The man nicknamed the "Japanese Nabi" in his early days, then the "painter of happiness", is an unclassifiable painter. Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) first joined the Nabi movement with a decorative style marked by Japonism, before mixing his contributions with those of Impressionism. Selective in his friendships, this solitary dialogue with Édouard Vuillard and Henri Matisse. The inexhaustible source of Pierre Bonnard’s art is his own life: the interiors he inhabits and the nude, of which his wife Marthe is the immutable model. We quickly made a joyful painting of it because, under an incandescent palette, the art of Pierre Bonnard is steeped in melancholy. The subjectivity of his eye also serves the purpose of being a great painter of nature.
