Pierre Bonnard, the Player of Light | Documentary

[Music] foreign [Music] the birth of modern painting most likely took place in France in the second half of the 19th century and in the early 20th century under the impetus of the modern era brought forth by the Industrial Revolution and the liberalization of customs behind the various appellations such as impressionism quantilism post-impressionism favism cubism surrealism and abstract art the artist became more than a witness he became an actor even a media of modern society The Works of these Visionary painters who shape the essence of modern painting are today among the most prized on the market this documentary series presents an overview of the various actors of these different movements the Nabi movement born around 1890 is characterized by the exaltation of color the simplification of shapes and the sublimation of the everyday the painters eduard Ria moristeni and piabonau have grand intellectual and spiritual Ambitions they Endeavor in their practice to ReDiscover the sacred character of painting and to provoke a new spiritual enthusiasm through ART [Music] thank you [Music] Pierre bonale is born October 3rd 1867. initially rejecting the traditional style of painting in favor of areas of flat color the painter progressively finds a path of his own in order to paint intimate subjects he uses Interiors or nudes Windows opening onto Gardens and impressionistic techniques served by pallets of light and luminous colors all of it supported by a very firm sense of composition and Design is also very interested in the trend of japanesen and the different conception of perspective that is found in kakamono once famous Pierre Bonar can't stop himself from retouching his paintings after they've been exhibited or sold his friends call this banading or to Bonner dies painter whose favorite model for many years was his wife Matt [Music] one of the versions of nude in the bath shows Marta taking a bath you could say it was painted practically directly from the model but that would be a mistake it is one of the cliches we have about Ronaldo generally paints his canvas facing the wall with his back to the model he usually takes down a series of sketches very quickly on the spot during the big exhibition in 2006 we showed all his Diaries which has lots of atmospheric notes about the weather but also lots of small sketches he also made sketches of this painting which show the difficulty of facing the model for him he says a lot about his theme in particular and he expresses above all the great difficulties of finishing this sweet that he undertook in the beginning of the 30s yes we are in 36. there are still more versions to come one of which is a large version called the large bathtub and we have all of bonar's art especially his very distinctive utilization of color and his attitude which is reflected in his composition what is distinctive about Bona is this flight from the subject and that at the same time he is able to reproduce it as though he really saw it his notes are so precise that he is able to re-spatialize this type of emotions [Music] foreign [Music] he uses deep purples and yellows which is all entirely false because it's the light that enters the room that adds color to the White Tile there is something quite marvelous in this utilization of color which is not simply the color's Temperance but the way in which the color can act there are details that you don't see when you look at the painting you have to allow time for the color to act so you can see the details he goes back over things sometimes in the design and gives traits a little Vigor when he senses that they're beginning to face the frankly incredible success in this vibrato of the light which is truly the subject of the painting in this entire series is probably the most finished most successful painting the painting was acquired for the Paris International exhibition of 1937. and it couldn't be shown right away because the pity palette Museum was not open and one day at the pizza who neither knew how nor like to finish a painting went to correct it on site he went in secret with his little box to finish the painting which was finally completed in 1938 bonar's personality was shaped between the end of impressionism and the start of the Nabi movement of which he was one of the artists the sensitive view of a world predominated by an enchanted stirring and luminous nature confronts reality even if it appears simple bonile's Irv reveals itself to be complex full of nuance detached from time [Music] before becoming the painter we know began his studies in law in order to please his family and his father in particular with his law degree in hand life at the public prosecutors Department in Paris hardly interested him he was already very passionate about drawing at the time it was his grandmother who encouraged him to follow this path we obtained permission from his father to study art which he did even with his law degree in hand because he realized that he was really not very motivated to have a Korean in law and his father was a civil servant in the ministry of war the women have a certain percent for art and especially music was a Pianist there was a culturally important world at home he met various musicians who become his brother-in-law and with whom he'll often work in his youth along with the other Nabi illustrating of the partitions for the tea the love in Paris there'll be a real encounter between literature music and painting because the Nabi will truly take on all the dominions of Art domendola aside from his illustrations in the