Audio Stop 3

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The side silhouette of a nude woman with pale skin is reflected along the edge of a tall, rectangular mirror in a room painted in tones of marigold orange, butter yellow, rose pink, peach, aquamarine blue, turquoise, and deep fuchsia in this vertical painting. The left edge of the woman is reflected along the right edge of the mirror, which takes up the left two-thirds of the composition. Only the side of the woman's head and ear, shoulder, arm, breast, hip, and her right leg are captured in the mirror. She holds the hand we can see up to her brown hair. The wall behind the mirror is papered with a pattern of pale pink flowers with mint-green leaves against a field of golden yellow. A pale turquoise rectangle extends into the room from the lower left corner of the canvas, and some perfume bottles sit beyond the far end. The floor of the room in the reflection is patterned with rounded, floral fuchsia-pink shapes against a lilac-purple background. A deep magenta field below an electric-blue band suggests paneling beneath a chair rail. The wall above is streaked with peach, pink, and yellow. A table to our left at the back of the room perhaps holds embroidery. The woman’s body is painted in tones of soft pink with cool blue shadows. The scene is painted with loose, visible brushstrokes so some of the detail is difficult to make out, and it takes time to puzzle out what the scene captures. The artist signed the work with red paint in the upper right corner: “Bonnard.”

Pierre Bonnard

Nude in an Interior, c. 1935

East Building, Ground Level — Gallery 103-E

Pierre Bonnard belonged to a quasi-mystical group of young artists that arose about 1890 and called themselves Les Nabis (after the Hebrew word for prophet). The Nabis rejected impressionism and considered simple transcription of the appearance of the natural world unthinking and unartistic. Bonnard often captured unguarded moments such as this one and used his work to explore and experiment with color and color harmonies.

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