for a whole generation the whole of Paris was mesmerised than there be were there but also MANET Degas Renoir and Paul Gauguin they discovered more than 700 Japanese prints by Hokusai Hiroshi gay and out Amaro a real sight for sore eyes [Applause] [Music] tsavorite or what the artists took from these prints was this very precise outline of each figure a relatively sinuous lines which we later see in paintings by Pierre Bonnard the Japanese also used very decorative geometric patterns which Pierre bon are loved it's not for nothing that he became known as the navvies upon our along with everyone else Pierre Bona was bowled over by the audacity of this simplified line but something else disturbed him he had a very strong affinity with the philosophy of these Japanese artists Hokusai's gentle approach to nature his strong almost mystical connection with the elements Pierre was fascinated by the Great Wave and 36 views of Mount Fuji he had finally found paintings depicting the natural charm that he had found so moving in the countryside of his childhood yes FN Lord Allah up there is definitely a spiritual dimension to Japanese art especially in these contemplative paintings of nature the graphic arts were very important to Bona at the start of his career helping him to pursue a very radical modern style of painting [Music] the young painters work changed radically after that his lines became simplified his backgrounds and volumes were replaced by more abstract forms giovanna unlearned what he had been taught and when he started painting the female figure he did so as simply as possible a family from his present angle now women feature prominently in the young bond ours were these were the carefree Parisian women he bumped into he chose and hired his models for their simplicity and their spontaneity that's the feeling we get from the first female figures to appear in his paintings [Music] surprisingly just as the young painters seemed to be finding his style it was a commission for an advert that gave him his first breakthrough [Music] in 1891 he was commissioned by France champagne to make an advertising poster he drew on his recent influences taking inspiration from Hokusai and the Parisian women he frequented to make a groundbreaking poster [Music] in PVC to shop burn yeah it's an advert for champagne depicted by a frivolous young woman who has had a fair bit to drink so she's a bit tipsy there are bubbles bursting all over the place and her glass is overflowing it shows that very French joy de vivre coupled with refinement that champagne represents it's a very successful poster with very little colour predominantly yellow like champagne and it was to follow bana throughout his career until the end of his life it's very modern because this was a time when posters didn't attempt to convey any deaths they were completely flat he got 100 francs for that commission that was a substantial amount at the time his poster went up all over Paris forcing his father to express his admiration at the age of 24 Pierre had had his first breakthrough console Berghof when his father learned that his son had landed his first contract he danced in the garden was delightful the father was thrilled that his son success it was a first step but Bona was attracted to something more than the money or the recognition the poster was made using a mechanized printing technique lithography this machine printed in layers color by color so the choice of shades of color was important from bright colors to pure black the young painter learned to find the perfect tone the artists were obliged to work color by color which led them to rediscover color to quote one art obviously he could only focus on the yellow parts when he wanted to use yellow then the pink parts and then the black parts working monochromatic Lee forced him to reflect on the effects of each color while Pierre was experimenting with lithography at his printers a young painter in his 20s was searching all over for him in the streets of Marmara [Music] Omri toulouse-lautrec was a young out-of-work illustrator who was impressed by the France champagne poster and desperate to meet its creator Joe Bernards it's for something long because I'll tell him Oh Pierre Bonnard simply said to him listen come with me I'll introduce you to my printer and so he invited him to go and see his printer the printer was delighted and challenged them both to create a poster for the Moulin Rouge Pierre Bonnard and Toulouse Lautrec both rose to the challenge but Toulouse Lautrec won the competition which was the start of a successful career designing publicity posters he made over 400 posters and prints in his life Pierre Bonnard seemed to make way for Toulouse Lautrec as if it was obvious to him that it was in Toulouse Lautrec interest to go down that route Pierre Bona never challenged on read Toulouse Lautrec position as the leading poster artist since shortly afterwards he met someone who would turn his life and work upside down [Music] [Music] in 1893 quite by chance in the street Pierre met master de Melanie a slender woman with long hair and piercing eyes she was wild and mysterious