LE CANNET
MUSÉE BONNARD
Balthus, Bazaine, Rothko. Les Enfants de Bonnard.
30 October - 30 January 2021
“You can't invent painting on your own. " Pierre Bonnard to André Giverny, 19431
This declaration, which clearly shows the humility, not to say the clairvoyance, which Pierre Bonnard has shown throughout his life, confirms that through his work he participates in an endless continuum, an uninterrupted dialogue between painters. This idea is the starting point of this second exhibition organized for the ten years of the museum
This title is borrowed from the essay by painter Roberto Mangú Quesada written in 2011 for the catalog of our first exhibition, which highlighted the essential role of Bonnard's work in his approach to reality. The latter declared at the end of his life as obvious: "I hope that my painting will hold, without cracks. I would like to arrive in front of the young painters of the year 2000 with butterfly wings ".
It is in this context that, from the start, that we wanted to change the way we look at this essential artist. Bonnard is not only "the very Japanese nabi" but also a painter who was able to open up unknown paths, taking into account nature, its breathing, as an axis of reflection and as a transmission to future generations. From there, his quest for a colorful sensation, to that of a seemingly flat space thanks to the establishment of a complex system from which depth is born, from reality but a reality recomposed by emotion.
Many artists - painters in particular - since the 1940s, with a strong inflection in the 1950s & 1960s, while remaining alive until today, have looked with insistence on this singular work of its time. Painters such as Balthus, Rothko or Bazaine knew how to perceive its importance at a time when Bonnard was little considered by certain avant-gardes. Matisse and Picasso were opposed by interposed testimonies; Matisse always proclaimed the greatness of Bonnard, whom he fiercely defended, especially at the time of his public vilification a few weeks after his death: "[...] Bonnard is a great painter for today and surely for the future. "
However, the many letters from artists collected at the end of the 90s by the passionate amateur Bernard Gouttenoire have been invaluable bases for reflection and research.
During the 80 years that have passed since his death in 1947, this unclassifiable work has always been the subject of debate. It is neither avant-garde nor backward-looking, it belongs to another era, that of long duration; time indeed occupies a founding role: "The work of art a stop of time" proclaimed Bonnard in 1936 because time is what is immutable. It is the trace, it is the memory, that is to say everything that belongs to life and that gives it meaning.
Thus are present in this exhibition, Geneviève Asse, Balthus, Bardone, Bazaine, Bioulès, Blanche, Frydman, Kimura, Lesieur, Mangú Quesada, Marchand, Rothko, Segal, Truphémus and Vieira da Silva. It must be said that through his painting, Bonnard wished to open the eyes of "his children" to come, to the strong bond that it is essential to forge with his environment. Nature and its imbalance are today at the heart of all the issues of our time, the world cannot be done without it. Like all visionaries, Bonnard already knew this.