Pierre Bonnard, Ray Carver, painting and writing

I love the color in this work by Bonnard as well as his loose rendering, clashing planes (if you will), perspective bending and areas of apparent abstraction.  The feel, for me, is that of his embrace of his subject and the "emotion" of the work transcends his application of paint and brush....although I think I realize he drove that emotion through his brush hand.  As Carver suggests in his poem, Bonnard loved his subject; I think his affection is revealed in the warmth of this work and that Bonnard was able to transmit it makes it very much art for me.

BONNARD'S NUDES

His wife. Forty years he pained her.

Again and again.  The nude in the last painting

the same young nude as the first.  His wife.

As he remembered her young.  As she was young.

His wife in her bath.  At her dressing table

in front of the mirror.  Undressed.

His wife with her hands under her breasts

looking out on the garden.

The sun bestowing warmth and color.

Every living thing in bloom there.

She young and tremulous and most desirable.

When she died he painted a while longer.

A few landscapes.  Then died.

And was put down next to her.

His young wife.

Raymond Carver