beginning he paints scenes familial or otherwise that are quite impressionist like this Bourgeois afternoon in which his friend Claude Terrace appears this large painting shows a recreated Family scene set to the corn lumps mansion in the Alps mountains which was owned by the bonnar family you can recognize the house clearly with its characters stationed at the windows or entering the house through the French doors like in the theater is [Music] with all their characters put together and show the bonnar family as well as neighbors who came to eat in the garden of the Corn logs who was very tall we see him in his white suit they're also the guests who are two neighbors with a somewhat heavy silhouettes of country Folk employs a lot of humor here as the characters are almost caricatured but they also Express a certain tenderness there are gestures of it around the children around the animals and in the great softness of the Summer Landscape with the flowering trees around the house it is a recreated scene that evokes the composition of the great classical fierce in its choice of attitudes and characters [Music] at the same time it's an outdoor scene benefiting from colors that are quite brilliant and it's as if the air was circulating through the congregation during his course at the School of Fine Arts in Paris he met the young painter Eduardo who created the Nabi group friendships were born within this group that also included moristeni and Felix voloton former classmates together they will be strongly inspired by the work of Paul Gogan [Music] there is a group of friends that he already knew at kondo say High School in Paris and he also frequents Edward ruia and Morris Denny with whom he will create the Nabi movement influenced by Paul Goga who was very influential at the time even if he left France to go paint in the islands of the South Pacific a great influence on young artists in particular with his use of rather violent colors solid colors and the utilization of outlines and there is the decorative aspect paintings as well as the Nabis will be interested Beyond diesel paintings and what can be done with paint like screens fans and decorations they want art to invest every possible field in people's daily life ism standing before these four decorative panels we are before a work of Youth the first that Bona will officially exhibit at the Paris Salon of the independence in 1891. he initially conceived of these panels as a screen but he'll write to his mother saying no these panels are really too strong to be seen as a screen pose on the floor and presented as they would be in the salon I'm going to dismantle them and turn them into four decorative panels that will be presented side by side this screen project perfectly illustrates the desire of the knobbies to involve art in every area of daily life what's more these formats strongly vertical also show the influence of Japanese painting which greatly interested Goga as well [Music] you can see right away the principles that were developed during Bruno's Nabi period these are mainly the decorative the stretching of lines into Arabesque deformations and the fusion of elements between these women and nature there are four women there have been studies that compare them in a quite demonstrative and fair manner to Japanese Prince like the women of utamaru for example indicate a great movement more than a succession of portraits you can recognize these women his sister Andre and his cousin with whom he was in love at the time these women young beautiful and beloved are shown in this environment that is very Art Nouveau with these decorative lines so it is a very important work for the understanding of bonnar's early stage and his commitment to the decorative and Japanese was nicknamed The Very Japanese of the group at the end of the 19th century the artists who are followers of japanesem include Van Gogh Monet dega and of course Gogan the Nabis [Music] the revelation of the Japanese Prince takes place in 1819 on the occasion of an exhibition of Japanese Prince at the Paris School of Fine Art it's love at first sight for him and for the entire generation of young artists his friends the neighbors these prints are filled with solid colors due to the process of wood carving and are influential because they make it possible to remove the third dimension from painting this is what these artists will retain as a lesson for their paintings the desire to fuse the different planes of reality into one plane means that since the Renaissance compositions were painted as though they were cubes whose sides were flattened this lesson is immediately translated here we are one year after the exhibition with his first decorative panel as well as other paintings [Music] Pierre Bonar is the first Nabi to be interested in the poster which is a direct variant of the Japanese print he even finds himself competing with a certain toulouse-lautrec for a project tested for the Moulin Rouge in paris's mamata District two artists will nevertheless found a friendship based on this renewal of the art of lithography in 1891 he decides to become a painter because he wants to have a life that allows a certain Liberty for a young man of this era being an artist painter represents a certain Liberty so he begins to make illustrations and especially posters and in particular a poster foreign will propose to accompany him to the printer who made the poster for him and this is how Pierre born to make posters himself and they will compete with each other for the poster of the Moulin Rouge in Paris a contest that of course Toulouse will win with