Bonnard and Japan

 
Brilliant Colors: The Impact of Japanese Prints on Pierre Bonnard as a Colorist
 by Suzanne H. Westbrook, Princeton Class of 2008

“One thing is necessary in painting: heightening the tone” —Pierre Bonnard

 Color as Logic

...It was this central element of color that led to his later, more thorough exploration of color in his subsequent paintings of the 1890s, in conjunction with the increasing presence of Japanese compositional techniques in his work. By 1892, two years after his first experimentation with Japanese styles, he had gained the confidence to rely solely on color to highlight the subject, abandoning traditional European concepts of depth and three-dimensionality. He expressed this idea in his journal in the following words:

Using only one color as a basis, you structure the entire painting around it. Color represents a logic that is just as unrelenting as the logic of form. (Bonnard, qtd. Phillips)

Here, Bonnard reveals his core theory of colorism: that color can be used as the principal means of organizing a painting. He equates color with form in terms of logical importance, a far cry from the old-fashioned European use of color primarily as a compliment to form...