
Last weekend, I visited Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco for an exhilarating special exhibition, Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia.
Bonnard, an often also-run amongst other marquee names in some Impressionism or Post-Impressionism blockbuster shows, richly deserved a place of his own. Viewed together, the body of his works was truly impressive and deeply moving, other than being overshadowed by others here and there of his incidental presences.
A most amazing colorist, Bonnard used his explosive colors to portrait multilayered people, interior and exteriors, and extended into their psychology. His oeuvres were far beyond the narrowly defined Arcadia implied by the title of this exhibition.
It did start with some decorative works, with main focus on patterns of floras and dresses, with muted colors than his later works:

Twilight - The Croquet Game

The Large Garden
His attention then shifted to interior and his exploring of human psyche got deeper, though ostentatiously playful still:

The Checkered Blouse & Two Poodles

The White Cat

Reading the Newspaper

Woman with Cat or The Demanding Cat

The Bowl of Milk

Lunch by the Lamp

The Work Table

Table Conner

Dining Area at Le Cannet

Dessert
In some of works, his palette became somber and cool, and even devastating, prefiguring the equally disturbing Edward Hopper:

The Table

The Breakfast Room
The highlights of this exhibition and his outputs were his nudes — languid women confined in spaces dissected into stripes of various colors and patterns, often full of vigor and charged emotions.

The Dressing Table

Woman Dozing on a Bed or The Indolent Woman

Man and Woman

Homage to Maillol


The Dressing Room, Nude with Mirror, or Nude Before the Mirror & The Dressing Room or Pink Dressing Room

Nude in an Interior

Nude with Back to Her Toilet, Woman at Her Dressing Table, or Yellow Harmony

Somber Nude (Dina Vierny)

Nude in the Bathtub

The Bathtub or The Bath
His group portraits, a bit intentionally caricaturistic, impressed with their virtuosic and witty compositions.

The Café "Au Petit Poucet", Place Clichy in the Evening

Evening by the Lamp

A Bourgeois Afternoon or The Terrasse Family
His portraits, particularly self-portrait, were direct and frank, to the point that I felt the need to avert my eyes under his unflinching gaze.

Self-Portrait

The Boxer (Portrait of the Artist)

Self-Portrait of the Artist
Finally, there were some wonderful cityscapes and landscapes, and more of some decorative works based on biblical stories and Greek mythology, though the latter group didn't exert as much hold on me:

View of the Port, Saint-Tropez

Trouville, the Exit of the Port

Almond Tree in Bloom

The Abduction of Europa

On the Boat

Overall, a most marvelous tribute to a first-rate master, often a tad overlooked by curator and viewers.

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- Birth of Impressionism at De Young Museum, San Francisco
- Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at De Young Museum, San Francisco
- Venetian Masterpieces from Vienna at De Young Museum
- Post-Impressionism Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, De Young Museum, San Francisco 2010-11
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