the success that he has afterwards is a painter who we know quite well but who dies quite young compared to Pierre Bona who attracted many artists including writers and theater people as well as young Peters a more established paint is like to lose it's through this circle will frequent to lose who will be fascinated by the Liberty he takes in making this first poster in 1891 here we are in the middle of the nebulous Nabi period but also the fascinating period the last until 1903 the review Blanche is a literary and artistic Magazine with Anarchist leanings with which the greatest writers and artists of the area collaborated its Adventure only lasted 10 years but it played an essential role in the reassessment of the establishment created finance and directed by the three natalson brothers with the enthusiastic complicity of their fellow students from the condoce high school in Paris the review Blanche is a portal through which artists and the public can meet in a more democratic manner lithography is a lithograph published by the review Blanche as is the school girl another lithograph and to multiply their work through the means and techniques that were available at the time with the renewal of print making for example or color lithography like we see here on this screen or here with the school girl so they developed these techniques as a way to circulate their work as widely as possible to a social class that could not buy paintings they wanted to reach the largest public possible and often 50 or 100 copies of these lithographs were published which seemed like a lot to us today because these are rare items but at the time these kinds of distributions was huge it represented lower costs than selling a painting and made it possible to reach a larger part of society associated foreign starting in 1896 piabona decides to change his path to work towards a new sense of composition while still cultivating the intimacy that will be his trademark doing so female figures are predominant in the works of the painter he will have many models but mat who Bernard meets a few years earlier would be his inspiration his Muse for the length of his career [Music] in 1893 whose real name is Maria Boston makes artificial flowers [Music] companion as well as his practically exclusive model is shown in her bed with a rather less vicious attitude that was quite audacious at the time the artist is plunged over the bed and several figures appear around the nude There is a small dog curled up in a ball near her hair what is equally interesting in this painting is that bonnar will summon a lot of phantasmagoric elements in the folds of the sheets and the large shadow that move around the bed in the foreground you can see a shape that's quite caricatured like a person a kind of Voya standing at the foot of the bed very large and disreported you can also see shapes that are almost animal outlined in the folds of the sheets around the female body this painting belonged to Tade who is the director of the review Blanche then passed his brother Alexandra before it was bought by Felix Fennell an art critician this is a significant pedigree for Bona in the 90s and in this you can see the Loyalty of the review Blanche group made up of nabiatis as well as the group of editors in Chief and art critics who will work for the review blush this painting received its name the indolent quite soon making an allusion to bonnar's love life and announcing an entire series of large nudes for which Mart will be virtually the only model exclusive foreign all these depictions of mat before a mirror sitting leaning over in the bathroom drowsy reflect immediacy discretion admiration The Works are exceptional in the audacity of their framing the richness of tones and the play of light [Music] with the painting nude reflected in a mirror we are at the end of the Nabi group in the early 1900s but is not dated precisely you can see that is really more and more interested in the depiction of the new it in interior there is a nude woman shown here who is probably mapped you can recognize the curves of her body in her face which already appeared in illustrations of the era and it's here compared to the disproportion of this body that is probably somewhat androgynous it is as we can't recognize his face at all it is nevertheless the physique that he had at the time a very Slender Man very tall thin and stretched out that we recognize and photographs of him that were taken nude in the countryside we recognize this person as both male and female that is called the man and the woman where you see this confrontation between two bodies we are also in an interior with a subject that will interest born out greatly later on which is a depiction of a reflected image like this this is the reflection of these two bodies in a mirror we can clearly see the edge of the mirror which is here and the objects that are on this piece of furniture depicted and reflected in the mirror so really the confrontation of an image and Its Reflection as well as the way it transformed by being reflected in the mirror [Music] the whole of banal's work is marked by his doubts his worries his battle with himself and with painting [Music] the self-portraits and portraits that it creates underline the depth of these Reflections this indecision thus affirms his presence and his Liberty from exterior Trends in any case he liked to say I'm not from any school I just try to make something personal foreign [Music] movement ends at the beginning of the 20th century it does not really have an ending because each artist will at their own speed gradually