Synthetism

• This unusual and magnificent exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria allows us to see Bonnard like never before.
• Also, in part, by a stroke of genius in commissioning the celebrated Paris-based architect and designer India Mahdavi to create the exhibition’s scenography.

A solitary path

• Also like Kandinsky, he lived and worked in the centre of the art world of his day.
• He was associated with many of the key artists, and yet, in the final analysis, Bonnard – like Kandinsky – was essentially a loner who traced for himself a solitary path.
• They called themselves “The Nabis” (a Hebrew and Arabic word meaning “prophets”) and essentially adopted Gauguin’s aesthetic stance of Synthetism.
• Bonnard was inspired by photography and the unexpected angles and the cropping of images and implemented these strategies in his art.

The window

• The window (1925) is a beautiful and lyrical painting executed by Bonnard while staying with a woman called Marthe in a rented holiday villa at Le Cannet, near Cannes, in the south of France.
• Looking out of the window, we see the red roofs of the little town of Le Cannet and beyond that sweeping Cézannesque hills.
• In the foreground on the table lies a book and a sheet of paper with writing implements.

The master of shimmering luminosity

• Ultimately, Bonnard was the master of shimmering luminosity who painted very clever and difficult paintings and yet made them appear lucid and accessible.
• The open window, the doorway and particularly a mirror were his favourite ploys to give space an ambiguous but convincing formal structure.
• He then would cast his central figures against the light and would work on a solution until each tone appears alive, shimmering and vibrating.