as well as beautiful and Pierre fell head-over-heels in love with her he was 26 and she was 24 suspicious horrible that was man it happened on Boulevard Haussmann in black during Russia the roads were full of carriages cars and buses all racing past at breakneck speed and Marta was attempting to cross the road oblivious to the risk she was taking Pierre Bonner who had been strolling around Paris taking it all in just happened to be passing and he saved her she was pretty and quite slight the sort of woman you want to paint I can see why Pierre was so smitten [Music] in her company the timid boy became a confident man who was asserting himself as a painter after their first nights as lovers Pierre bond are painted his first nudes the blocks of color were gone these were the idealized forms of a sensual body this painting the indolent woman is an erotic masterpiece [Music] he didn't move oh he was in love unlike all lovers he had a muse we see Martin naked in the sheets just after making love she seems to be reaching a climax in the painting he is unveiling her the curves of her body are uncovered and he is taking the liberty of painting them perhaps it is Marta's naked body which leads him to want to use color to create volume through Marta he discovered what it meant for a man and a woman to be in love that was very visible in his painting there followed other major works like the indolent woman such as man and woman this was an important phase in his work this subdued somber eroticism you can imagine that this was after a lovemaking session she is playing with the cats while the man is getting dressed he is very vertical and this would have had a strong impact in its day this picture painted in 1900 must have been quite shocking for some the couple moved into a small apartment in Montmartre time stopped still when he was with her he would get up at dawn and discover a new light every day delicately resting on martyrs skin he started painting that light [Music] Marta didn't sit for him she simply lived beside him Pierre banas work came alive he painted numerous nude portraits of this woman he had fallen madly in love with mm okay master he sketched martyr washing martyr in the bathtub mater putting on her stockings always intimate scenes descendant who's watching if he thought that then he would shut himself in his studio and spent his time painting mater from his sketches under artificial light mustard levy cookie [Music] the color in his paintings became more and more intense it was no longer a question of following trends or responding to outside influences he became a painter of intimate scenes he has now recognized more for that work than for any other [Music] in 1896 three years after meeting Marta Pierre had his first one-man show in a very influential art gallery he was 29 and his career as a painter had been launched but as well as providing a turning point in PA baan art work matter was also responsible for isolating the artist as well as being beautiful she was emotionally disturbed she became jealous and increasingly intolerant of Pierre's friends gradually the two lovers cut themselves off from the thriving artistic community in Montmartre and [Music] although his popularity was soaring and his paintings were bang on trend Pierre Vaughn are suddenly left Paris with over Sidwell peer bond are moved out of Paris in 1900 at a time when the capital was in a state of excitement that was the year of the World Fair and numerous artistic trends were emerging Pierre finally left Paris leaving Paris is a high price to pay when you are an artist in those days everything happened in Paris and Pierre had started out in Paris what's more in 1900 Marta started having health problems [Music] Matheson she was a very fragile woman who might have suffered from tuberculosis that was never known for sure but she was always of a delicate Constitution she was so tiny in slight they spent their lives in seaside resorts and spa towns [Music] you know they found super they lived rather a reclusive life they stayed in their hotel room and he would set up a studio space in the room she seems to be cutting him off from the world but it provided him with an excellent excuse to paint here a company martyr from town to town this period of roaming around was to last 25 years in his isolation on these trips he reconnected with nature which he had really missed and he painted non-stop these endless trips across France were made possible thanks to a contract he had signed with some major art dealers Pierre was now a famous painter regularly sent new paintings back to Paris which were then sold in Europe or in the United States [Music] then one day the South of France it's strong light pierced the landscape Pierre Bana was bowled over radically to Cassell he was dazzled by the light in the South of France he had finally found the light that suited him and that light warmed up his paintings again when Bernard discovered the Cote d'Azur he wrote to his mother it's like something from the Arabian Nights that says it all he was totally seduced by this sunlight which helped him to relax and become hedonistic something