move away from the rules of the movement always be attracted to having his own freedom but you're nevertheless keep in close contact with his Nabi friends until the end of his life he will remain friends of them until the end of their lives in 43 for Maurice Denny and in 42 for Edward via who will be his best friend he will gradually take a kind of Liberty with the movement because if Bona is so invested in painting it is precisely in order to have a certain Freedom it only half pleases him to be part of a group if is also locked in its constraints so we'll gradually take his independence in the early 20th century the Nabi group no longer exists and he will be more and more interested in nature because that is what really appeals to him the most he wants to see what painting can bring to the depiction of this natural environment he already has his family home in the dolphin air region which is called the close in which he did a lot of work in his youth he had his Parisian Studio which he will move frequently but he also likes to escape Paris to avoid having too many outside influences he likes to work in Normandy and in 1912 he acquires a house that's close to Monet's home in Shivani Village in a house he'll call his trailer which is situated on a high point he loves these vast views in a horizon that's quite wide he likes to be isolated but not too much so he chooses the place he lives and works very meticulously before buying his trailer Bona had undertaken a series of trips with his friend via to the beach towns of truvil and akashon in France as well as abroad on each of his trips he rented a house with a garden enjoying the environment the Lush vegetation and The View then in 1912 he settles in Vernon in the sen Valley where he puts more and more care into his colors the position of these two paintings really says a lot because it's the same chromatic range again with this dominant green and orange this is the illusion of depth that is given by the blues which are a little more sustained and then you discover each flower in this kind of jumble that is in fact very organized in the end then all of a sudden discover detail two little chickens here that are busy pecking this is often the case with him you see a character who you hadn't noticed who might be busy doing something then there's this rather miraculous play of the touch it seems to spill over everywhere this burst in color very sunny and you had this play of the blues that will cool it down a little but in the end not that much this area there are areas that are virtually abstract where you have the impression it's really the hand in the play of colors on the surface that give this painting its completely Vitalis than solar side it's with the discovery of the French Riviera in 1904 during a trip to see his friends in San Tropez that his painting becomes dazzling wrapped in a great luminous intensity it struck me like the Thousand and One Nights you will say the sea the yellow walls and the reflections as colorful as a light will now stay with him down to the smallest details in his paintings [Music] from then on he will constantly be coming to spend a few months on the coast where we'll meet his friends Ari mangao and Paul sinyak Ona we discovered the light of the south of France who is one of the full of artists along with Matisse Munga has a home in Santa Fe and since they see each other often in Paris we'll invite him to come to see the French Riviera will discover the light of the south of France this light that is very different from the light of the north as well as that of Normandy which he has known well for several years he'll be tempted to come in both the summer and the winter so it's really through manga that he will discover the French Riviera here you have a small painting by bonal that depicts the port of Saint Tropez [Music] for the first time among girls invitation in 1909 he will then make numerous trips staying with manga each time he will even rent a house for a summer or two but he's only a visitor in San Tropez not someone who will move there is quite quickly sketched it doesn't compare to the paintings he will make when he moves permanently to LA County it's almost a study but this is a period for Bernard after his Nabi period when he sees the rise of fatherism starting in 1905. and he will begin to question his Fine Art practice he seeks to seize the light at any price and it's true that the sky on this painting in particular is really extraordinarily well painted it's rather beautiful nuances translate in Ambience that's just after or before a storm with its violets and Mars where he discovered the light of the Mediterranean traveled through the French Riviera and stayed in the city of grass as well as the city of antib where he rented hotel rooms he liked to stay several days weeks or even months in certain hotels and he will end up moving permanently to the Village not far from the city of Canada he will paint views of the sea and views of the port in Kent he will never really move too far outside this rather narrow territory of class in this part of the French Riviera is really the location of Locane a city that overlooks the Bay of Cannes and the hills of Israel this Geographic point is the trait that will really interest him as well as the light of day and also night as with this sunset here this painting is really very important to our Collections and interesting and more than one way as we obtained at Courtesy of the mayor Foundation thanks to this painting our Museum received the designation Museum of France because it led the direction of the museums of France