The pleasures of Pierre Bonnard are so obvious that some – mainly artists and critics – treat them as something to be resisted, lest we enjoy him a little too much.
All those French doors revealing cobalt skies, tablecloths laden with fruits and cakes, his beloved dachshunds, indolent nieces and plump cats scattered around verdant gardens. All his paintings seem “to take place a few hours either side of lunchtime”, Julian Barnes once wrote: it is true, too, that every day in Bonnard’s world looks like a perfect summer afternoon. And his wife, Marthe, was ever present – Bonnard painted her almost 400 times – feeding a pet under the table, sprawled post-coital on a messy bed, pottering about nude in the garden or climbing out of a seemingly endless run of baths. It is la belle époque, when la époque was truly belle.