he had never experienced before he became very adept at living this much more relaxed lifestyle and obviously being a painter he also discovered colors and vegetations motifs which would seduce him completely [Music] here bana found a house in the middle of this golden landscape which was to become his final landing place look na just above the bay of kin in 1927 at the age of 60 Pierre and his wife settled in this Villa which they called Lebowski it was a discreet house bathed in sunlight and set in the middle of a beautiful garden here the artist idealized his day-to-day life creating his most beautiful paintings no sell Moya the pure Vartan is all financially he could have had a much bigger villa more spacious and opulent but he bought a relatively modest villa the paint was peeling off the walls in places it was hardly the height of luxury but he didn't attach much importance to the walls of this house and when we see them in the paintings they are like jewels it was a very small house but he turned it into something from the Arabian Nights there appears to be an explosion of colors in the house but that was all in bonnez imagination [Music] pierre bana lived here very simply the rooms were small and sparsely furnished a dining room Marta's bedroom which the painter never entered and his bedroom adorned with a bed bathed in sunlight with age Marta had become ever more exclusive she couldn't tolerate anyone anymore and barely even spoke to her husband Pierre had a bathtub installed for her they were hard to come by in those days Marta spent hours in the water soothing the pain that was gnawing away at her in this new house the artist painted his muse as obsessively as in the early days as if making up for lost time with this very special light came new skin tones and forms on painting after painting he idealized her body just that little bit more each time it was a sign of his devotion that Martin never aged on his canvases she didn't sit for him the paintings of the memory a sensation of a fleeting moment or posture a trace of their lovemaking [Music] like a stoic or monk the air bana had the same ritual every day to limit artists cornea every morning he went walking in the hills overlooking the canal Dallas en which flowed just above his house his notebooks contain his comments about the weather whether it was raining windy or sunny and then on little pieces of paper he drew the hills surrounding lacunae and can Harbor [Music] he would transcribe onto his canvases an internal vision from behind his eyes which did not correspond to the things he saw it's very important to understand that about bana he reinvented life but he drew inspiration from the outside world he would be moved by a flash of sunlight and he would then want that flash of sunlight to come out in his paintings so he would remember it and use it he had to experience the light in the landscape to create that harmony day after day he patiently contemplated the world around him in notebooks he jotted down a few simple lines often he simply described the weather [Music] after this almost religious ceremony he would return home pin a canvas directly to his wall and paint his memories an imaginary and fantasy world [Music] sometimes he would paint the view from his house in studio with mimosa once again it is a transformed reality which is created with his brushes [Music] selectively missed even his studio is tiny but when you see studio with mimosa it's as though the memos there is growing inside the apartment causing an explosion of color it really does look magical [Music] in the 1930s the days at Lacan a was spent in a monotony guided by a spiritual quest a reflection on the artists response to nature Pierre Bonner had only one objective to keep painting these sublime landscapes as he saw them no me no so he was an innocent man he was never driven by money he just wanted to paint he wanted to paint what he saw and to breathe life into paint he always said I do not want to paint life I want to bring pain to life and show how beautiful the world is he did his own thing he painted happiness he painted what he wanted to paint impervious to outside influences [Music] this monastic existence was a far cry from the lifestyle of the influential artists of the day over 900 kilometers from the kanae in Paris it was a different story since the 1920s new artists have been appearing on the scene making a case for the avant-garde [Music] Fauvism Cubism and then surrealism movements which reinvented art by distorting reality a modernist vision far removed from that of Pierre Bonner [Music] for artists like Picasso bana had become old-school Gasol Canseco beloved tell Picasso thought that bana was a potpourri of indecision his paintings were too sensitive and not combatted enough Picasso was hungry for power whereas Bernard had a different rhythm to his life he didn't have the same approach to life life wasn't a battle for him he had different priorities he was more interested in experimenting with color and light than trying to seize the power but I swam against the tide his paintings were unlike any others and he was not affiliated