to understand the importance of our project but it's also interesting from a more artistic point of view because this is a painting from the 20s when Bona had just moved to LA County he takes possession of this vast landscape in which you can see the hills of Israel you can sense that it's probably from this environment in his garden that he will Orient himself and focus on a certain framing of the landscape he won't always use standard formats almost never in fact because bonnar doesn't paint using ready-made frame so you can give his landscape the format that it calls foreign most often he makes drawings and notebooks beforehand and afterwards on the canvas he will reuse the details that are most important for the composition he wants to create it works in notebooks on drawings that are quite small then enlarges them to work with watercolors he will also outline the main arrangements and major traits of his composition he will then work with fairly diluted colors but always in the same range with a richness of green for example you can see that he doesn't hesitate even in the 20s there are drips it's not necessarily perfectly made he's an artist who works rather slowly it takes a lot of time for his paintings to ripen he works slowly but he is able to work on several paintings at once on the wall of his Studios you often see four or five works in progress you can work on them at the same time because he is able to concentrate on different subjects at once after having outlined his composition on the canvas but now proceeds with small rapid touches then he steps back judges then continues in this manner as eduardia shows so well in the painting he made of his friend nice thing about this portrait of Bona that there is also his palette with his true colors and there is also this painting within the painting it's a decoration that really exists and is part of Private Collection in Chicago made a successful portrait through the paint the accessories the dog and this sculpture he had made there are all these odds and ends in this studio home because for Monarch they were always there he lived in his Studio had always made watercolors because he had a long-standing interest in drawing but drawing augmented by color we used watercolors he will appreciate Aqua a form of watercolor a little and use them from time to time but mix with goash another form of watercolor glass approaches the technique of oil painting and that it allows him to revisit the painting because laborious in the good sense of the term always wanting to return to a work sometimes he takes several years to decide that a work is finished he is an artist who doesn't finish his work in the flash he is not able to make something in two days foreign moves to the south of France in 1922 he's won over for good by this peaceful Haven that meets the health requirements of his wife mouth on one hand and fulfills his search for tranquility nature and height on the other he will make over 300 paintings there this is the port of Khan depicted by bonal and you can clearly see the difference with the previous painting that had the feeling of a sketch here it's almost 10 years later he has already moved to the Kane and he's conveying something else [Music] because it's shaped by solids it's a Twilight a sunset but everything melts and turns solid it all hardens and it all becomes magical in a way you'll come quite regularly in the winter starting in 1922. first you were in houses like the dream or the swallow until he finds his house The Grove in 1926 you'll buy it and begin Renovations in order to build a studio facing north and create a bathroom which was not common at the time these are the famous bathrooms in which you'll be able to watch his wife take baths which will give him some essential subjects for his paintings he will also create a balcony and a magnificent Garden that will enchant him bit by bit will really become his paradise he will live here in the Heights Village like a traveler inside his own home and we'll paint all the rooms one after another in a meticulous manner but also conveying a real sensitivity and Intimacy in all of them he also paint his Gardens we will enjoy working the land and will enrich it on an aesthetic level which will thrill him to travel through the hills which were much less inhibited at the time here in his house the Bosque Pierre Bonar will be able to externalize on the canvas all the difficulty of expressing his interior emotions nothing here can disrupt the link between the imagination and the paint which becomes the artist's reality escapes because they make up the largest part of his work nevertheless the Interiors are very important and they are what fascinated the public the most in particular the theme of the intimate Interiors especially those centered around his relationship with Mart who became His companion very early and later his wife it's practically a work of introspection into his life and what went on behind closed doors between him and his wife the work that there is between a dialogue and a non-dialock you can sense the life that he might have had face to face which more or less isolated them but he made it a quality of his paintings through the introspection he made of his home and its Universe like that of the bathroom aside from these nudes in the bathroom there are also intimate Interiors where the human present is often absent when the human presence is there around breakfast for example there are thus moments that are somewhat stated assertively with Mart whom he observed and the character of His companion who is really misanthropic