Bonnard

 

The exhibition should take about an hour, the woman at the counter said handing me my ticket. I had to suppress my laughter, replying oh I think it will be two hours, at least. After all, I think to myself, Pierre Bonnard spent weeks, or years on a single canvas, never restricting himself to a time limit. Why should we? It is like those online newspapers that come with advice about an article: a five-minute read. As if reading, like looking at paintings, is a matter of the time spent reading. Like Bonnard, a five-minute article could take an hour, or a lifetime, to absorb and understand. What’s the hurry? Promenade dans le jardin. La siesta. Femme caressant un chat. La soirée sous la lampe. His paintings are extensions of time with no apparent beginning or end. They have stepped away from hurry. They could spend the next two hours boating along a sun-laden stream. His sitters talk together still two hours after the meal, even though half the plates have been cleared and fresh coffee is an idea about to materialise. His wife organises to go into the bath, is in the bath forever, eventually out again and drying for what feels like hours. One does not expect people in Bonnard to be in a hurry to exit and talk about it all over gallery luncheon. “He was influenced by the Japanese, you can see.” “That woman had gone blue in the face.” “I like his dogs.” “Paris was the place to be, alright.” Not that his landscapes are in a hurry, either. Nor his tables, which are themselves landscapes, his interiors that seem extensions of the absence of rush, an absence apparent too in the hills and clouds outside his windows. And it is quite obvious why treating the exhibition like a manga book where one painting per minute will bring us to the well-deserved gallery coffee in about one hour, is not the speed of Bonnard. This is someone who could spend an hour painting an oriental bowl on a table, the facet reflecting a garden in a French door, and still take time to work on it again tomorrow. One studies every detail of a face in shadow, wondering how he does that with colour, and what could they possibly be thinking? Every square inch is attended to, to make us attend. One could spend one hour studying one painting and if one owned the painting, a lifetime studying what Bonnard does with colour and pattern, light and dark, line and form and never feel rushed at all. As I wander through the spaces with their kooky quote wallpaper and aerated music, I notice how his life slows down. Pierre Bonnard, who finds himself in the midst of a French art phenomenon, is a man in a hurry who, after leaving Paris for the Côte d’Azur, stops hurrying, takes more and more time on fine and yet finer detail. His pets take on a life of their own. After three hours I will need a rest until next time. I will ask the attendant at the exit for the gentlemen’s. Through the gift shop, she will say, turn left through the café, it’s at the end of the corridor. Thank you, I will reply, in no particular hurry.