to any movement [Music] although cut off from the Paris scene he made friends with the leader of the Fobus movement onry Matisse for about a decade the two men corresponded revealing a mutual admiration for their respective artistic quests in this letter pierre bana gives a rare account of his philosophy of life on my morning walks I delight in listing the different types of landscape paintings intimate landscapes decorative landscapes etc but as for the view I see different things every day the sky and objects everything is constantly changing it can be overwhelming but it's what makes us feel alive despite his apparent serenity the criticism affected him the artist was wavering in Paris painting was seen as an outdated art form doubting this artform challenged Pierre Bonnard entire existence the first doubts took hold over holdeth there was a gradual move away from the plastic arts towards a far more conceptual art former and bana was sensing that perhaps he felt that he was the dinosaur of painting and that everyone else was moving on to something else he felt misunderstood and a bit lonely in 1931 at the age of 64 he painted a series of sombre and tortured self-portraits he lived for painting but it was becoming a daily struggle [Music] when he painted himself as a boxer the ebon r was expressing the battle he was fighting daily against himself saw quiz on books awesome he painted himself as a boxer to show that painting was a struggle despite the fact that he wasn't a power-hungry artist he was having doubts when he painted these self-portraits they are very strong and paintings especially one of the later ones where we see the Oval of his face in the mirror his eyes like two dark slits whereas before they had been so expressive his weapons and his tools he doesn't have a faraway look on his face he doesn't have any look at all his eyes are black it's as if he is reflecting back on himself looking in on himself and his situation as a painter he was becoming ever more introspective he was increasingly obsessed by color and getting exactly the right tone he wanted to achieve perfection in his studio he had several canvases on the go at once some of them for years [Music] never satisfied he kept touching them up covering up any imperfections sometimes embarking on crazy maneuvers one day in 1938 aged 71 he swept into the musee de luxembourg where one of his paintings was on display what they did were useful suddenly on seeing his painting despite the fact that it was hanging in a museum he decided that something wasn't quite right he always had a small box of watercolor paints on him and he asked a friend to distract the museum attendant so he could add a few finishing touches to his painting Boehner's paintings were never quite finished sometimes he hung on to a painting for forty or fifty years his painting was still there and he was still touching it up in January 1942 Marta died Pierre became even more withdrawn on the day she died he simply drilled cross in his diary you [Music] illah sell me luck he had shut the door and it seemed he would never open it again [Music] at the age of 75 painting was all he had left he carried on painting imaginary landscapes as if to remain cut off from the world he spent his final years seeking wisdom in his paintings in colors in the light in the landscape Hocus I had Mount Fuji Pia bana had his almond tree from his bedroom window he watched it flower fade and flower again he painted it every year rediscovering a sense of fullness and tranquility the seasons passed and the man aged he felt he had achieved his life's objective to be at one with nature the almond tree is a subject that seems to stem from a Japanese philosophy the almond tree is a flowering tree it represents rebirth painting a portrait of this tree was like painting his own portrait there is this harmony between nature and the man the man has merged with the almond tree moreover almond tree and blossom was his last painting he felt there was far too much green in the bottom left-hand corner of the painting so he wanted to add some yellow naturally he didn't really have the strength anymore to add the yellow so he asked his nephew to add it for him because his nephew did a bit of painting so his nephew helped him to add that touch of yellow I would say that Bana was a believer we mentioned spirituality earlier but what did he believe in in the beauty of the world in the light in the way that it transforms everything that was Bana sasebo na pierre bonnard died aged 80 in 1947 in his house in lacunae amidst the abundant vegetation which grew up around his studio Nature had reasserted itself the artist spends 60 years painting every day without exception when he died he left behind him a body of paintings which are more alive than ever [Music]

Channel: Best Documentary

Views: 5,953

Rating: 4.8769231 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, full, movie, english, hd, artist, painter, portraits, masterpieces, legends, art, behind the artist, soulages, paint, painting, artwork, legend, art history

Id: OqJmXx7IWSY

Length: 51min 56sec (3116 seconds)

Published: Thu May 27 2021