A recent retrospective of the artist's work has led researchers to reflect on how he has achie.
The catalogue, released for the big exhibition of the famous post-impressionist Pierre Bonnard (it took place in Tate Modern in spring), contains five essays on different aspects of the artist's work. The sketches are united by one theme, which is indicated in the subtitle "Color of Memory". Matthew Gale, curator of the exhibition, opens the subject in the title essay. He notes that Bonnard, unlike his contemporaries, avoided writing on the open air and preferred to "work by memory". Bonnar did not work with an object in front of him," writes Gail. - Instead, he filtered the image, finding ways to create references that triggered the memories he wanted to capture on canvas in the studio. This led the curator to the idea that "memory was the tool that Bonnard used to create images".
Gail quotes Bonnard himself: "In the process of working with the artist, the presence of the object, the theme is an obstacle. The starting point in painting is the idea. And to clarify this important question even better, he writes in his diary on January 11, 1942: "Before I start my work, I think, I imagine". This statement prompted Juliette Rizzi to write an interesting essay on the use of photography by the artist.
Bonnard's creative method is based not on memory, but on a more serious instrument of the painter - a slow, attentive and continuous process of observation. What is the subject of Lane Clause Pedersen's excellent essay is, however, the widespread idea that in Bonnard's painting "time and, consequently, movement have been suspended" is also put forward here. Meanwhile, his works often do not agree with a single moment of perception. It is important to understand that Bonnard does not have memories of the passage of time, but rather a stretch of time through the slow process of observation, which is reported to us by the author in his paintings.
Bonnard insisted: "In our memory, we find what we have felt for ourselves, as well as what we have received through the images given to us by previous artists. We must be careful. Bonnard did not use memory at all, he did not trust it, and in his artistic practice he pushed it far enough to look carefully - perhaps more carefully than any other artist did.