and had a lot of problems with society and her relationship with others is really visible in the atmosphere of bonao's paintings there's this re-centering around a person as well as the effects of framing that are important to his paintings [Music] thank you [Music] six years separate this absolutely ravishing stunning Bust from this large painting depicting a woman looking at herself in the mirror his reflection we The Spectators also look at it there is still this painting within a painting in the representation of space redoubled here as well by the presence of these colored screens that are in the doorway you can see the wallpaper of the room in the background and also the different walls of the bathroom reflected in the mirror foreign the representation of space in modern painting we can think of Matisse at this time who also pursues a reflection into the mental space of the painting which is also a space of color materials and light as you can see on this large back reflecting the light that arise from the side this interrogation and his painting takes on very pearly vibrant colors they give a lot of warmth to his depictions [Music] foreign foreign you can see how he encloses the body of this woman in a rather narrow vertical format and if she has to raise her head she'll reach the top of the painting in this painting the theme is a nude that is very vertical Mart always had this posture a little curved in on herself never very straight we have the motif of the mirror here she is in the middle of grooming herself getting dressed and looking at her reflection and another source of light comes from the French window which is here you can also recognize through a small detail that we are not in La cane but probably in the bathroom off the train there are always elements to which he is faithful whether it's the color of a wall or a radiator that is always there he gives a lot of importance to objects that perhaps aren't that important like a tile layout of a floor or a radiator that is disproportionately large towards the end of his life Bonar seems to find his way to a return towards a kind of impressionism introducing mystery into the visible appearance which could reveal an attraction to abstraction a painting is a series of marks that join together and end up forming an object the artist declared in 1942 [Music] the landscape is a major subject of his painting for example the bathers at the end of the day which is a painting from the end of his life around 1945. is a man who is already nearly 80 years old and is quite famous and people come from everywhere to see him in his Studio from Switzerland from the United States Etc at this time he lost his wife in 1945 so he is quite alone in LA county makes regular constant visits to the Meg family and M.A Meg in particular where he will rarely get close to and almost consider his son they will regularly go together to picnic on the island of Laurence off the coast of Canada one of these picnics will be immortalized by Adria Meg in a photo he took when he was 14 years old which is quite well known where we see in a swimsuit you think of these moments that are really very pleasant for him very enriching on human level but also of his rendition of a landscape because you think of these events when you look at the painting favors at the end of the day there is a sunset but also people living together and these shapes and colors that are like an impesto and are tied together there's a kind of Link at a human level between Bonner and the men and the women of this family this relationship between life and painting is important for him and bit by bit he becomes interested in the construction of color the shapes of color and he moves closer and closer to abstraction as early as the 30s a great fearition of painting says the Bonner without realizing it is becoming one of the most abstract artists of his age with this painting from 1945. it's even more true because he is really fascinated by both the importance of light on color and also ways this light can create shapes or dissolve shapes into each other this is a very important painting because it is the second major purchase by the city of La cane in 2008. the painting belonged to the editor who is the founder of the library with which Bonner worked regularly great artists like Matisse word for this review by making special editions it is a time when reviews dedicated entire issues to artists high quality reproductions of their Works were printed and there could be texts as well it is in his Charming Dove coat in lacane as his friend Matisse put it that Bonar passes away on January the 23 1947. his Works dominated by color allowed him to glorify the light the landscape played an essential role in his work it's through his Landscapes that bonal distinguished himself for him a dialogue with nature was a dialogue with painting I invent nothing I look Bernard cultivated this gift for observation every day on his walks during which he gathered a provision of life and Pierre Bona worked with every subject Landscapes still lives interior scenes portraits and nudes this eye for the elements and the people who were dear to him was transposed by banao in an original way into an intimate expression of the senses and the Wonder at the beauty that surrounded him [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign foreign [Music]

Channel: Best Documentary

Views: 47,209

Keywords: documentary, painting, painter, art, artist, art history, impressionism, greatest painters

Id: 7Zx9kkg0Bpg

Length: 51min 51sec (3111 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023